Forever Kisses Volume 1 Read online

  Forever Kisses Vol. 1

  Angela Knight

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2021 Angela Knight

  BIN: 009949-03228

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  Publisher:

  Changeling Press LLC

  315 N. Centre St.

  Martinsburg, WV 25404

  www.ChangelingPress.com

  Anthology Editor: Karen Williams

  Cover Artist: Angela Knight

  Adult Sexual Content

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  Table of Contents

  Forever Kisses Vol. 1

  Forever Kiss

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Beth’s Kiss

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Angela Knight

  Forever Kisses Vol. 1

  Angela Knight

  Forever Kiss: Valerie is haunted by dreams of a man she knows only as Cowboy, her seductive lover. But Cowboy is real. And he’s a vampire. Cade is the only one who can protect Valerie from Ridgemont, his Sire, and he’s determined to do just that -- even if he must kidnap her to keep her safe.

  Caught in a web of fear and passion, Valerie and Cade must learn to trust one another, even as Ridgemont stalks their every move. Their only hope of survival is the Forever Kiss.

  Beth’s Kiss: Beth’s world comes crashing down when she’s kidnapped by Joaquin, a deadly immortal who means to use her in a plot to kill a pair of handsome vamps. Morgan and Garret are determined to avenge themselves against Joaquin, who murdered the woman they loved.

  When they rescue Beth, Morgan and Garret must complete her transformation, saving her from the vampire virus raging through her system. But if Beth is to have a future with her two vampires, they must settle accounts with the ancient, powerful killer and his army of mercenaries.

  Forever Kiss

  Angela Knight

  For years Valerie Chase has been haunted by dreams of a man she knows only as Cowboy. When she was a child, her fantasy Texas Ranger protected her from nightmares about the vampires who murdered her parents. As an adult, she still dreams of him, but now he’s her seductive lover in nights of erotic pleasure. But Cowboy is real. And he’s a vampire. In fact, he was present when her parents were killed.

  For years Cade McKinnon has protected Valerie from Edward Ridgemont, the sadistic vampire who Turned him. But now Ridgemont is determined to take Val for his own. Cade is the only one who can protect her, and he’s determined to do just that -- even if he must kidnap her to do it.

  When Val finds herself abducted by her handsome dream man, she’s horrified to discover he’s a vampire. Now, caught in a web of fear and passion, she and Cade must learn to trust each other, even as Ridgemont stalks their every move. Their only hope of survival is the Forever Kiss.

  Chapter One

  “I need you tonight.” His voice emerged from the darkness, a low male rumble of heat and hunger. “Will you give yourself to me?”

  Valerie Chase sat up in her tumbled bed. The cowboy stood just outside the open French doors, watching her from the balcony as moonlight spilled around him. The brim of his white Stetson shadowed his face. It always had. She’d never seen his features clearly, not in all the years she’d dreamed of him.

  His white cotton shirt stretched over broad shoulders and tucked into the worn jeans that hugged his long, muscled legs. Moonlight glinted on the star of a Texas Ranger pinned to his leather vest. He wore two gun belts crossed over lean hips, the holstered Colt revolvers forming a seductive frame for the thick, impressive ridge of his erection.

  It was the way he’d always looked in her dreams, her cowboy fantasy, her dream lover. Her hero.

  “Come in,” she said softly, and felt her nipples tighten.

  He started toward her with that long, pacing panther stride of his. As he moved, his clothes melted away, revealing the hungry jut of his cock.

  Her mouth went dry. Her sleep shirt vanished. She wasn’t sure which of them had made it disappear.

  Then his hands were on her, warm and long-fingered and skilled as he took her mouth in a deep, famished kiss flavored with desperation. Her own hands traced his muscle and heat as he slid onto the bed, his weight pressing her deliciously into the mattress.

  He whispered, voice hoarse, “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t stay away.”

  She gave him a wicked smile. “Good.”

  He laughed, the sound midway between a chuckle and a groan of hunger. “Vixen.” As if starved, he bent his head to sample her lips, the angle of her jaw, the curve of her collar bone, stringing a line of hard kisses and gentle bites along her skin. Each nibble and lick sent fire streaming through her veins to pool hot in her belly.

  “God, I missed you.” Closing her eyes, she fisted her hands in his short, silky hair, not even noticing when she knocked off his Stetson.

  “Not as much as I missed you.” Even without the shadowing hat, she couldn’t see him clearly, though she could feel the love and the need in him. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing.” His low voice vibrated with a fierce determination that made her frown.

  “What’s wrong, Cowboy?” She caught his face between her hands. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Not a thing, darlin’.” She could hear the strained smile in his voice. “I’m just a dream, remember? I’m not even real.”

  Before she could protest, he lowered his head to her breasts, using his skillful tongue to tease the stiff peaks as his teeth scraped delicate flesh.

  “You sure don’t feel like a dream,” she moaned, dropping her head back on the pillow as lush, glittering pleasure built beneath her skin. Her legs fell bonelessly apart. “Then again, maybe you do.”
r />   He stroked up her thigh to find her sex. “Just don’t wake up.” Long fingers slipped inside in one possessive thrust. “At least, not yet.”

  Her eyes slid closed. Instinctively, she dug her fingers into his powerful shoulders, seeking an anchor against the pleasure that swamped her. “Are you sure --” she sucked in a gasp. “-- sure this isn’t real?”

  “It’s as real as we’re going to get.” He sounded bitter. Before she could ask why, he buried his head between her thighs. She cried out as his wet tongue stroked her clit, teeth gently nibbling as he reached for her nipples to tease and pinch.

  Relentlessly, he devoured the tender folds until she felt an orgasm building like a cresting wave. She pumped her hips, trying to grind the climax into breaking, but it hung suspended just out of reach.

  Until he stabbed two fingers into her, flicked a skilled thumb over her clit, and brought her crashing home. She screamed.

  As if that were the signal he’d been waiting for, he tore himself away from her, sat up between her thighs, and took her knees in both big hands. As he spread them wide, his cock stood high and hard. He released one knee to aim himself, and she felt the silken head brush swollen, creamy lips.

  Cowboy drove into her in one breathtaking thrust.

  “Oh, God!” she gasped, her fingers fisting in the sheets as he began to shaft her hard.

  “Come for me again,” he growled. “I want to watch you.”

  As he bucked against her, every nerve in her body seemed to detonate. Convulsing, Val screamed the only name she knew for him. “Cowboy! I love you!”

  “I. Love. You.” Jolting her hard with his last thrusts, he threw back his head in a guttural roar. Still shuddering, she looked up, eager to watch his raw male pleasure as he climaxed.

  Instead, her deliciously erotic dream turned into a nightmare.

  As Val stared, stunned, the canine teeth in his open mouth grew longer, sharper. She froze, ice washing away the heat.

  When he lowered his head, his eyes glowed red over menacing fangs.

  “Cowboy?” Her voice shook. A scream of betrayal and disbelief built in her throat.

  He didn’t answer. Still buried deep inside her, he lowered his head…

  * * *

  Val catapulted off the bed expecting to feel Cowboy’s fangs tear into her skin. Her ears still rang with the echo of her own screams. Racing for the bedroom door, she threw it open and flew out into the hall.

  Hands clamped around her shoulders. She yelped and swung a wild fist.

  “Hey, watch it!”

  The cry yanked Val from the dream’s grip. Her eyes focused to find Beth staring at her, dark hair tumbling around her shoulders, fright and annoyance mingling on her young face. “You’re asleep, dammit,” her sister said, giving her shoulders a little shake. “Wake up!”

  A dream. It had been a dream. “Cowboy was going to bite me.”

  Beth rolled her eyes like the teenager she was. “So what else is new? And since when do you mind?”

  Val sagged against the hallway wall as her terror drained away, leaving behind weak knees and a brassy taste in her mouth. “He was a vampire.”

  “Oh, babe.” Beth reached out to scoop a lock of hair out of Val’s eyes. “You must be freaked, if you’re seeing Cowboy as monster material. Come on, let’s fix some chocolate. I think we need to talk.”

  * * *

  Cade McKinnon jolted awake, frustrated fists gripping the sheets. The head of his erection brushed his flat belly, and his fangs ached. The room would have appeared pitch-black to human eyes, but his vampire vision easily made out the empty elegance of Ridgemont’s mansion, the polished mahogany and expensive crystal.

  Valerie was gone. Not that she’d ever been there to begin with.

  And he’d terrified her, dammit. Their last time together shouldn’t have ended in fear, but he’d lost control of both the Hunger and the dream.

  Reaching for Valerie’s mind without feeding first had been a mistake, but he’d had to see her, touch her, one final time. Knowing he’d never have another chance, he’d wanted to capture as much of her as he could. Silken skin, long, muscled legs, velvet pink nipples, the dizzying musk of her scent, the hot, salty feast between her thighs.

  With a groan of frustrated hunger, Cade rolled onto his belly. Once, twice, again, he ground his hips into the tangled linen sheets, imagining her tight and slick around him. Throwing back his head, he came with a growl, his fingers clamping the soft fabric of the pillow.

  Heart pounding, he collapsed, the taste of bitterness and loss in his mouth. Finally, he shook off the depression and rolled out of bed.

  It was time to get ready for the last night of his life.

  * * *

  “He doesn’t even exist,” Val said, hands still shaking faintly as she sliced slivers from a chocolate bar into a saucepan of milk. She and Beth stood in the apartment’s wonderfully normal kitchen with its cheery strawberry wallpaper and cream counter tops. Unfortunately, her vibrating instincts kept insisting Cowboy was somewhere just out of sight, all sex and fangs and menace. She breathed in, trying to settle her jangling nerves with the scent of chocolate and simmering milk. “He’s just the world’s longest running dream. Hell, I lost my job this week -- I have real stuff to be upset about. Why do I feel so damn betrayed?”

  “Well, for one thing, your own personal knight in shining armor is not supposed to turn on you.” Beth perched on the counter next to the stove, swinging her tanned legs as she watched the cocoa preparations. “Anyway, I’ll bet you had the nightmare because of the job.”

  “Maybe.” Stirring the chocolate, Val studied her sister. Beth was a tall girl, barely eighteen, her elfin face dominated by perceptive brown eyes. A loose red shirt skimmed down her rangy, athletic body to the tops of her thighs. Like almost everything else she owned, the shirt was smudged with oil paint -- peaches, browns, ochers, blues. Matching smears marked her fingers and the bridge of her slim nose. “Working late again?” Val asked. “You getting enough sleep?”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mother, I’m getting enough sleep. I’ve just got to finish Tommy Wilson’s portrait. I promised Mr. Wilson I’d have it by Mother’s Day, and I’m close to deadline.”

  “Well, don’t push too hard while I’m gone.” Val bit her lip, worrying once again whether she was doing the right thing in leaving Beth at home while she went to New York. Taping the interviews for Edward Ridgemont’s memoirs would take a good three weeks.

  Still, Beth was eighteen. She’d be going off to college soon. Too, Val had never met her new employer. Ridgemont looked clean on paper, but she wanted to get to know him before exposing Beth to his influence.

  Frowning, Val dug her fingers into the muscles she could feel contracting into knots in the base of her neck. She’d been making decisions about her sister’s welfare since their grandmother died seven years ago, but the process hadn’t grown any easier. Not that Grandma had been all that involved with Beth’s upbringing even before she died. The nearest bottle had always held far more fascination for her than her murdered son’s children.

  “Have Cowboy dreams ever gone bad before?” Beth asked.

  She lifted a brow. “You changing the subject?”

  “Yes. I’m not going to New York, Val. I’ve got that portrait and a portfolio to finish. So -- Cowboy?”

  “No.” Val stared down into the melting chocolate slivers swirling around her spoon. “God knows I’ve had plenty of nightmares about vampires, but he’s always been the one saving me in them.”

  According to a slew of child psychologists, Val had created Cowboy to protect her from her parents’ murderers. In her recurring night terrors, those real-life killers became fanged monsters that her fantasy Texas Ranger drove away. Yet tonight he’d tried to feed on her himself. She wondered what buzzwords the shrinks would have used for that little twist.

  Logically Val knew there was no such things as vampires, any more than Cowboy himself existed. But logic didn�
��t keep her hands from shaking at the thought of those sharp white teeth. “He. Is. Not. Real,” she gritted, more to herself than her sister.

  “Maybe not, but you’ve had him so long, he might as well be.” Beth propped her chin on her fist and smiled slightly. “When I was little, I thought he was real, just from listening to you talk about those dreams.”

  “You weren’t alone. I believed in him half the time myself.” Sometimes she still did. Especially when she was impaled on that massive cock -- a thought she had no intention of sharing.

  “I was so jealous.” Beth shook her head. “I wanted Cowboy to visit my dreams too.”

  “You wouldn’t have wanted him there tonight.” Remembering the seductive tenderness of those big hands, she suppressed a feline smile. Well, maybe at the beginning…

  Her sister’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, right. I see you fighting that grin.”

  “Let’s just say his role in my dreams has --” the smile broke free “-- expanded over the years.”

  “By a good six inches, I’ll bet.”

  “Beth!” Faux outrage slid into a wicked grin. “And it’s closer to seven.”

  “Ha! Knew it!”

  * * *

  Cade stood with his face turned into the shower’s hot, stinging spray. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Valerie.

  Her beauty dazzled him, of course -- the delicate elegance of her features, the wild, curling tumble of her red hair, the arousal shimmering in those gray eyes. Every time her full lips parted, carnal images spun through his mind.

  But it wasn’t her looks that had wrapped around his mind and held him fast. He’d known too many beautiful women over his long life for that.

  Of course, none of them had possessed Valerie’s power -- the psychic talent she didn’t even realize she had, though he’d felt its strength even when she was a child. Still, Cade had known the dark side of such abilities too long to find them seductive.