Chapter THIRTY-TWO

 

Eric

 

I woke up with the light entering the bedroom. My head felt heavy and my body sore. It took me a moment to register where I was and what had happened the previous night. A smile spread on my face and made me open my eyes. Did it really happen? That had been a wild ride. I can’t even begin to explain the level of happiness that I attained. My heart wanted to explode inside my chest. My little seductress had drained me and made me go completely wild about what we were doing.

I was so engrossed in my thoughts that it took me a bit longer to register that her side of the bed was empty. Once I searched for her warmth and didn’t find her body to hug, I sat up and looked around with my heart racing. “Beth!”

“Here.”

Her voice came from the sitting room. Getting up, I just had time to wrap the damp towel around my torso and stride to the location of her voice.

“What are you doing up so early?”

She looked from the computer to me with a pondering expression. “It’s not early. It’s past midday.”

I looked at the balcony and ran my fingers through my hair. “Sorry for oversleeping.”

“It’s okay. I made you overwork last night.”

I chuckled. “You didn’t…” I didn’t finish my sentence since I looked at her seated in front of the laptop. “What’s so important that you can’t find time to give me a good morning kiss?”

“Oh!”

Beth got up, and I admired her body wrapped in a tight T-shirt and shorts. Her breasts were perky against the fabric, and her legs were fully exposed to my eyes. I felt hard just by looking at her. She was stunning.

Wrapping her arms around my neck, she smiled. “Good morning. Did you sleep okay?”

I rested my hands on her lower back. “Really well, but I’ve missed you in bed.”

“I can feel that,” she mumbled and pressed harder against my erection. “But you must be starving, and I have to show you something.”

“I’m not. At least not for food.”

She giggled. “It will be really hard to concentrate and show you what I found if you keep teasing me like that.”

I lost my smile. “What did you find and where?” I frowned. “What were you looking at on the computer?”

“Oh!” Grabbing my hand, she took me to the table, and we sat on the chairs. “I woke up a couple of hours ago. I couldn’t sleep so I took a shower, drank some blood, and roamed around the room. Then I decided to check on my bank accounts now that I have all the information.”

“Did you realize you don’t have the money you need for the academy?” I looked at the screen.

“Oh, nothing like that. I made wise investment decisions, and I have plenty of money in my bank accounts. Bu the thing is that I also have an account with my sister. Every month, there’s money being transferred there to pay the bills and the staff we have in the houses we own.”

I nodded. “What’s the problem then?”

“I noticed that this bank account has been touched.” Beth pointed at the sheet on the screen. “See, these are not just withdrawals of money to pay the rent, electricity, and house expenses, there’s also money being removed with a credit card. I dug a little deeper and turned out that a new credit card has been requested and there're also withdrawals of cash … How do you say when someone goes to the bank and asks for money? That’s what is happening.”

“I understand.” My eyes focused on the bank statement. “May I?” I turned the laptop to me and scrolled down. “It’s been a few months since this is happening.”

“Since I was rescued.”

“Do you think someone is pretending to be you?”

She shook her head. “Alaric and Marie left in a hurry. I think that it may be Marie who is using this money. Besides me, she’s the only one who knows about this account and can move money around.”

Leaning back, I thought about what her words meant. “We finally have a lead.”

“That’s what I thought,” she chimed from her seat. “We can track them with this, can’t we?”

I smiled at her and rubbed her back. “We can.”

There was a cold sensation in the pit of my stomach. As much as I wanted to find Alaric and make him pay, I knew that things would become complicated.

“I’ve checked where the money was taken. She’s in France. They are in France. She’s been buying baby stuff, so I must assume that she didn’t lose her child.”

I rubbed the back of her neck. “We need to think carefully about this. It may be a trap.”

“I doubt that she knows that I’m alive. That’s why she’s confident enough to use our money.”

Closing the laptop, I turned my chair to hers and brought her to my arms.

She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

I put her hair behind her ear. She showered, and her hair fell loose about her shoulders. “Nothing is wrong. I just missed you.”

“Don’t you want to catch your brother? This is the first solid lead we have in months.”

“I know, baby. I’ll send all this to Shane. However, I just want to forget about revenge for a bit while we enjoy ourselves. We came here to relax and be together. We’ve made love, and I want to know how you are feeling.”

She swallowed and looked at my torso with a scrunched nose. “My body is sore but I’m feeling relaxed and happy. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“What do you feel about morning sex, then?”

She squirmed in my lap and bit her lower lip. “Afternoon sex, you mean. And I have nothing against it as long as you drink your blood before we play.”

My erection jolted under the towel, and I clenched my jaw to contain my impatience at the thought of being inside her again. I trailed my eyes down her body and leaned her head back to kiss me. Once our lips touched, I cupped her breast and rejoiced with her moan against my lips. Having the woman I love reacted like this to my touch made me harder. As our kiss became more passionate and breathless, I moved my hand to her sex and felt it pulsate against my palm. She felt so hot that my balls hurt, and my body tensed with need.

Taking her in my arms, I headed to our bed and laid her down to slowly remove her clothes and make love to her again. Alaric and her crazy sister had no place in our moment of bliss. Revenge could wait a bit longer as we created new memories to treasure.