Cassadaga Moon Page 14

  The thought of her swollen breasts and her pink-tipped nipples made him yearn to roll over and start sucking on one, and to lick her pussy with his pierced tongue. The anticipation of tasting her again thrilled him. He sighed deeply, and through the silence came the soft, gentle breathing of a woman asleep. My woman. He waited a few minutes before he emerged from the bed.

  Standing in the doorway of the bedroom, his gaze moved over her as she slumbered. Did her dreams include him?

  He desired to stay with her all night, even promised her earlier in the evening that sleeping wasn’t in the cards tonight, but the excitement of the past few days had knocked Mia out, and his body craved another form of nourishment. He hadn’t fed in a few days and felt the effects of his lack of pranic energy coursing through his veins.

  Dinner time.

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  Chapter Thirteen

  Mia awoke the next morning to the blazing rays of the sun shining through her bedroom window. The remnants of the last evening’s festivities lingered in her mind. She moved her hand across the contours of the double bed, reaching for Jordan, but captured a piece of rough paper instead. Her heart stopped. What the…!

  Was it a Dear John letter? What else could it be? She was positive he would be beside her when she woke up. She sighed, thinking back to last evening. I did say I love you, but so did he…first. Oh no.

  Mortified, she gasped as tears warmed the back of her eyes. She must have scared him away. As if an invisible force crashed into her chest, she scrunched over until her breath recaught. Her Catholic guilt pushed her memories back to another time.

  A vivid image of her grandmother came into focus. The words her grandmother said long ago still pierced her soul. “If you give your body to a man before marriage, you are a slut—a whore—going to hell. He will throw you to the gutter like you would deserve. When I married your grandfather, I was untouched by male hands.” These were the words the old woman spurted before sitting down at the table during every Sunday spaghetti dinner. Mia came to think of her weekly words as the preamble to the dinner prayer.

  It was no use. She couldn’t contain the tears, so she let them trickle down her cheeks in droves. When the last tear fell, her gaze refocused on the paper she grasped in her fingers. Preparing herself for the harsh words she anticipated concealed within it, she opened it.

  Mia,

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  I love you so much. I can’t live another moment of my life without you in it. Permanently.

  Marry me.

  Love,

  J

  Mia stared in disbelief at the paper, waiting for her heart to beat again. Marry me. He loved her, truly loved her. Perhaps she wasn’t cursed after all. I’m not so bad, Grandmother. I can be loved.

  Scooting off the bed, her cell phone rang. Picking it up from the nightstand, she flipped it open then plopped back onto the mattress.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Good morning, sweet thing.”

  “It’s you.”

  “Were you expecting someone else, darlin’?” he asked.

  “No. I wasn’t.”

  “Did you read my note?”

  She glanced down at the parchment she clung to for dear life.

  “Yes, I read it.”

  “And…what did you think about my letter?”

  “It was nice,” she blurted out. There was so much she wanted to say, yet she couldn’t get the words to leave her throat. Of course she couldn’t.

  “Nice as in I have awesome hand writing, or nice as in you want to be my wife?”

  Dead air.

  “Darlin’, I’m well aware my proposal wasn’t the most romantic, but I will make the celebration of my proposal romantic beyond your imagination when I see you. I just didn’t want to wait. I had to leave last night, and I didn’t want to wake you, but I planned to ask you to marry me as soon as your beautiful brown eyes opened this morning.”

  “Was everything okay…since you had to leave?”

  “I needed a little nourishment.”

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  “You could have raided my kitchen,” she answered innocently.

  He chuckled into the phone, his laughter hugging her like a favorite blanket. She knew her addiction to him grew stronger every time he opened his mouth. “Not that type of hunger.”

  “Oh…you mean energy hunger. Blood.”

  “Yeah, darlin’, blood would be the magic answer,” he assured her.

  “So, Mia, what is your answer about marriage possibly with me?”

  “Yes. Definitely yes.”

  Leaning against the headboard, she took a quick peek at her red-painted toenails. Saying yes to him felt so right. “I love you, Jordan.”

  “And I love you more than life itself. In just a few days you have taken a man like me, and made me feel worthy of love. You’ve made me the happiest man in the world by agreeing to be my wife.” She stood in blissful silence for a minute, engulfed in her newfound happiness until visions of her grandmother’s face flashed through her mind, bringing with it a flush of nausea. I am not a whore. I am worthy of love. The face flashed once more, but this time the awful words spoken to her years ago, which had sliced through her, manifested clear as day. “A non-Catholic man is a sure way to hell. Marry one and you condemn your soul to the flames, Jezebel.”

  “There is one more thing,” Jordan mentioned.

  Mia cloaked the image, moved the phone from her left ear to the right one, and sunk down to the floor. Twirling the fringe of the red and white oval carpet in front of her, she pulled her legs up Indian style. “What is it?”

  “I want a coven wedding, Mia.”

  She thought about his words. She hadn’t considered any other type of wedding outside of the traditional Catholic type her parents yearned for her to experience. Yet, in her own heart, she would be happy to elope to Vegas.

  “Are you there?” Jordan asked.

  “Yes, I’m here.” Coven wedding… “I’m surprised you don’t want to elope?”

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  He laughed. “That does sound more like me, doesn’t it?” It sounded like him in more ways than she could count. He didn’t appear to be the type who would want to carry on at a big wedding.

  “It does sound like you.”

  “Well, darlin’, I want to show you off in front of my coven and every other coven in the tri-state area.”

  “Are you positive you don’t want to elope?” her voice cracked. If he were in the room with her instead of on the phone, he would see the begging in her gaze for an elopement.

  “Honestly, Mia, I can’t elope.”

  “Because of your position within the coven. Right?”

  “The main reason, yes. But I have my own selfish reasons, too. I want the opportunity to show you off in front of my world . ” Just when she thought Jordan’s words couldn’t fill her heart with more love for him, he would say something else that blew her away.

  “Do you want a Catholic wedding, darlin’? Be honest.” Before she could stop the word, it flew out of her mouth. “No. I mean, my parents want one.” She hesitated, and scrunched her lips.

  “Is a coven wedding legal?”

  “Of course they want their little girl getting married in a big white wedding. And yes, darlin’, a coven wedding is legal. What do you want, Mia? We can always have two weddings if it makes you happy.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  “Don’t you know by now I would rearrange the world for you if it made you happy?”

  “But you’re not even Catholic,” she offered.

  “It’s just a ceremony, Mia. It’s what you believe in your heart that’s important. You forget, I believe in a higher being, just not the Catholic rendition of Jehovah.”

  “I wish you were here. I don’t need a Catholic ceremony for me, Jordan. But my parents will never understand a coven ceremony.”

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  Camouflaging the disappointment in her tone didn’t work. It was obvious in her voice she was
saddened.

  “No worries. We can have a separate celebration with them.” Mia thought about his statement. It might work. “Do you think a separate celebration with them could work? Not the traditional Catholic wedding, just a party after we pretend elope.”

  “For you, darlin’, I can make anything possible.” Excitement coursed through Mia’s veins. It was as if someone had removed a boulder from her chest. “This could work, Jordan.” Her thoughts went into overdrive. “I will tell them once we get married we decided to elope to Vegas. No doubt they’re going to assume I’m pregnant—which they’ll find out is false—when we travel to Pennsylvania for the wedding celebration. My mother will be so excited about planning a party, the disappointment of the huge white wedding she envisioned will surely dissipate from her memory.”

  “You can always wear the symbolic white dress for your mom.”

  “Oh no, not the one she has had me envisioned in since I was born. She had my wedding planned before I could walk or form a sentence.”

  His laughter rang through the receiver. “It sounds like a done deal.

  A coven wedding here in Florida and a Catholic façade ceremony in Pennsylvania. Let me go ahead and give Jamison a call. I need to let him know things are moving forward, and that you’re not calling the media, reporting on real vampires.” He laughed again, then added,

  “Or that you ran out of your house, screaming that I’m a crazy lunatic who is sick in the head.”

  Mia bit back a chuckle. “I will take you any way I can, sick, blood drinker, or crazy lunatic.”

  “Really? You’ll take me any way, huh? I’ll see you tonight. I’m taking you out on the town to celebrate.” The phone went silent.

  “Wear something incredibly sexy. After dinner I’m going to bring you home and tie you up.”

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  Her breath caught. “Tie me up?”

  “It’s a real possibility tonight, darlin’,” he assured her. “I love you.”

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  Chapter Fourteen

  A few months later, Mia sat in her bedroom and grabbed the pen on the nightstand before she opened her journal. With much to say, she didn’t know quite where to start, so she perched on the bed, closed her eyes, and cleared her mind. The raw emotions swimming in her core revealed the words in her heart.

  Journal Entry, October 31st This weekend I am marrying Jordan. I found my dream man in a vampire. It sounds funny, writing the words, yet that is what he is, and I accept him. All of him.

  I remember Cindi once telling me that the perfect man portrayed in romance novels didn’t exist. Her advice was simple. She said, “I may find parts of those men but never the real thing.” Yet I think I’ve found a close replica in Jordan. It’s funny how at first I disliked his arrogant ass, thought him a stuck-up dick , but somehow he let the façade he built around his heart crumble, and he allowed me in at the same time I welcomed him. We still have our skeptics, those of our friends and family who think we are moving too fast, but I don’t care what they think. Love binds us together. If the world ended tomorrow, if God called me home—or, I’m afraid in my case, perhaps the devil—

  I could go freely, knowing that I found my love of a lifetime in Jordan.

  Mia tapped the pen against her journal, and then her thoughts shifted, when Cindi came into focus. Cin.

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  Glancing at her reflection in the floor-length mirror perched on the front of the closet, she stared into her own brown eyes, then gazed back down at the paper and continued.

  But most of all, I miss my best friend. I wish Cindi could’ve been here for my wedding. Yet I understand. Sometimes it’s hard for me to comprehend how much she loves her job, having to be in so many godforsaken places in the middle of the world. I haven’t told her lately how much I love her, my soul sister. I hope she knows.

  Heat moved across Mia’s face, and her eyes welled up with tears.

  Dear God, if you still consider me worthy of a prayer, could you help me corral my nervous nature to a minimum. To be honest, I am a little scared. And finally, if you’ve considered striking me dead or anything like that, could you wait till after I’ve had sex. I’ve waited a long time for the event, and I really would like to experience it at least one time before I die.

  Mia finished the last sentence, closed the journal, and then secured it in the nightstand by the bed when the doorbell rang.

  Bolting from the bedroom in a small frenzy, she made it down the hall in record time, even without stubbing a toe, and opened the door.

  There stood Jordan in all his glory. It was his outfit that changed her expression from excited to sultry. Leaning against the doorway, she felt thunderstruck for a few seconds before the cool air seeped into her open mouth.

  Black leather pants hugged his narrow waist. Damn, he looked fine.

  With a quick jerk, she pulled him against her.

  “Umm…you’re killing me here,” he whispered. “I believe the coven is going to have to wait for a while. I need to claim what is mine. Here and now.” He ran his hand down the back of her hair. “I

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  am trying to wait and take your virginity on our wedding night, but you are making it impossible for me. I swear that minx persona you keep hidden is out in full force tonight. Does kitty need a petting?”

  “I’m sorry. You just have a way of making me burn inside.” And outside…

  After closing the door, he carried her to the sofa. “I want to taste you on my tongue. I’m afraid I can’t wait any longer.” He paused, and drew a ragged breath. “I need a little appetizer before the main course.”

  Within minutes, she was naked and sprawled across the floor.

  Jordan was on top of her, playing with her tits and sucking her nipples. And it felt like heaven.

  After a few intense moments of sucking her nipples, he stopped and glanced at her. “I see they’re happy to see me.” His gaze smoldered and caught Mia’s in its iron-clad grip.

  He pressed his outer thighs against her inner thighs until she was spread eagle underneath him, holding himself up with one elbow as the other touched her panties. “Don’t move a muscle.” The pressure of his palm against her red silk panties sent chills down her spine, instantly dampening her. Before Mia could react, he ripped her underwear from her body.

  “Hey, those were expensive,” she bellowed.

  He smirked at her sudden outburst but didn’t change his direction.

  “I’ll buy you a new pair. Two or three,” he added. Passion-filled eyes scanned her briefly. “Put your hands underneath your tits and hold them for me.”

  She looked at him as if he had just sprouted wings on his back.

  “You don’t need to buy—what?”

  “You heard me.” Taking her hands into his, he moved them toward her breasts. She closed her eyes as their hands cupped the soft flesh.

  “Don’t let them go. Do you understand?” The tone in his voice was foreign, unfamiliar to her yet somehow very entrancing.

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  Watching with fascination, her gaze followed his head as it leaned in toward her breasts, leaving a mane of blond hair behind. Her eager breasts waited, and so did he. What are you waiting for? Do it already. Please.

  Unconsciously, she arched her pelvis forward, and he glanced back up at her. “In time, sweet thing, in time,” he whispered through the white-filled passion haze clogging her head.

  As he promised, he cupped her tits and started sucking. When he raised his hands from hers, she raised her own.

  “No,” he said, “your hands stay.”

  His expression was beautiful, savage, utterly mesmerizing. The air in her lungs seized up like setting cement. “Oh no…I–I can’t touch myself when I’m alone. I–I surely can’t do it in front of you.”

  “Massage your breasts for me, Mia.”

  What? “Are you crazy? I can’t.”

  “Sure you can. Your hands are already there. Just move them.” Authority returned to his voice.
“Go ahead. Do it. It would please me to see you do it.”

  She sprang up. “No, Jordan, I can’t! Masturbation is a mortal sin in the Catholic Church. I mean, I’m pushing the boundaries now. If I do this, no amount of penance will let me into purgatory or heaven.” He stared at her. Heat sizzled in his ashen eyes. “Mia, darlin’.

  Calm down before I have to call 911 because you can’t breathe.

  Listen to me. Men in the Catholic Church decided that masturbation was a sin. Their religious dogma is bullshit. Show me in the good book of yours where it says ‘thou shalt not feel pleasure from one’s self without burning in hell.’”

  The words her grandmother and the nuns at Saint Rosa Maria Catholic School spoke years ago circled her thoughts. Like some new-age robot, she opened her mouth and spilled. “Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely

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  disordered action.” She stopped, pleased that she still remembered the rote memorization from years of instruction. Proof.

  “Geez, how long did it take you to memorize that crap? You do know what the word Magisterium means, don’t you?” She narrowed her gaze. “Well…kind of. No, not really.” He sighed, and ran his finger down her arm, sending chills racing up and down her spine. “The word means ‘teaching authority of the Catholic Church.’ Now, since we are discussing sin and its link to masturbation, the Hopi Indian tribe practices masturbation in religious rituals. Are they going to hell, too, Sister Mia Christini?” Smart-ass!