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Chapter One
Kelsey Adams glanced over at her best friend. “No, we’re not. It’s fun. Besides…” She swept her hand out. A couple hundred or so costumed people mingled in the banquet room. Long John Silver chatted with Snow White at a nearby table. Romeo and Juliet twirled among the dancers on the parquet floor. At the bar, James Bond sipped a martini. “Dressing up as one of your favorite literary characters for the library fundraiser was an inspired idea.”
Tracy laughed. “It was your idea.”
“I know. I was inspired.” Her gaze swept over the other woman. Tracy wore a black mini sweater dress with tights. Red contact lenses tinted her eyes, and an oval ring encrusted with cubic zirconia glittered on her finger when she raised a hand to brush the hair from the long, brown wig out of her eyes. “You make a very convincing Bella.”
“Thank you.” Tracy batted her eyelashes. Then she looked at Kelsey. “Tell me who you are again.”
Kelsey took a glass of wine from the tray of a passing waiter. “I’m not a particular someone.” She sipped the wine. The lush, fruity with a hint of vanilla flavor of the chardonnay slid over her tongue. She swallowed. The warmth of the alcohol pooled in her stomach. “I’m the heroine on the cover of a historical romance.”
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
Tracy’s gaze raked over Kelsey again. “Okay, so I get the boobs bursting from the barely barely-there bodice of your dress. But why the slit?”
Kelsey shifted her weight to let one leg peek through the thigh high slit in the full, floor length skirt of the baby blue gown. “A heroine always shows leg on the cover.”
Tracy laughed. “Well, you certainly play the vixen well.”
Kelsey lifted her glass in a toast. “Why thank you.”
In the background, The Monster Mash morphed into the theme from The Addams Family.
“So how long do we— Holy crow,” Tracy breathed.
Kelsey turned toward the entrance. Her gaze collided with the dark stare of the man in the doorway. Her breath caught. A flush of heat having nothing to do with alcohol, burned through her.
A cape, black as sin, flowed over his broad shoulders. The high collar stood up against the back of his head, nearly blending with his ebony hair. At his neck, a white bow tie topped the tuxedo shirt worn beneath a white fitted vest. A golden medallion nestled against his muscled chest. Black, tailored pants encased long legs.
Kelsey’s gaze met his again. Dracula’s mouth quirked up at one corner. Her heart did a funny skip beat. She swallowed and licked her lips. When he tracked the gesture, warmth seeped into deep, secret places. What would his mouth feel like on hers?
“Kelsey.”
She jerked her attention away from the man at the door. “Sorry.” She took a sip of wine. Her fingers trembled around the fragile stem of the glass. If Tracy hadn’t interrupted the fantasy, Kelsey might have melted into a puddle on the rose-patterned carpet.
“I completely understand. A vampire will do that to you.”
“Uh huh.” Kelsey snuck another peek at the door, but the compelling stranger was gone. Damn.
