by Jessica Sims
Our designated driver met us outside, and at the sight of him, drunk-but-still-kicking Sara whooped and scrambled for her last dollar. She folded it in half and waved it under the surly were-bear’s nose, gyrating at him.
“Dance for me, baby,” she cooed. “I’ll give you some money.”
“No,” Ramsey said in a flat voice.
Sara just laughed uproariously and danced away, wobbling.
Ramsey snatched her from midair and swung her over his shoulder like a caveman. Sara laughed and squealed, kicking her feet.
I could have sworn that Ramsey’s mouth twitched in a hint of a smile.
“Oh, boy,” Ryder said at my side. “I hope he doesn’t keep swinging her around like that or she’s going to puke. I might puke just from watching it.”
I snorted. Bath tottered across the parking lot behind the wildly laughing Sara and big, burly Ramsey, and I took up the rear, beside Ryder. When the others were far enough ahead, I tugged at her arm and whispered, “You okay?”
Her face tightened and she nodded. “I just . . . I can’t . . . I can’t process touch. Not well.”
I immediately pulled my hand away. “I’m so sorry.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Not yours, dummy. Men. I . . . ” She exhaled a long, deep breath. “Never mind. This is on the secret list.”
I linked my pinky to hers and nodded, then we followed the others to the car.
Chapter Ten
Well, this was awkward.
I smiled tightly at Andre as he poured me another glass of red wine and I tried to ignore the scowling bodyguard standing right behind him.
Why did my date suddenly need protecting? Who was he afraid of? Was I in danger?
And most of all, out of the entire Russell Security team, why did it have to be Josh? He loomed over our date like a ghastly third wheel.
So very, very awkward.
I downed my wine quickly. Maybe if I got drunk, this wouldn’t be so bad.
“You’re very thirsty tonight,” Andre said, his tone holding affection and amusement. “Long day?”
I nodded and held my glass out for a refill. The truth was, every day was a long day lately. I hadn’t been handling the insomnia well this week. I’d also been stressed about how things were going with Josh, so I’d fretted and checked my phone for messages a hundred times an hour.
But he hadn’t texted.
Part of me had expected it. Still . . . I had thought we were friends. Feeling abandoned, I’d even cried a little. I’d trusted him and he’d run.
And now he was glaring at me? He could go jump off a cliff, for all I cared.
“You seem distracted,” Andre observed, extending his hand across the table.
I put my hand in his, which was unnervingly cool against mine. “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t even come up with an explanation that would put his mind to rest.
“Is this a bad time for you? Should we cancel our date tonight?” He gave me a concerned look, his other cool hand moving on top of mine. It was like being hugged by clay.
I squeezed his hand to reassure him. “I’m just a little . . . distracted by your bodyguard. I thought this date would be more private.”
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
Joshua shifted on his feet, frowning fiercely at me, arms crossed over his chest.
“I just worry that you’re in danger.” I had Andre’s full attention, and he was smiling at me again, so I tilted my head, exposing my neck a bit. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“My dear, I am perfectly fine,” he said, his voice husky. “It’s simply a precaution. If he’s bothering you, I’ll see if the waiter can find him a nearby table so we can . . . talk privately.”
“That sounds lovely.” It was hard to be into Andre when the much hotter and far more alive Joshua was looming over him.
I needed to want the vampire, not the were-cougar.
Andre turned and flicked his fingers at Josh, indicating that he should scram.
Josh gave a curt nod, and he retreated to a nearby table and sat with a thump, his gaze still on us.
“Better?” Andre asked.
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“I want you to be comfortable around me,” he said, his voice low and soothing, almost caressing. “I know it’s hard for some of your kind to relax around a vampire, but I assure you that I’m a man, just like every other man.”
He’s a predator. He wants to chase his prey. I gave him a slow, sensual smile and tossed my hair. “Just like every other man?”
His gaze grew hot with desire. “Not quite. There are a few . . . subtle . . . differences.”
A hot blush crossed my cheeks. “You don’t say.”
“Am I your first?” he asked softly. When my eyes widened, he chuckled and lifted my hand to kiss it. “Your first vampire, I meant.”
I wasn’t sure that was what he’d meant, and I kept my tone flirtatious. “If I say no, will you hold it against me?”
Just then, my cell phone buzzed. Text message. I pulled my hands away and fished out my phone.
Do not go there, Josh had sent. Not with this guy.
I clicked my phone off, gritting my teeth. “Sorry. I thought it might have been important, but it’s not.” Since Josh had super shifter hearing, maybe he’d get the hint.
But Andre’s flirty chuckle returned and he laid his hand back down on the table once more. Guess I’d have to put mine in his. I did, forcing away the disquiet I felt when touching his skin. It was only because Josh was so close. If he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have been nearly as bothered.
Even if I was, I’d learn to like it. I could hold a clammy hand or two in exchange for eternity.
“Another man?” Andre asked as his fingers curled over mine.
“I don’t know if I should tell you,” I said coyly, startled at how seductive I sounded. Go, me. “It’s not as if we’re exclusive, are we?”
He pressed another light kiss to my fingertips. “Perhaps we should be?”
Yes! Inside, I did a touchdown dance. Outwardly, I gave him a hint of a smile. “I’ll think about it.”
That’s right, predator. Come catch this prey.
Exclusive. With a vampire. That was one step away from having him turn me, right?
“So tell me, Minnie . . . do you like sports cars?”
“Don’t know a thing about them,” I confessed. “But I’d love to learn.”
“Would you like to see mine?” His eyes gleamed, and his wide, white smile suddenly looked a little . . . toothy?
Was this some sort of euphemism? Hey, baby, let me show you my Audi? Check out what’s under my hood?
But I was all-in when it came to this, right? And Andre was definitely interested, even though I was holding him at arm’s length. We hadn’t even kissed, and we’d had two awesome dates.
Sooner or later, he’d want to put those lips on me. I thought of his cool, almost clammy hands and shuddered at the thought of his lips feeling the same. What the hell was wrong with me? It was just body temperature.
I looked at Josh, two tables away, and glared at him. He was a big, good-looking distraction that I didn’t need.
“Why don’t you show me what you’ve got under the hood?” I found myself saying.
• • •
We drove around for about an hour, with the top down on his Audi TT sports car. Josh’s car tailed us from a discreet distance, just barely staying in sight. Andre drove out to a secluded spot, put the car in park, and put an arm over my shoulders.
I let him pull me close. I even let him kiss me. It was . . . strange. I was wildly aware of the tongue slowly thrusting into my mouth and how different the body temperature was. Andre’s fingers rested lightly on my cheek, brushing over my skin as he kissed me.
And then, something changed. Boy howdy. It was like every nerve ending jolted awake. Suddenly Andre’s kiss was the most erotic, intense thing I’d ever felt. My pulse began to pound, and I whimpered a littl
e when he nipped at my lip.
If I didn’t climb on top of him in the next two minutes, I was going to die of desire. I had to have this man between my legs so badly that I ached.
Someone knocked on the car door, and we broke apart. I tilted my head back, drugged by Andre’s kiss, and saw Joshua’s scowling face.
“We’ve had another call, Mr. Jurov. I think you should wrap up the evening.”
Andre bit out a curse in another language, then looked at me with regret. “I am afraid we will have to do this some other night, Minnie.”
“Yes,” I said in a daze.
• • •
Andre dropped me back at the restaurant, and I barely wobbled back to work an hour before the shifts were scheduled to change. I still felt flushed, overheated. Oversexed. I was pretty sure that my panties were wet. From one kiss? That was so . . . weird. I hadn’t been into it, and then bam! Instant turn-on. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a little odd, so I checked my reflection in the compact in my purse. My pupils were enormously dilated.
So strange.
• • •
By the time I got home the fog had worn off, leaving me just perplexed. It was good that I liked Andre’s kisses, right? Still, I wished that Josh hadn’t been sitting in the parking lot, watching.
Was he mad when Andre held my hand? Jealous? Or was he understanding, now that he knew why I was pursuing vampires with such determination?
I changed out of my work clothes and into flannel pajamas, sliding my feet into my slippers. Then I sat down at my puzzle and picked up a piece, my brain still on my date.
Andre wanted to be exclusive, which was incredibly encouraging. We’d made out in his car and probably would have gone further if there hadn’t been an interruption. Ten bucks said that the interruption had all been Josh’s idea.
Why did he care? I’d poured my heart out to him, and he’d flat-out ignored me for two days.
I should have been excited as hell that things were moving with the vampire.
Instead I just felt . . . confused.
My doorbell rang.
It was eight thirty in the morning; who in the hell was at my door at this hour? This was theoretically bedtime for me. I padded to the door and peered in the keyhole.
Josh stood there, big hands propped against the door frame. His face was angled away, the baseball cap masking his expression.
Uh-oh. I paused on my side of the door, thinking.
“I can hear you there, Marie. And I can smell you. You smell good, by the way.”
I blushed.
“You can’t hide from a shifter. Might as well open up and let me in.”
Damn. I opened the door and looked at him, taking in his clean-shaven face, the sexy mouth pressed into a firm line. The tense shoulders. He didn’t seem happy. Well, that made two of us.
I tilted my head. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk,” he said, and he didn’t look very pleased at the thought.
“I thought you didn’t have anything to say to me.”
He adjusted his baseball cap, a sure sign he was annoyed. “Can you just invite me in, already?”
I moved to the side, my face a careful mask. Inside, I churned with a mixture of irritation and hurt and . . . if I was being honest with myself, pleasure at seeing Josh again. “So what brings you over? Just get off work? I’m surprised the boss didn’t keep you late. You know, just in case more of those ill-timed calls came in.”
He tugged his cap off, then raked a hand through his hair, trying to judge my expression. “You mad?”
Caught red-handed. “I’m just trying to figure out your game here. It seems remarkably coincidental that you’re bodyguarding the guy that I’m seeing.”
“Not coincidental at all,” Josh said, coming closer, “considering that a friend of mine made up the threat as a favor to me. Andre called in an extra guard for the night, just in case.”
I stepped back, glaring at him. “You faked a threat just so you could shadow him on his date with me?”
“No. We just told him there was a threat. We let vampire paranoia do the rest.” He looked rather smug.
“I don’t believe you,” I said with disgust. “Is that going to happen on my next date, too? Because I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, Josh, but if he’s going to turn me, he’s going to want to do more than hold my hand.”
That familiar scowl darkened Josh’s handsome face. Was that possessiveness I saw in his eyes? I stalked across the room to put some distance between us and sat on the small love seat that was at a right angle to my couch. If he was going to talk to me he’d have to sit on the couch, because the love seat couldn’t sit more than one comfortably.
No sooner had I thought it than he was sliding next to me, his hips pushing against mine, his thigh pressed to my own. He turned his big body toward me and leaned in.
“Are you going to let him kiss you again?” There was that gleam of possessive cougar in his eyes again.
“Josh,” I said softly, “I need him to turn me. You know that.”
“Let me talk to Beau,” he said, his voice dropping. “We can tell him that I want to turn you.”
I eyed him, wary. “And then what? You go into exile with me? Because I’m pretty sure neither of us will like Greenland.”
“That won’t happen,” he said confidently.
“Don’t lie to me, Josh.”
“Fine,” he bit out, looming over me, all delicious and sexy. “Here’s the truth. I don’t like it when he kisses you. I don’t like it when he touches your hand and you smile at him. It makes me so fucking crazy that I want to drag him away from you. I want to pull you into my arms and kiss you the way you should be kissed. By a man, not by some undead guy.”
That was a lot of honesty. My breathing was faster, more shallow. He was so close that I could smell the warmth of his skin, and it was doing crazy things to me inside.
“So yes, I hate it when he touches you. I couldn’t stop myself from interrupting. And I’m not sorry. The only reason he’s still in one piece at the moment is because this is what you need, and I am trying”—he ground his teeth, then gritted out—“to be understanding.”
That was . . . sweet.
“I didn’t enjoy kissing him,” I told him.
Josh scowled. “Oh, come on, Marie. Every girl enjoys vampire kisses. Their saliva is an aphrodisiac.”
“It’s . . . what?” That explained how I’d been completely uninterested, and then it was like a switch flipped and bam, insta-lust. “Aphrodisiac?”
That sounded . . . appalling. He’d deliberately drugged me with his kiss?
Josh looked surprised. “You didn’t know?”
“Well, that explains a lot. I guess there are some rather large gaps in my supernatural education.”
I felt violated. Andre had taken me to a quiet, secluded spot knowing how I’d react to his kiss. And if Josh hadn’t stopped it, I was pretty sure there would’ve been full-on sex. I shuddered.
“Now you see why it bothers me to see you with him?” His fingers stroked a curl of my hair, brushed it behind my ear in a tender caress.
A very tender caress for a man who had ignored me for the past two days. I shoved at his chest. “You don’t get to be jealous. I poured my heart out to you and told you my secret, and you ignored me for two days.”
I couldn’t help the note of hurt that had crept into my voice. I only hoped he hadn’t noticed it. Mr. Playboy didn’t get to hurt my feelings. I was ice. That was how things were safest.
But he just kept stroking my hair, then lightly grazed the shell of my ear with his fingers. “Give a guy a break, Marie,” he said softly. “You just told me that the girl I’m crazy about is dying. And the only way to stop her from dying is to let her sleep with another man and have him turn her into a vampire. And there’s nothing I can do about it, because I understand it. But that doesn’t make me feel any less helpless.”
My gaze w
ent to his mouth, so firm and strong. His gaze was direct, and I resisted the urge to reach out and brush my fingers over those impossibly long lashes. So unfair for a man to have lashes like that. They made his eyes soft. Sultry. Delicious. His gaze sent shivers through my body. “You’re crazy about me?”
“Must be my hero complex,” he said softly. “I wish I could leave you alone and make this vampire thing easier for you. But it’s driving me nuts. All of it. You in his arms. The thought of you dying. The thought of walking away and just leaving all this to play out. I’m stuck no matter which way I turn, Marie.” His fingers trailed across my cheek, and his thumb slid to my mouth, brushing over the curve of my lower lip. “So I’d rather be stuck here with you.”
His touch felt incredible. He was here, with me. And I realized that this was his way of supporting me.
I bit at the tip of his finger when he brushed it over my lip, then released it. “So what are you going to do?” I whispered.
“Well,” he said, and his weight pressed over me on the love seat, his mouth moving ever closer to mine. He plucked my glasses off, then tossed them onto the nearby couch. His hand moved back to me, cupping my cheek and tilting my face toward his. I felt hot and flushed, in a clearer, purer way than when the vampire had touched me. This time, I felt the heat pulsing through my body, felt that delicious excitement at his touch. “Right now, I’m fighting the urge to throw you down on this love seat and fuck the hell out of you.”
That sounded way too tempting. “Why are you fighting it?”
He groaned and leaned in, pressing his mouth to my neck. “Marie, I can’t be with you without . . . putting some sort of claim on you. If you and I do this, I’m not going to be able to walk away like you want me to.”
“I don’t want you to walk away,” I said, and bit his lower lip, unable to help myself. “I never said that.”
“I don’t know what the solution is, but we’ll figure something out,” he said and nipped at my neck. The bite was flutteringly light, just a tease.
“Let’s just take it one day at a time,” I told him. “And today, I want my hands all over you.”
“Good, because mine are about to be all over you.”