Her glare at his still-bare chest let him know that she wanted to add, Where is your shirt? Hmm, maybe he could read her mind and could get rid of her that way.
Ronan concentrated on Sierra, taking in everything about her, from her shoulder-length auburn hair to her green eyes to her great breasts. She had a cute nose and a stubborn chin. She grabbed her documents from Damon’s hands with slim fingers.
Ronan wondered if she’d be so confrontational if she knew she was facing a pair of vampires.
Reminding himself that he was supposed to be trying to read her mind, he refocused his attention. She was angry. She was tired. She was concentrating on the papers and then looking over his shoulder. What was she looking at?
He turned but saw nothing there. He turned back to Sierra. She was wearing a black leather jacket, black pants, a lime-green top that hugged her breasts, and a pair of gold Claddagh earrings. With her coloring, the auburn hair, pale skin, green eyes, he figured her heritage was Irish. So was his. But she was a mere human while he was not.
Ronan breathed her in. All his senses were powerfully heightened to vampire strength. Her scent was tantalizing. He could hear her pulse swishing through her body. He focused on the slight quiver of her carotid artery in her neck.
As an indentured vampire, Ronan had had to kill more humans than he wanted. But that was over. He’d worked hard to develop his vampire self-control. That didn’t mean he wasn’t tempted, not only by her artery but also by her curvy body. His afterlife would be much simpler if she’d just obeyed his compulsion.
He didn’t sense anything different about her compared to other women he’d come in contact with over the decades. Mind reading was a talent he’d developed over time but even that skill was difficult where she was concerned. It was as if he were trying to tune in to a radio station and getting very bad reception with a lot of static.
Instead of the normal clear reading he was accustomed to getting, he could only pick up a few bits of strange thoughts in her head. Deadlines, iceberg images, a woman in a corset. Whoa. Where had that last one come from? Maybe he’d mistaken Sierra’s earlier appreciative looks at his body. Maybe that wasn’t her thing. Maybe women in corsets were her thing.
Not that it mattered. Sierra’s sexual orientation was irrelevant. She had to go and she had to go now. Ronan needed the house to himself. This was his family’s home and therefore it was his if he wanted it, according to Vampire law. And he wanted it. Badly. The secret to saving his sister’s soul was somewhere in this house.
Besides, the house was located smack-dab in the middle of Vamptown, a Chicago neighborhood inhabited mostly by vampires. This was no place for a human woman, even if she was one with courage and a surprisingly strong stubborn streak.
“She has to go,” Ronan told Damon.
Nodding, Damon stepped closer to Sierra and looked into her eyes. “You need to leave.”
“No way!” She narrowed her eyes, her increasing anger and frustration very evident. “I don’t think you are being an impartial person in this situation. In fact, I want your badge number so I can report you to your superior.”
Frowning, Damon looked at Ronan. His message was clear. Damon hadn’t had any better luck compelling her than Ronan had. Which, on the one hand, made Ronan feel like he wasn’t incapable after all. But on the other hand, it meant they were stuck with her for now.
“You two work it out,” Damon abruptly told them before turning on his heel to walk out.
As head of security in Vamptown, Damon was no doubt going to check out every detail about Sierra Brennan. Meanwhile, Ronan had a situation to handle.
“What kind of cop are you?” Sierra shouted after Damon.
“He’s the kind with fangs,” Ronan drawled sarcastically. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
Chapter Two
Fangs? Sierra didn’t like the sound of that. Did Ronan somehow know that she wrote paranormal books? Her books only featured ghosts, not vampires, but maybe he didn’t know that.
“Hey, I was only kidding about the fang thing,” Ronan said. “Can’t you take a joke?”
“No,” Sierra said. “And I also can’t take you trespassing in my house. Even the cop said I own the house. You can stay in the backyard perhaps.”
“It’s February.”
“Tough tinsel,” she said curtly.
“Is that supposed to be a Christmas joke?”
She lifted her chin and stared him straight in the eyes. “Can’t you take a joke?”
“Sure. What I can’t take is camping in the cold.”
“Tough tin—”
Ronan clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shh. Did you hear that?”