Free About a Vampire by Lynsay Sands

They’d been each other’s only friends. He’d been her first kiss, her first date, her first everything and she was the same for him. Marriage had been the natural next step and it was going beautifully. They never argued, never disagreed. In fact, this was the closest thing to a fight they’d ever had.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Holly murmured, stepping forward and urging him to turn his back to her. Once he did, she began to massage his shoulder. “How was work?”
    â€œOh, same old same old,” he muttered as she pressed her thumbs into the knotted muscles. “That feels good. A little gentler though please.”
    Holly eased her grip, her eyes following the line of James’s shoulder to the curve of his neck. He had his head turned away and her position behind and a little to the side gave her a perfect view of the muscle that ran down from his jaw to under his clavicle . . . and the external jugular vein that ran over it. She could almost see it throbbing under the skin. Holly found herself staring at it as she worked the muscles of his shoulder and had to fight the urge to touch and kiss him there. This wasn’t the day they had sex. James was always exhausted after work and she was always in a rush to get out the door. It was no time to initiate something and she knew it, so just waited for the desire to recede.
    But, instead of fading away as she’d expected, the hunger inside her seemed to grow stronger, and she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze away from that pulsing vein. Holly had the oddest urge to run her tongue along it. Bizarre, but she blamed it on the smells coming off of him. James smelled . . . well, yummy. He’d just showered, so she expected it was a new cologne he was using or something. Whatever it was, it was heady with a deep rich scent, almost tinny but in a pleasant way.
    â€œGod woman, are you trying to dig a hole in my shoulder?” James said on a pained laugh. “Gentler, please.”
    Holly tore her gaze from his throat and glanced forward, freezing when she spotted herself in the mirror. Horror was rushing up within her when Holly noted movement behind her. In the next moment something snaked around her waist even as a palm slapped over her mouth. She was dragged away from James and out of the room so swiftly, it left her off balance and struggling to keep her feet under her as she was whisked down the stairs and through the house. It seemed like barely a blink later that she was being released in the garage and left to find her own balance as her captor stepped away.
    Managing to keep her feet under her, Holly turned sharply on her attacker, not terribly surprised when she saw that it was Justin Bricker. The note he’d left in her car had said he’d be here when she needed him . . . and she needed him . . . or at least someone right now.
    â€œI have fangs,” Holly said faintly, hardly able to believe what she’d seen when she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror upstairs.
    Justin merely nodded and eyed her warily.
    For some reason that infuriated her. At least, she was suddenly terribly furious, and demanded, “What have you done to me?”
    â€œSaved you,” he answered at once.
    â€œFor what?” she asked sharply. “Some sort of living death as a vampire?”
    â€œYou aren’t dead,” he assured her solemnly. “I turned you to save your life, not end it.”
    â€œVampires are dead,” she snapped.
    â€œBut you aren’t a vampire. You’re an immortal,” he said firmly.
    â€œBuddy, you can call it a retort, but it’s still just an incinerator to burn bodies in,” she said grimly.
    He blinked in confusion at that. “What?”
    â€œIt’s—­ Never mind,” she said wearily. “The point is, you can call it immortal all you want, but if it has fangs and sucks blood it’s a