Justin Abar had been Dmitri’s personal assistant for the past ten years, during the entirety of which, the young man had remained twenty-three years old. As a human servant to a vampire as powerful as Dmitri, he enjoyed the benefits of a flexible schedule, a ridiculously generous salary, and an exemption from aging. In exchange, he helped keep his employer’s life running smoothly, acted on Dmitri’s behalf during daylight hours, donated blood from time to time, and remained absolutely dedicated and trustworthy.
He was also a computer hacker par excellence.
“Okay,” Graham said. “I’ll give you a call around midnight to see where we are. Anything beyond that, and I’m going to start feeling nervous.”
Agreeing, Dmitri hung up the phone and turned his annoyed scowl on his computer. Now, instead of spending the last few hours before he slept thinking about the woman he planned to make his own, he was going to have to waste time tracking down a baby vamp and his rogue maker.
Well, he decided, pushing away the irritation to focus on the matter at hand, better to start now and get it over with. He had written himself into Regina’s calendar before leaving her apartment a couple of hours ago and he did not plan to miss that engagement, Council business or no.
Chapter 10
Staring at the contents of her closet, clad only in a towel and her ratty bathrobe, with a glass of milk in her hand, Reggie planned her attack. The crucial first stage involved walking into the bar tonight and making Greg swallow his tongue. Then she would think about asking someone to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Maybe. But only if she was feeling generous. And only if it didn’t conflict with whatever plans Dmitri had made for the evening.
She surveyed her arsenal with a critical eye. Part of her wanted to ignore the red dress just because Dmitri had ordered her to wear it, but when she flipped through her wardrobe, she thought it might be her only viable alternative. Plus, she figured after the little performance she’d put on in her mirror, buttering up the man who wanted to make her pay might not be a bad idea.
Still, her contrary nature sent her searching through her closet one last time. Her usual collection of man-magnet dresses didn’t pack enough punch, not to mention that Greg had seen almost everything she owned. If only she’d reacted to the breakup by shopping, she’d be set, but instead, she’d holed up in her apartment like a hermit. Now, she was paying the price.
Her right hand reached out to flip through hangers, discarding potential outfits while her left hand brought the glass to her lips for a healthy swallow of milk. Although Reggie didn’t consider herself a big drinker, she’d considered having a glass of wine tonight for a little liquid courage. But the more she thought about the evening ahead, the more she decided her stomach needed soothing at least as much as her nerves.
“Boring. Boring. Seen it. Ugh.” Mumbling a running commentary on her rejections, Reggie finally reached the end of the closet. She’d left herself with only one choice.
“Damn it.” Frowning, she perched on the end of the bed and glowered at the open closet door, as if she could intimidate it into creating new and exciting outfits for her to wear. It didn’t happen. She ran her gaze down the entire closet rod one more time, trying to see if she’d missed anything, or if any ideas popped into her head for new ways to combine garments into breathtakingly sexy outfits. No luck. The only things she saw were her own boring old clothes and the red velvet dress that could make a porn star proud. Salvation eluded her.
Reggie drained her glass in disgust and set it aside. Fate decreed she should wear the red dress, and she knew how to give in gracefully. Sort of.
She pulled the dress out of the closet and hooked it over the back of the door. When she stripped away the plastic, the rich sheen of silk velvet caught the light and seemed to breathe. Her hand went out to touch it, drawn by the luxurious promise of the fabric. She’d paid a fortune for the thing, more than she wanted to remember, but in that moment, she decided it had been worth every penny.
Her skin looked pearly-pale where it touched the material, set off against the backdrop of crimson velvet. Instead of washing her out, the color refined her skin to a shade of rich, warm cream that looked smooth enough to spread on a scone…or a set of silk sheets. No wonder Dmitri wanted her to wear it.
Of course, he also might have been influenced by the fact that the garment just missed being a size too small. If the saleswoman hadn’t assured Reggie that the designer intended a snug fit, she’d have tried on a larger size. As it was, she remembered the material fitting her almost as closely as her skin, where it covered her skin, anyway. The abbreviated bodice sat off the shoulder and drew the eye to her breasts while the hemline fought for an equal share of attention by falling somewhere just long of indecent exposure.
Carrying it with her to the full-length mirror on the door, Reggie held it up against her body, smoothing a hand across the luxurious cloth. She had to give Dmitri credit; he had fabulous taste. Stripping out of her robe, she pulled on her bra and thigh-high stockings before she gave in and shimmied her way into the tight dress.
She sighed at the feel of the heavy velvet against her skin when she finally wrapped the gorgeous garment around her. She struggled for a minute with the zipper until it slid up its full height to just below her shoulder blades. Then she stepped back and surveyed the results in the full-length mirror.
“Damn. It’s perfect.”
At precisely 7:25, Reggie stepped through the door of Captain Jack’s nightclub and took a deep breath. Well, as deep as she could without tumbling out of the low-cut dress and giving the inhabitants of the bar a better show than the strip club two blocks east. She felt the weight of appreciative male glances sliding over her, even though she normally remained oblivious to that kind of attention. Tonight, she felt it, and it felt fabulous.
She knew she looked better than she had in a long time, maybe better than she ever had. The dress presented her lush curves like an offering, pushing her generous breasts together and raising them until they seemed in danger of spilling from the neckline. The snug fit accentuated the smallness of her waist and hugged the curve of her hip until all eyes were drawn by the contrast. Her skin seemed to glow against the crimson velvet and the auburn silk of her hair, which she’d allowed to tumble in unruly waves down her back. Her legs were encased in the sheer, black, thigh-highs whose tops just barely managed to stay hidden under her hem, and her dainty feet disappeared into a pair of matching crinkle-patent red stiletto heels.
All in all, Reggie looked like sex on a stick, and she wasn’t the only person in the bar who thought so. Too bad Dmitri wasn’t early enough to see her grand entrance.
“Reggie! What are you doing here?”
She automatically turned at the sound of her name, but when she saw who had called out, she swore quietly and creatively. Corinne and Danice sat at one of the small, round tables near the edge of the bar, and they waved her over with enthusiasm. Of all the rotten luck!
“Girl, after those messages Ava left you, I thought you’d be avoiding all of us like the plague. But look at you!” Danice pulled back and gave her friend a comprehensive going-over. “You are hot!”
“Absolutely. What inspired you?” Corinne’s eyes widened. “Are you meeting the guy from last night again? Where is he? Can we meet him?”
Reggie shifted.
“Tell us every dirty little detail,” Danice demanded. “I never even got a look at the lucky man, but I heard a rumor he makes ‘gorgeous’ sound like an insult.”
Reggie struggled for some way to weasel out of answering questions and was preparing to yell “Fire!” at the top of her lungs when a hand fell on her shoulder.
“Reggie, thanks so much for agreeing to meet me.” All three women turned at the sound of Greg’s voice. He ignored Reggie’s friends and took her by the elbow. “I got us a quiet table by the wall where we can talk.”
Reggie froze and wondered which higher power she could have offended enough to land her in this situation.
Of all the bars in all the clubs in all the world, my friends just had to choose this one tonight.
The situation achieved an extra level of ironic pain due to the fact that the women seated beside her hated Greg with a passion, even more than Reggie had ever been able to bring herself to hate him. It spoke for their loyalty, but not for a pleasant meeting.
“Oh, have you learned to keep it in your pants long enough to have conversations these days, Gregory?” Danice smirked, not even attempting to hide her contempt.
“Gregory has always been good at talking, Nicie,” Corinne said. Around Greg, even journalistically impartial Corinne turned brittle and cutting. “It was telling the truth that he had a problem with.”
“Ladies.” Greg nodded civilly to Reggie’s friends, which was enough to make his ex-fiancée do a double take.
The last time Reggie’s friends and her jerk had run into each other, it had been trash talk at twenty paces. Greg had made it clear while they were still dating that he despised her friends and had no intention of pretending to be nice to them. Why should he have changed his tune now?
Now that she thought about it, Reggie noticed that more than one thing about Gregory had changed. His elegantly tailored suit looked familiar, but he seemed to wear it better these days. The subtle pin-striping set off the blue of his eyes, making them appear brighter and more intense than Reggie remembered. He looked somehow healthier, too, as if he’d just come back from a long vacation, refreshed and rejuvenated.
He even looked taller somehow.
“I hope you’ll excuse us,” he continued, his voice sounding deeper and smoother than before. More compelling. “But Reggie has graciously agreed to speak with me about an important private matter, and it’s so rude to keep a lady standing. Sweetheart, I’ve saved a table for us at the back of the bar. Shall we?”
Reggie risked a quick look at her friends and registered their “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!” expressions. They’d just have to wait until later, though, because she was not about to pass up the opportunity to have Gregory Martin groveling at her feet in a public place. There were some things to which a girl simply did not say no.
She murmured her agreement, cast her friends an “I’ll tell you later” glance, and let Greg guide her to their table with a hand in the small of her back. She kept her head high and her shoulders straight and added an extra swing to her hips when their path through the crowd forced her to walk in front of him. Let the twit salivate, because she had better people to do than him these days.
It was kind of funny, though; Reggie found it difficult to focus on Greg, in spite of his possessive touch and the low patter of conversation he kept up as they moved through the bar. Instead she felt the almost tactile sensation of someone’s gaze upon her. She looked around, expecting to see Dmitri poised somewhere in the shadows. He wasn’t there, but she still could have sworn his fingers slipped beneath her hair and caressed the back of her neck.
She brushed the sensation off as imagination, at least until she felt the distinct pressure of a hand pat her ass and squeeze the cheek affectionately. She jumped about eight inches and looked around, but no one was remotely close enough to have touched her. She scowled, and a shiver raced through her.
Gregory noticed her tremble when he pulled out her chair, and he frowned. “Are you cold?”
“Not at all,” she said. She looked warily around her again before slipping into the chair and pulling her attention back to the man in front of her. She smiled coyly and fluttered her lashes at him. “In fact, it’s kind of hot in here. Don’t you agree?”
Greg offered her his smoothest smile. “I wouldn’t have a few minutes ago, but that was before I saw you in that dress. Reggie, you look stunning.”
She smiled and thanked him prettily, grim satisfaction stirring within her as she let her lousy, cheating ex reach across the table and cover her hand with his. The moment felt a bit surreal. Not just because the opportunity for revenge had come so unexpectedly, but because she had expected to get more satisfaction out of it.
“You’re even more beautiful than I remember,” Greg continued, watching her with his intensely blue eyes as he raised her hand to his lips. His mouth brushed slowly across her knuckles. “What could I have been thinking to let you get away from me?”
“I used to wonder that myself,” Reggie said, leaning toward him flirtatiously even as her conscience let out a fierce protest. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, and the jerk deserved to suffer. “I guess I just assumed you hadn’t been thinking at all.”
Greg winced and still managed to look attractive. Seriously, shouldn’t that have tipped her off about him before she wasted two years on the jerk?
“I deserved that,” he said, squeezing her hand gently. “I didn’t treat you the way you deserved, Reggie. And I want you to know that I regret it.”
Reggie raised an eyebrow. “You do, do you?”
It was becoming a struggle not to let her confusion show on her face. Sure, when she’d picked up the phone that afternoon, a secret part of her had hoped that Greg’s call signaled a desire on his part to grovel at her feet and beg her forgiveness. Which she would, naturally, coldly withhold while she crushed him beneath the heels of her very fetching Beverly Feldmans.
The problem was that she’d known all along that it was a fantasy. Even when they’d been together, she’d never heard Greg apologize to her. Yet here she was, sitting across a tiny bar table from her cheating ex-fiancé, who was honestly begging her forgiveness and being surprisingly attentive to her every word and action. More attentive, in fact, than he’d been during the last nine months of their relationship.
Greg’s attention had fixed on her like a starving man fixed on the display in a bakery window. He hadn’t looked at her with that much hunger since the first time they’d had sex. Heck, even then he’d been more full of himself than fascinated by her charms. The chance for revenge was too good to pass up.
Experimentally, Reggie trailed the fingers of her free hand along the top of her bodice, calling attention to the way it cupped her breasts and emphasized her generous curves.
“So, Gregory,” she purred, trying to make her voice seductive rather than hoarse, which was how she thought she sounded, “why don’t you tell me why you wanted to see me? After all this time.”
She brought her hand up to where her shoulder and neck curved together and brushed her fingers back and forth across her bare skin. Greg had always loved her shoulders. All that tennis she’d played in high school, he’d said. Either way, it appeared his attraction to that particular part of her body hadn’t waned. If anything, it seemed stronger than ever. His eyes had locked on her fingers like an automated missile targeting system. He looked almost hypnotized.
The satisfaction of seeing the man who’d cheated on her all but drool at the sight of her gave Reggie a deep sense of satisfaction.
This could almost be fun!
Fun for whom, dushka? a voice murmured inside her head. Perhaps I did not make our relationship clear to you last night?
A whisper of warm breath stirred against Reggie’s ear and a warm, rough tongue reached out to toy with her earlobe. She spun around so fast she almost fell off her chair. No one stood close enough to whisper to her, let alone to touch her. No one other than Greg.
Of course, Reggie had begun to suspect that distance didn’t mean all that much to Dmitri Vidâme.
Careful, dushka. You would not want to injure yourself by being careless, he chided.
Damn it, Misha, she fumed. You can’t just sneak up on people like this. It’s rude! And it’s rude to carry on a conversation with someone who can’t see you.
Oh, is it? he purred. As rude as meeting another man on the same evening that you and your lover have plans to spend time together?
She felt a phantom hand slide up her thigh and tease the sensitive point where the lace of her stocking met her bare skin. And yet the only man close enough to touch her was G
regory, who had clasped her fingers in his two, very visible hands atop the table.
Is it as rude as that, Regina?
Dmitri, not now. She shifted, figuring if his hands weren’t really there, they couldn’t affect her unless she allowed it. She would just pretend she didn’t feel a thing. Your note said we were going to meet at eight. I’ve still got twenty minutes.
“Are you all right, Reggie?” Greg frowned, his eyes narrowing as he squeezed her hand just a little too tightly. “You seem…distracted somehow.”
“I’m sorry.” Reggie forced a smile. “I, um, I didn’t sleep well last night, and I guess it’s left me a little scatterbrained. I don’t mean to ignore you.”
What she did mean to ignore was the way the imaginary fingers between her thighs had begun to stroke higher and higher up the soft expanse of her inner thigh, teasing and tantalizing in a way that reminded her exactly why she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.
A deep voice chuckled against her ear. I guarantee, dushka, that when you sit beside me, you will not notice any other distractions.
“No. No, it’s all right.” Greg sighed, his voice yanking her mind away from Dmitri’s phantom touch and back to reality. “It’s no more than I deserve, really. But I’ve got to be honest. Leaving you was a mistake, Reggie, and I know that now. I miss you, and I couldn’t keep going without seeing you again. Without asking you if you would consider giving me a second chance.”
Three things happened simultaneously in that moment: Reggie’s mind went blank, Dmitri’s presence blinked out of her mind like a light bulb burning out, and the bar’s live band began to run through their sound check by playing an earsplitting version of a 1980s death metal hit.
Greg swore. Or at least, Reggie assumed he did. She saw his lips move, and judging by his expression, whatever had come out of them hadn’t been pleasant.
One Bite with a Stranger Page 10