by Sotia Lazu
Xandra Eves has been taught to look down at everyone but other shifters. She has no reason to doubt vampires are her natural enemies, until she meets Rex and is forced to work with him, to uncover a conspiracy that threatens to destroy both their species, as well as creation as she knows it.
It didn’t seem all that tempting, but a romance novel featuring her doppelganger was too hard to resist. Plus, Xandra Eves had a weird connection to Alexandra Adams.
She could see what other people thought of the book. Everything was searchable online. She entered the names Xandra and Rex into the search bar but came up with nothing. Odd. The novel’s read count was in the thousands, according to the webpage’s meter.
It was free, it was there, and it intrigued her. She would read a couple of pages, and then get back to… something work-related.
With a shrug, she clicked on the first chapter.
The two pages became several, and soon Lexi was entranced by the characters. Xandra was every bit as messed up as Lexi, and Rex oscillated between adorable and smoking hot—a perfect mixture of shy and cocky, sure to make any woman drool.
And he was British.
Lexi flickered her gaze to Richard, who was busy typing. He was hot and British too, but far from adorable.
She pretended to type and click for a couple of minutes, and then returned to reading.
Rex tied Xandra to a tree, to keep her from alerting her pack to his presence. He was washing himself in a lake, while she pretended to keep her eyes closed.
He had to know she watched. Why else would he push out his chest, stretching his pectorals, just to wash his dark hair? Water gleamed on the well-defined abs that rippled under his skin. But what made Xandra’s breath hitch in her throat were the twin arrows of corded muscle that ran at the lower sides of his abdomen, over his hipbones, pointing at his cock...
He could have been carved in marble.
Lexi didn’t know about that Xandra chick, but she craved the guy. And she had to get back to work. She could print the read-only versions of the manuals and jot her notes on them.
She would just read to the end of the chapter. No more than that. She glanced around, afraid someone might notice what she was reading. Just to be safe, she opened a couple more windows on her desktop and arranged them so the tab with Exotic Beast took up a small part of the screen.
Sparks flew, but it took a couple of chapters for Xandra to give into the vampire’s charm. The sex was hot and tender at the same time—hotter and more tender than anything Lexi had ever done—and there would be more, because Rex wanted to know as much about Xandra’s body as possible.
Lexi gulped.
“…now.”
She snapped up her head so hard, something clicked in her neck. Richard stood in front of her desk, looking at her expectantly.
“Huh? I mean, I didn’t catch what you said.” Did he know what she’d been doing?
“I said I think you should get off now.” He intoned each word separately, as if speaking to a child.
“Excuse me?” Her eyes felt wide as saucers.
“It’s five thirty. Shouldn’t you be going home?” he asked in a bored tone. “Or is that big, bad translation giving you trouble?”
“Ah.” He meant get off work. She was so flustered, she didn’t even return the sarcasm. “Um, no. No biggie. Yeah, I’ll go now. Thanks.”
He frowned, shrugged, and swaggered to the stairs, his laptop hanging from one shoulder and bouncing against his ass with every step.
Lexi packed up and left, but not before jotting down the web address of the site, as well as that of the particular page she’d been on before the interruption.
Chapter Two
“I’m home.” Not waiting for an answer from her mom, Lexi rushed past the kitchen and up the stairs to her room. Her old room. She let go of her old apartment when she followed the jackass to New York, and was staying here temporarily, while she looked for a new place. The lack of personal space was already grating on her nerves, but at least her folks tried to be as discreet as possible and gave her the privacy she needed.
She locked the door behind her and hurried to change into a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, before switching on her PC.
“Come on, come on, come on.” The darned thing took ages to connect to the wireless network, but she was finally online. She felt like a hormonal teenager for wanting to read more Rex goodness in the privacy of her own room, but it wasn’t like she could be doing something else instead. She lost touch with most of her friends when she moved away, and hadn’t been back long enough to make new ones. The guys at work were friendly and talked about going out as a group, but they hadn’t arranged anything yet.
She typed in the address of the page she’d been on, but got an error message for her trouble. She tried the site homepage again but to no avail. She typed, does true love exist? in the search machine, like she had earlier. Instead of getting the direct link as she expected, she was directed to a blues band’s Myspace page—that thing still existed? Searching for the e-Book by name also came up with nothing useful.
She repeated all steps on her smartphone, with the same result. Nothing.
To say she was annoyed would be an understatement, but what she’d read at work earlier was more than enough to call for a hot shower session.
Now where was Lexi’s little purple helper?
She stuck her hand in the back of her bottom drawer and pulled out her small vibrator. Not the most satisfactory of her toys, size-wise, but the most discreet. It was barely visible when she stuck it inside her waistband and pulled her T-shirt over it. She left her room and entered the bathroom, making sure to lock the door before taking off her clothes.
The shower was refreshing but offered too tame a release. Neither the showerhead nor her vibrator managed to send Lexi hurtling into ecstasy, like Rex sent Xandra in the novel. Not that it surprised Lexi. She knew earth-shattering, mind-blowing orgasms were just a legend. After all, she’d been around the block, and no man could provide that. It was just fiction.
The niggling thought that maybe she hadn’t met Mr. Right yet knocked on the door of her mind, but she refused to let it in. To do so would mean believing in the existence of a Mr. Right, and therefore hoping to one day meet him. Lexi knew, sooner or later, hope led to heartache.
“Dinner’s served.” Her mom’s voice drifted upstairs and brought Lexi out of her reverie. There was the one perk of living at home. Her mother’s cooking was out of this world.
She brushed her wet hair quickly, changed out of her fluffy bathrobe and into a different pair of shorts and a tank top, and bounced down the stairs to the kitchen. She’d have to remember to ask Angie how that thing with the book was possible. Maybe see if her friend could access it from her PC.
She’d reached the kitchen door, when she heard Edmund say, “…insists she doesn’t fit there.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Who doesn’t fit where?” She could tell she had that bubblegum-blonde smile on her face—the one her friends knew to steer clear from.
“You, according to Richard in IT. He says I’ve made a mistake with you.” Edmund obviously didn’t think his words would affect her temper. His attention was on his plate, but he wasn’t avoiding her gaze; he was taking in the meal in front of him. His manners didn’t allow him to just dig in before the ladies got seated.
Lexi was bristling. She didn’t get how her stepdad could be so calm about it. She widened her fake grin, hoping to mask her anger. “Well, good thing it’s not his decision to make, huh?” Oh, Mr. High-and-Cocky was in for a world of pain tomorrow.
“No, it’s not, but I do wonder if maybe he was right. He made a valid point.”
What was Edmund talking about? Firing her? And why was her mom so cool? Lexi kept looking from Edmund to her mom. “What point could he have made? He’s seen me all of four hours. He doesn’t know me or what I do. He’s not even in my department.” She didn’t care she hadn’t wanted the job
to begin with or that she didn’t find it even half interesting. She was just pissed off at the thought of that jackass trying to interfere with her work and her family.
“So you’re saying you’re happy where you are?” Her mom looked at Lexi with the eagerness of any mother who wanted her child to be happy.
Lexi couldn’t find it in her heart to mention how she felt under-utilized. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Edmund smiled and bobbed his head. “I thought so but wanted to make sure.” Lexi’s world was safe as long as she got that smile. That was the way things had been since she was six, and Edmund had promised to be the best husband her mom could ever want and the best father Lexi could ever need.
Someone still had to pay, of course, and now that her footing at the company was secure again, Lexi could start by collecting info about Richard the Meddling.
“So, who is that IT guy, and how come he has opinions about me?” She frowned and pouted. That always got her way with Edmund.
“According to Edmund, he’s a very nice, clever, and hard-working young man.”
Lexi didn’t like the dreamy look in her mother’s eyes. If she asked why Lexi never got involved with guys like that, Lexi would bolt.
“Edmund?” Her mother looked at her husband, who removed his glasses, vigorously wiped them with a corner of the table cloth, then placed them back on the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.
“Richard is the son of a very good friend of mine, from the old days. His father, Anthony, and I grew up together. We moved here together after college, and I was his best man when he got married, but hadn’t seen him since the family went back to England. He called me a couple of years ago, to say Richard was in San Francisco, looking for a job. The boy’s credentials were excellent, and I thought he’d be an asset to the company. I can safely say I was right. He’s brilliant.”
Pride shone in the man’s eyes, and for the first time since Edmund became a part of her family, Lexi felt a real pang of jealousy. He talked about Richard as if he were his own son. Her pouting lip jutted out a bit more at the thought. “Well how come I never heard of him before today? And why doesn’t he want me working with you?”
“I saw no need to mention him while you were away, Lexi. You never showed any interest in the company until you joined us. And dear, you’ve misunderstood. What Richard said—”
“No. Forget it.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m being childish. I’m sure Richard had his reasons for saying what he did.” Nasty, mean reasons, for which she’d somehow get him back. “Mom, dinner looks great.” That signaled an end to the conversation, and they all dug into their plates.
After dinner, Lexi once more tried to access the site and failed. She thought about calling Angie and asking her to give it a go too, but that would lead to a series of questions Lexi had no answers to.
Sleep was elusive that night. Her mind raced between flashes of a hot Brit worshiping her body and thoughts of how she could make a certain other Brit’s life hell.
****
During the drive to the office the next morning, Lexi kept repeating in her head, ‘I’m not going to log into that site till I’m off work.’ She felt bad indulging herself by reading erotic scenes while on the clock. There wasn’t much to do during those long eight hours, but maybe she needed to pressure Edmund more about that.
In the end, she decided she’d log into the site before she left work, and copy the next few chapters of Exotic Beast to a document she could take home on a flash drive.
The first thing she did once her PC connected to the network was type in the site address, to check that she hadn’t just dreamed of it. Sure enough, the book showed up. Lexi went to the last page she’d read, in order to make sure she had the right URL.
It all went downhill from there.
She had nothing urgent to do at the moment, so she could dedicate fifteen minutes to read the next chapter. Right? Only, then she really, really, had to know what came next, so she kept reading, throwing an occasional glance around to make sure no one was watching. She promised herself she’d make up for the lost time the next day. Or she could print those manuals and take them home with her.
She made sure to keep a constant frown of concentration on her face, so nobody would figure out she was reading steamy sex scenes instead of doing her job.
All thought abandoned Xandra the moment Rex began trailing his wandering fingers up her legs. He pushed his hands under the hem of her dress and lifted it to her waist, so he could nuzzle her inner thigh.
All thought abandoned Lexi, too. Her heart pounded hard inside her chest. She felt the moisture between her thighs seep through her panties, until she had to rub her legs together, to alleviate the throbbing in her pussy—if only a little.
She was snapped out of her lusty thoughts by a deep, rumbling voice that sounded way too close.
“Bloody Californian legislation. What is so wrong with smoking, I can’t even do it out on the balcony anymore?” Richard wasn’t yelling, but his tone was far from conversational.
“I know for a fact that smoking isn’t allowed in workplaces in most of Europe, either,” Lexi said.
He turned his bored gaze to her. “You know European law, then?” The sarcasm in his voice was more than evident, and she just wanted to punch the smirk right off his face.
“It’s a filthy habit.” Her voice was shaky. “Even if it isn’t banned everywhere now, it should be.” She was far from satisfied with her reply and felt a blush creeping up her cheeks. Why did she open her mouth to begin with?
Then she remembered she was pissed off at him. Like really pissed off. “And you’re not in Europe now anyway, Richie, so I guess you’ll have to deal.” She immediately knew she’d made a mistake, calling him by the nickname he disliked.
His eyes darkened, and the muscle in his jaw ticked. The room cleared around them. Even thickheaded John must have felt the storm brewing, because he left his desk, mumbling something about checking on a shipment with the logistics department.
Richard approached Lexi’s desk, leaned over it, and slammed both his palms on it. “Not Richie, Xandra. Are you too dense to remember, or do you just want to be an annoying little chit?”
“I’m not annoying or a—a chit. You, on the other hand, are a jerk and an idiot. Which of us do you think is better off?” She leaned forward too, the distance between their faces mere inches, as they stared each other down over the narrow desk. Lexi was proud she didn’t flinch or back off when he lowered his voice to a near-growl.
“What are you on about? Just because I’m not going to roll over for Pedelty’s little girl, I’m a jerk and an idiot? Hate to break it to you, but I’m not rolling over for anyone. You want me to be nice to you? Earn it.”
His accent sounded rougher, less refined than usual, but she was too chagrined, to care much about the change. He thought her problem with him was so shallow? “Be nice? I don’t give a fuck about you being nice. Nobody expects you to roll over. I don’t want you to. But you’re a jerk for going behind my back and telling Edmund to fire me, and an idiot for not expecting him to tell me about it.” She leaped to her feet, pushing her chair back with such force it would have toppled if it didn’t have wheels, and mirrored his posture.
Richard just looked at her. And then the bastard chuckled.
Shocked at his reaction, she recoiled, straightened up, and planted her hands on her hips. “God, you’re damaged.”
“So I tried to get you fired, huh? Guess that would at least make me an idiot.” His expression grew serious, as his accent reverted to the more cultured one she always heard him use. “Is that what old Ed told you?”
“He said you thought I didn’t fit in here. Are you going to deny that?”
“No. No, I’m not. Though next time you might want to get your facts straight before blowing a fuse.” With that, he turned and went to his desk.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
No answe
r.
The subject was apparently closed.
Lexi was fuming, to say the least. How could he disregard her like that? He didn’t even try to defend himself or give her an explanation. He wanted her to get her facts straight? Well, he should get his head straight, the arrogant ass.
She sat back down with a huff. God, she needed a good yelling match with him. One which would end with him groveling for forgiveness and her with a smug smile on her face. That wasn’t in the cards, so she went back to Exotic Beast and hoped for some fun sexy times.
“Look at you, all flushed for me. Bet you’re still wet.” Rex’s hands were on her thighs, thumbs tantalizingly close to her pussy, but not touching. “You’ve been wet for me all night.” It wasn’t a question—and even if it were, he already knew the answer.
“Yes,” Xandra whispered, trying hard to keep her hips from bucking against his hand.
“Do you want to do something about it?”
Lexi caught herself nodding. Arguing with Richard didn’t seem to have gotten her any less hot and bothered, after all. She squirmed in her seat and felt her cheeks burn when John returned and sat opposite her with a wink. The guy did nothing for Lexi, but her hormones seemed to be wonky. Heck, she even found Richie-boy attractive, in an angry, wanna-bust-his-head-in-for-being-a-jackass way. Yup, definitely wonky hormones to blame. Richard was not hot. He was scruffy and infuriating and… looking at her.
Fuck.
He smirked like he knew she was appraising him, and found it amusing. She glared and turned back to her monitor. Rex was waiting, after all.
Also, she should be working. What was wrong with her?
“You’re mine Xandra,” he leaned to whisper in her ear. He tugged at her nipple through her bra. The lace rubbed against her sensitive flesh, enhancing the sensation and making her body tingle with anticipation. He sneaked his free hand under her skirt, twisted his fingers around her panties, and ripped them off in one violent yank. He pushed a finger inside her pussy. “Say you’re mine.”