“Again?”
“Again?” she mocked, fiddling with a colored pen until she realized it telegraphed her mood and set it down with a sharp tap. “God, Kisten. You make it sound like it’s every night.”
Kisten sighed. “Leave the paperwork for tomorrow, love. I don’t know why you bust your ass so hard. You’re not moving up until you let Artie the Smarty go down on you.”
“Is that so,” she said, feeling her face warm and the chili on her tongue go flat. Tossing her plate to her desk, she forced herself to remain reclining with her booted feet spread wide when what she wanted to do was hit someone. Martial arts meditation had kept her out of civil court until now; self-control was how she defined herself.
“You knew the system when you hired in,” he coaxed, and Ivy tugged the sleeves to her skintight black pullover from her elbows to her wrists to hide her faint scars. She could feel Art crossing the room, and adrenaline tickled the pit of her stomach. It was a run, she told herself, but she knew Art was the reason for the stir in her, not the chance to get out of the office.
“Why do you think I wanted to work with Piscary instead of the I.S.?” Kisten was saying, words she had heard too many times before. “Give him what he wants. I don’t care.” He laughed. “Hell, it might be nice having you come home wanting to watch a movie instead of ready to drain me.”
Reaching to her desk, she finished her water, wiping the corner of her mouth with a careful pinky. She had known the politics—hell, she had grown up in them—but that didn’t mean she had to like the society she was forced to work within. She had watched it end her mother’s life, watched it now eat her father away, killing him little by little. It was the only path open to her. And she was good at it. Very good at it. That’s what bothered her the most.
She stiffened when Art fixed his brown eyes to the back of her neck. Undead vamps had been looking at her since she had turned fourteen; she knew the feeling. “I thought you stuck with Piscary because of his dental plan,” she said sarcastically. “His dentals in your neck.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny,” Kisten said, his good humor doing nothing to ease her agitation.
“I like what I do,” she said, putting a hand up against the knock on her open door. She didn’t turn, smelling the stimulating, erotic scent of undead vampire in her doorway. “I’m damn good at it,” she added to remind Art she was the reason they had pulled his murder-solved ratio up the last six months. “At least I’m not delivering pizzas for a living.”
“Ivy, that’s not fair.”
It was a low blow, but Art was watching her, and that would unnerve anyone. After six months of working with her, he had picked up on all her idiosyncrasies, learning by reading her pulse and breathing patterns exactly what would set her rush flowing. He had been using the information to his advantage lately, making her life hell. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive—God, they all were—but he had been working the same desk for over thirty years. His lack of ambition didn’t make her eager to jump his jugular, and being coaxed into something by way of her instincts when her thoughts said no left a bad taste in her mouth.
Even worse, she had realized after the first time she had come home hungering for blood and finding Piscary waiting for her that the master vampire had probably arranged the partnership knowing she’d resist—and Art would insist—the end result being she’d be hungry for a little decompression when she got home. The sad thing was she wasn’t sure if she was resisting Art because she didn’t like him or because she got off on the anticipation of not knowing if it would be Piscary, Kisten, or both that she’d be calming herself with.
But her weakness was no reason to bark at Kisten. “Sorry,” she said into the hurt silence.
Kisten’s voice was soft, forgiving, since he knew Art was playing hard on her. “You gotta go, love?” he asked in that lame accent. Who was he trying to be, anyway?
“Yeah.” Kisten was silent, and she added, “See you tonight,” that curious tightening in her throat and the need to physically touch someone settling more firmly inside her. It was the first stage of a full-blown bloodlust, and whether it stemmed from Kisten or Art didn’t matter. Art would be the one trying to capitalize on it.
“Bye,” Kisten replied tightly, and the phone clicked off. He said it didn’t bother him, but he was alive as she was, with the same emotions and jealousy they all had. That he was so understanding of the choices she had to make made it even worse. She often felt they were like children in a warped family where love had been perverted by sex, and the easiest way to survive was to submit. Her invisible manacles had been created by her very cells and hardened by manipulation. And she didn’t know if she would remove them if she could.