Dates from Hell(3)

Ivy watched her pale fingers as she set the phone down. Not a tremor showed. Not a hint of her rising agitation. That was how she kept them away—placid, quiet, no emotion—a skill learned while working summers at Pizza Piscary’s. She had learned it so well that only Skimmer knew who she really wanted to be, though she loved Kisten enough to show him glimpses.

Carefully removing all emotion from her face, she swiveled her chair, boot tips trailing along the faded carpet. Art was standing to take up half her doorway, with a packet of stapled paper in his long fingers. Clearly they had a run. By the amount of paperwork, it couldn’t be pressing. Probably cleanup from before she became his partner and started following behind him with her dust broom and pan.

“I’m eating,” she said, as if it wasn’t obvious. “Can it wait a friggin’ ten minutes?”

The dead vampire—at least fifty years her senior on paper, her contemporary by appearances—inclined his head in a practiced motion to convey a sly sophistication mixed with a healthy dose of sex appeal. Soft black curls fell to frame his brown eyes, holding her attention. His small, boyish features and his tight ass made him look like a member of a boy band. He had the same amount of personality, too, unless he made an effort. But God, he smelled good, his aroma mixing with hers to set in play a series of chemical reactions that whipped her blood and sexual libido high. “I’ll wait,” he said, smiling.

Oh joy. He’d wait. Art’s practiced voice sent a trail of anticipation down her back to settle at the base of her spine. Damn it all to hell, he was hungry. Or maybe he was bored. He’d wait. He’d been waiting six months, learning the best way to manipulate her. And she knew she’d more than enjoy herself if she let him.

Bloodlust in living vampires was tied to their sex drive, an evolutionary adaptation helping ensure an undead vampire would have a willing blood supply to keep him or her sane. Being “bidden for blood” imparted a sexual high; the older and more experienced the vampire, the better the rush, the ultimate, of course, being blood-bidden by a powerful undead undead.

Art had been dead for four decades, having passed the tricky thirty-year ceiling where most undead vampires failed to keep themselves mentally intact and walked into the sun. Why Art was still working was a mystery. He must need the money since he certainly wasn’t good at his job.

The vampire breathed deeply as he stood on her threshold, pulling in her mood the way she inhaled a rare fragrance. Sensing her rising agitation, Art rocked into motion, rounding her desk and easing himself down in her leather office chair in the corner. Her face blanked as her pulse quickened. Art was the only person to ever sit there. Most people respected her attempts to avoid office friendships—if her sharp sarcasm and outright ignoring them weren’t enough. But then, Art didn’t like her for her personality but for the reputation he had yet to get a taste of.

Eyes on her immaculate desk, Ivy exhaled. He was dead, and she was alive. They were both vampires driven by blood: she sexually, he for survival. A match made in heaven—or hell.

Art reclined, smiling, with his long legs crossed and an ankle on one knee, managing to look powerful and relaxed at the same time. He brushed his hair back, trailing his fingers suggestively across his face kept at a clean-shaven tidiness as he tried to blend in with the younger crowd who would be more receptive to what he offered.

A shiver of anticipation rose through her. It didn’t make any difference that it came from Art pumping the air full of pheromones rather than true interest. The desire to satiate herself was as much a part of her as breathing. Inescapable. Why not get it over with? The gossip was because she was resisting, not because it was expected. And that was why he sat there in his expensive slacks and shirt with his two-hundred-dollar shoes and that confident bad-boy smile. The dead could afford to be patient.

“Tying off some of your loose ends?” she said dryly, glancing at the packet of papers and leaning back. She wanted to cross her arms over her chest, but instead put her boot heels up on the corner of her desk. Confident. She was in control of herself and her desires. Art could turn her into a pliant supplicant if he bespelled her, but that was cheating, and he would lose more than face, he’d lose the respect of every vamp in the tower. He had to bid for her blood. Playing on her bloodlust was expected, but bespelling her would piss Piscary off. She wasn’t a human to be taken advantage of and the paperwork “adjusted.” She was the last living Tamwood vampire, and that demanded respect, especially from him.

“Homicide,” he said, his teeth a white flash against his dark skin that hadn’t seen the sun in decades. “We can get there before the photographer if you’re done with your…lunch.”