by Riley Bancroft, Evelyn Berry, Cara Carnes, Jax Garren, Irene Preston, Rebecca Royce, Chandra Ryan
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Happy reading,
Evie
One Night with the Vampire
Jax Garren
1
“Hot Frenchman in the foyer,” a massage therapist announced as she breezed into the cramped break room of Urban Healing Massage.
Four people shot grins toward Sofia Velasquez. The announcement made her stomach flip with happiness, but she managed a nonchalant chuckle. “Must be the end of Thursday night.”
She closed Gmail on her phone, happy to look away from today’s dose of paranoia. A witch convention was in town, and every jaguar in Austin—probably every were-creature in Austin, but she could only speak for her own familia—was on alert for poachers. The rumor mill was grinding away with more fear than facts.
Yeah, weres cut up real nicely into spell components, but poachers, while freaky as shit, were rare enough to not be Sofia’s main problem. Her car needed a new transmission, and her pack dues needed to be turned in, oh, yesterday. Her legs were worn out from the extra hours she worked, and the pain had crept into her shoulders as her form worsened. One more client and then she’d head home to a steamy book and a warm bath of Epsom salt.
She shoved the phone into her purse and rolled her shoulders, readying her body for one more round.
The same therapist who’d teased her bumped her hip. “If you’re too tired, I’ll help you out tonight.”
Another one laughed as she crunched an apple. “Don’t be silly. Alex Moreau comes to see Sofia Velasquez. If she is unavailable…” A chorus of therapists joined in, all poorly mimicking his skin-tingling French accent. “Then so am I.”
The one time Sofia had been sick on a Thursday, the receptionist had neglected to call him—a big mistake on Urban Healing’s part. They’d offered another therapist at a discounted rate, but he’d smiled politely and declared the now infamous, “I come to see Sofia Velasquez. If she is unavailable, then so am I.”
Sofia laughed at the ribbing. “Hey, look!” She waggled her fingers in cheesy jazz hands. “Fireworks!” She lowered all her fingers except the middle ones.
More chortling from the room. She loved her coworkers.
“Let us know when he finally asks you out.”
“Then you can tell us how good he looks naked and it’s ‘gossiping friends,’ instead of ‘lacking in professionalism.’”
She sighed with frustrated desire as she headed out of the break room. “Never going to happen.” There was a reason he only saw her, and it was unfortunately not due to her mad skills as a therapist or even the badass wiggle in her walk. That reason, though, wasn’t for public consumption.
Back in August, when Alex had requested her for his first appointment at Urban Healing, they’d gotten to the treatment room, and his soulful eyes had searched her up and down until she was dazed. With his loose, messy curls in shades of cinnamon, hazel eyes, and soft but masculine features, he wore the facade of a brooding Romantic poet stepped from the pages of history. If there was a mantel, he’d surely have leaned on it. He motioned at his intake form and muttered, “You can ignore everything on the paper. I’m a vampire.”
Her threatening swoon had to be stifled, shoved into a box, and locked away. Austin had a thriving supernatural community living, working, and playing under the human radar, but if vampires went around getting massages from just anyone, it wouldn’t remain secret for long. Alex didn’t need her, Sofia Velasquez, of the pretty eyes and ticking libido. Alex needed a therapist who wouldn’t freak out because his heart didn’t beat. Almost a third of Sofia’s regulars were supers of one species or another.
None of her other clients, however, would look half so yummy leaning against a mantel.
After his confession, those hazel eyes widened. “CoVIn, of course.” He waved his hands in small movements meant to pacify. “You are safe with me.”
She smiled. “Of course.” CoVIn, the Confederation of Vampires International, was an organization for those rare vampires who still possessed their souls. Most vampires were monsters, which was saying something coming from her. She stretched, allowing her claws to extend from between the knuckles of her hands like a contented kitten. “I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself.”
The darkness in his gaze lessened as amusement crept into his tone. “I believe you.”
Apparently he’d liked his massage. Every Thursday since, he’d had a standing appointment.
For the first time since she’d started her career, Sofia had a crush on her client. She wasn’t going to do anything about it… anything other than appreciate his soft accent when he spoke and fine form as he lay on her table. Still, she anticipated Thursday nights with a smile on her lips and a flutter in her belly.
In the crowded foyer, the new receptionist had the phone on her ear, her fingers on the keyboard, and her eyes on the hot Frenchman. Sofia couldn’t blame her. Several of the clients, too, were giving him furtive looks of appreciation.
Alex clutched his wrist behind his back and stared at the tea selection in their tiny retail display. Before she said his name, he turned. His eyes lit up as he smiled, and he reached out.
As they did every time, she put her hands in his and touched her cheek to his lightly stubbled one. His cologne carried notes of earthy sage and lavender, dark tobacco, and enigmatic sandalwood. The soft sound of his kiss as he squeezed her hands gave her a thrill. They touched the other cheek to cheek, the side of her mouth barely brushing his skin. And too quickly, the faire la bise was over until next week’s kiss-kiss.
She withdrew. “We’re in two today,” she said, so professionally. “This way.”
Then she remembered to release his hands. He let her fingers slip away easily, as if it wasn’t much to him one way or another whether they held hands. Of course it wasn’t. He was her client, and he was used to the feel of her hands. It was one of the strange things about being a massage therapist. She knew the contours of his body so well she could have picked him out in the dark by feel. The brief touch they shared in the foyer, though, was all he’d ever get of her.
“How was your week?” she asked, bright, cheerful, normal.
He shrugged one shoulder in the way he always did. “It passed. How was yours?”
By now she knew to step back and let him open the door. He’d been so appalled the first few times when she’d reached for it. She’d tried to explain that the feminist movement allowed her to open doors, but like a lot of vampires raised in older eras, the rationale was about as incomprehensible as seat belts and condoms.
At least, other male vampires she’d known had little patience with unnecessary car restraints or latex that served no purpose on someone who couldn’t father children or pass on disease. She had no idea if Alex used seat belts or condoms.
Why was she thinking about condoms? It was an inappropriate time to think about rolling a rubber down Alex’s… She closed the door behind them, using the break of eye contact to gather her scattering thoughts. “My week’s been great. Looking forward to South by. You?”
“South by?” He sounded confused.
She turned to him, ready with chipper smiles and blithe chatter. “South by Southwest?” Nobody was so out of touch they didn’t know about “South by,” right? The annual music, film, and digital festival was an international event. Everyone in Austin either had tickets or spent two weeks avoiding the overcrowded downtown scene like Ebola was spreading. “I don’t have tickets to any shows—because tickets now are a billion dollars or something—but I have an invite to an actual rock star’s party tomorrow. I’m pretty stoked.”
Sure enough, he nodded in comprehension. He knew what she was talking about, just didn’t seem hip on the slang. “Ah. I’d forgotten.”
He was definitely old. Not that he looked it. Alex had died young enough
she imagined he got carded on a regular basis. But vampires considered it rude to ask how long someone had been dead. So she’d never asked, just listened to the few kernels of information he dropped and guessed a new age every time he left. She’d bet a two-hour deep tissue he was at least a hundred.
“I’ll let you change.” She headed for the door, feeling more flustered than normal. “Oh. I forgot to ask if there’s anything in particular you want to work on…” She turned back to him. He already had his shirt halfway past his rigid abdominals. “Sorry.”
He finished pulling off the shirt and, as usual, folded it as neatly as any store. “Why?”
It was one thing to have a man lie still on a table while she worked his muscles with her hands. It was clinical, finding and releasing bundled fascia, breaking up scar tissue, realigning joints. It was another thing entirely to watch latissimus dorsi slide over teres major, and trapezius flex over each vertebra as he stripped, his muscles working in perfect harmony with one another under smooth, bare skin. “I didn’t mean to watch you undress.”
Another mildly amused smile. “I believe by this point my anatomy holds no secrets. I’m not sure what the difference is.” He kicked off his loafers and toed them under the bench in two neat lines. “Americans are funny about nudity, though. I don’t always understand the logic.” He stopped undressing and leaned against the table, his hands under his hips and one leg sprawled forward, looking hella sexy in his shirtless confidence. “That does not mean it isn’t right for you. If you are leaving for my benefit, you needn’t bother. If you are leaving for your own, I will respect that.”
That might be the longest string of words he’d put together in seven months. And her, the Chatty Cathy of their team, could only manage, “It’s a professional standard.” Horizontal, he was a client. Vertical, he was a man. As much fun as it would be to watch him undress, it would not help her eroded clinical detachment.
“I apologize. What was your question?”
A hundred-plus-year-old man who could apologize? And she thought the yummy accent was enough to contend with. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, forcing her gaze to the floor. “I was asking if there was anything particular you wanted us to work on.” Which was a pointless question because she already knew the answer.
“Ah. Of course. I trust your work.”
There it was. Same answer every week from day one. I trust your work. It was the weirdest part about working with him. Everyone loved to talk about their pain—their migraines, their tight shoulders, their popping hip. People who spent a hundred and fifty a week on massage had reasons for it. An old CoVIn vampire would be wealthy enough the expense wouldn’t mean much to him, but still. A hundred and fifty dollars a week was a lot for someone with no complaints.
If he acted even remotely interested, she might wonder if he was coming to see her, but taking his shirt off, then apologizing over it, was the closest he’d ever come to making a pass at her. If that was hitting on her, Alex needed a bigger hammer if he wanted her to recognize it.
She nodded. “I’ll be right back.” Time to be a good girl and give Alex his massage with a straight face and a clinical touch.
Alex settled under the sheet and blanket with his face mashed into the bizarre donut-shaped cradle attached to massage tables and waited for the knock heralding Sofia’s return. With a ninety-minute massage, it was closer to an hour and forty minutes he spent with her each week—minus the two times she exited the room for him to undress and dress.
He hoped he hadn’t offended; it hadn’t been his intention. It seemed silly for her to leave, a ritual formality that cut into his hour and forty minutes. It wasn’t like she didn’t see him naked on the table every week. Despite the illogic, he’d realized he’d stepped in it and had, carefully as he could, stepped out.
The room was warm and dimly lit, though the low light didn’t affect him at all. Sofia called the music “vocal trance.” He wasn’t sure what the name meant, but after a month of jungle sounds, gongs, and other weird noises, this soothing electronic music had played and he’d asked her if she wouldn’t mind sticking with it. He’d come to associate the sound with Sofia’s smell of jasmine and chocolate.
At her knock, he relaxed and his skin shivered in anticipation.
“Come in.” He turned his head in the cradle so he could see her entrance. Her black hair with its streak of honey was pulled into a loose braid that hung over her shoulder nearly to her waist. A braid or a bun, every week. Every week in his mind, he’d untwist it or unpin it and see it fall freely. Her skin was tan, both from genes and sun, her glossy smile big enough to show even, white teeth. She gave the same sparkling smile to everyone she saw, but even knowing her joy wasn’t uniquely for him, he got caught by it every time.
It was the same smile she’d given him last June when she’d said two words and changed his life. She didn’t remember the incident. That was okay. There had been a lot going on around them.
“Ready?” she asked.
He turned to the side, careful to keep the covers over him for her benefit. “I forgot to tell you. I have a burn.” He drew a line over his thigh where the injury still stung. She watched his fingers with an interest he’d have sworn was more than clinical if her personal, preferably carnal interest hadn’t been exactly what he craved.
Her sunny smile was replaced with concern. “How did you burn yourself?”
“Sunlight.”
“Dare I ask how you got a line of sunshine on your upper thigh?” Her dark eyes held amusement, even if her face stayed solemn.
How much did he tell her? It wasn’t as though anyone had sworn him to silence, but military action should be secret on principle. “I’m not sure how much I should say. I was with Cash Geirson—you know Cash Geirson?”
“Everybody knows Cash.”
He tried not to make a face, but must’ve failed because she snorted. The leader of CoVIn’s military was as popular as he was infamous, particularly with women. Alex lowered himself onto the table again. “Yes. Everybody indeed.” Discussing another man was not how he’d prefer to spend his limited minutes.
Through the sheet, she pressed lightly on his back, then down his legs like she did every time, this time avoiding the burn. He withheld a sigh. She called it palpitating. Apparently it told her where she needed to work. The sheet came half off, folding over his arse to expose his back. The warmth of the room made him drowsy, which was funny because he didn’t sleep, not as humans did. Vampires died at dawn and awoke in early afternoon, give or take, depending on how old they were.
She rubbed her hands with a hush of noise and put the heels of her palms next to his spine. “If you don’t want to tell me what happened, I understand. I can guess, if Cash was involved.”
He grunted. With Cash’s reputation, God knew what she thought he’d done.
“At least tell me if you got caught.”
He frowned and tried to enunciate through the fabric in the face cradle. “Caught?”
“Yeah. Husband? Boyfriend? God forbid there’s a father out there still guarding his twenty-something daughter. If you were with Cash getting a burn on your upper thigh…”
“No!” He turned his head, nearly coming off the bed. “It was a raid. We were fighting Liberi.” Liberi Pestorum Cruenta—Children of the Blood Plague—were the real vampires, the soulless kind. The Liberi had to be kept in check. CoVIn did its best. Since June, Alex had been helping. “I got knifed in the leg. It cut through the fabric of my trousers, and when we ran outside, I got burned. I am not going on any other adventures with Cash.”
“Depriving the women of Austin. How dare you?” Her stroke across his shoulder paused. “I did not just say that. Sorry.”
A compliment? “You think the women of Austin are deprived because I do not follow Cash on his… exploits? I may be French, but I am not a womanizer.”
“Oh. Oh!” The second syllable came out a revelation.
He buried his face into the cradle. “Oh, no.
No. I am not…” What was the right word now? Cash’s weaponsmith had gone on a rant about it last week, enumerating all the terms no one was allowed to call him. Alex couldn’t for the life of him remember the man, Vince, saying one word they were allowed to use. “I am not a pursuer of men. I do not care who is. Cash’s best friend is… Fuck me. Pardon the word that is not French.” He was rambling. He never rambled. It was dangerous and, worse, undignified.
“You are fucking pardoned.”
He laughed. She made him laugh more than anyone he could remember, even from back when he was a human. “Thank you.”
She laughed too, and her strokes grew firmer. “Were you at the atrium battle?”
“Yes.” The Liberi had used magic to strip the souls from CoVIn vampires. In the atrium of CoVIn headquarters, a small team—including Sofia—had cast a spell that gave every vampire present, even the Liberi, a choice whether or not to regain their souls.
Alex closed his eyes.
Magic soaked the air. Through the scratch on his shoulder he felt it glide into him like an infection and spread throughout his body, coating his soul in a sheen of grace. For a moment he remembered what it was to feel and not merely touch. To listen and not merely hear. He pushed it aside—who wanted the unnecessary complication of experiencing life full of remorse?
Then he’d caught sight of brown eyes full of fire and fear as a woman spun and struck and brought her opponent to his knees. Her gaze caught Alex’s. “Come back,” she whispered, her voice a purr cutting through the battle around them. She returned to the fray, her muscles taut as she danced with her next opponent, fluid grace and coiled power in a catsuit that hugged every curve. His mouth went dry as he remembered what it was like to make love and not merely fuck.
He let the magic in.
Sofia pressed on his sacrum and rotated his hips side to side to loosen them. Fortunately he was on his stomach where his sudden erection couldn’t tent the sheets. Not that tenting had never happened before. He’d read on the internet massage therapists were used to sexual reactions. Men couldn’t help it, and it wasn’t a sign of attraction. His response to her was more than a reflex, though. Every week he reminded himself their session wasn’t a date. It was a guaranteed way to see the woman who’d saved his soul; a weekly reminder he would lose if he made an ass of himself.