Sex Shifters and a Vampire: An Unlikely Christmas Match by Addison Avery

SEX SHIFTERS AND A VAMPIRE: AN UNLIKELY CHRISTMAS MATCH

    ADDISON AVERY
    Copyright © 2010

    Chapter One

    The phone rang out with an annoying cymbal-like clang. “Somebody answer the blasted phone!” Conrad grumbled, rolling over to snatch the receiver when he realized he was the only someone available.
    “Hello!” he sang, coming out of a deep sleep and irritated by the fact.
    “Conrad?”
    “Yes, yes. This is Conrad. Who’s this?”
    “This is Kim Bellows. Your neighbor, Dave Pierson, told me to give you a call.”
    Conrad glared at the bedside clock. He wondered if Dave told Miss Bellows to phone him at four in the morning. Contrary to popular belief, all vampires weren’t night owls.
    “What can I do for you, Miss Bellows?”
    “Call me Kim, please,” the husky voice rasped, leaving cause for Conrad to wonder if he was talking to a he or a she. Perhaps he only imagined the sultry tone of a woman because he’d been dreaming of one and he’d been without a lady for quite a while, too. Maybe he looked for delicious illusions wherever he could find them.
    “Dave tells me you have a horse for sale.”
    “I have several,” Conrad corrected. “They’re all for sale.” And he should’ve told Kim then and there that he seldom traded much of anything—outside of blood—after ten in the evening.
    “I need one.”
    “Now?” Conrad asked, half-sitting.
    “Yes, the sooner the better.”
    If someone had such an urgent need for a horse in the middle of the night, Conrad wondered what else they might have in mind.
    His gums swelled, and his incisors dropped. Easy, he thought, harnessing his natural vampire instincts. What was the point in jumping to conclusions? Several months had passed since an enchanting, passionate female with an insatiable appetite had thrown herself at him. He expected to wait another few more before he indulged in such a pleasure again.
    His mouth watered, and he savored a fading memory. The last mortal woman he took to his bed was as hungry for a vampire’s bite as he was to feed. With any luck, maybe Kim was anxious, too.
    “Are you there?” Kim asked, jerking him from his fantasies.
    To hell with manners. “Do you know what time it is?”
    “Yes, Conrad, I do. But I assumed…well, I thought you kept late hours.”
    Miss Bellows and half the town had that in common. Undoubtedly, Kim was mortal.
    “You assumed incorrectly,” he spat, suddenly apprehensive about inviting a stranger to his home in the early morning hours.
    Rumors had been circulating faster than ever before. Someone he’d first met when he moved to the area some fifty years ago finally noticed he failed to age. Conrad had been trying to accept the unavoidable facts. Gray , Tennessee , would soon become a distant memory.
    Conrad needed to move on before warranted suspicions became impossible to explain. He planned on staying in Gray until after the holidays, hoping to enjoy one more Christmas in the mountains, but the handwriting was on the wall. Soon he would look for another place to call home.
    Conrad wasn’t ready to leave. He loved the East Tennessee town, and he really enjoyed his private ranch, a haven tucked behind a large forest complete with plenty of timber, a fresh stream, and two large ponds.
    “What kind of horse do you want, Miss Bellows?” Conrad asked after a long silence.
    “I need your best stud,” she replied, sounding more masculine than feminine for a second time. “I want a stallion with stamina, one that can provide its rider with a challenge. I’d like to find one that doesn’t get overly worked up in the middle of a buck or two and hope to find a stud that’s well-hung, for breeding purposes, of course.”
    Did she want to ride the blasted thing or fuck it?
    Situating things in his snug pajama pants, Conrad cursed his cock for paying too much attention to a private conversation that didn’t concern his penis whatsoever. He needed to search out a woman so he wouldn’t be raring