Real Vampires Live Large

Page 26

“My relationship with Blade is not up for discussion.” I couldn’t blame Damian for his attitude. He and I had come this close to hooking up. Then Blade had managed to kill the mood. “He only wants to keep me safe.”
“I could keep you safe.” Damian whispered it next to my ear, his breath sending shivers down to the general area of my G-spot. Which I knew well. Hey, it was in the book.
“Good to know.” I stuck the steak in the microwave, setting it for defrost. “But I do handle my own affairs. My canine companions are backup.”
“Backup, my ass.” Valdez had muttered it, but he’d known I would hear. I gave him a look that promised retribution.
“Shut up, Yankee-Doodle. When she’s pissed, she might throw down a bowl of Alpo.” Will wagged his tail. “You can handle yourself, Glory. We saw it. That Kaplan creep was quaking in his boots.”
“Dangerous women fascinate me.” Damian rubbed my shoulders.
I thought about fascinating him with an elbow to his stomach, but he ’d probably take it as foreplay. Instead, I stared at the microwave until it dinged, then threw the steaks into a pan and turned up the heat.
“About the EVs. Apparently I have lots of power, stored power.”
“Of course you have lots of power. The way you refuse to shape-shift, and the way you”—Damian glanced at the dogs—“let others fight your battles for you. Your power is just sitting there, waiting to be tapped. ” He ran his finger up my arm, under my sleeve. “The EVs would turn it into something they could profit from. Why not use it yourself?” He leaned close again. “Ever made love on a cloud?”
“Who hasn’t?” I flipped the steaks and frowned down at them. If I stabbed Damian with the fork, he’d bleed. More foreplay in the vamp world. I know, we’re twisted. But— what can I say?—blood does it for us.
“Rare, Glory. Turn off the fire.” Will pressed against my leg. The fact that he’d pushed my tie-dyed skirt up almost to my waist wasn’t lost on Damian.
“Step away from the stove, all of you.”
Damian just shook his head. “What next? Takeout from a five star restaurant?”
“Good idea, Sabatini. Give Glory the phone number. I’ve got a craving for Italian. Comes from being around Florence all the time.” Valdez was pressing me on the other side and I had to shove him away to reach for a knife. I dropped each steak on a plate.
“They’re not even. I just bet Valdez gets the biggest piece. ” Will had his front paws on the counter. “You never did like me, Glory. Not since I grabbed your tit at Campbell Castle.”
I shoved him down and picked up a knife and fork. “Thanks for reminding me. You know I never did tell Blade about that. What do you think he’d do if he knew how you’d disrespected me?”
“What the hell do you mean you grabbed her tit? ” Damian was clearly appalled. Otherwise he would never have deigned to speak to a dog directly.
“She was an actress, man. You remember what that meant a few centuries ago? I apologized. Done deal.”
“Valdez, you’ve hit the jackpot.” I deliberately trimmed an inch from Will’s portion and dropped it on Valdez’s plate.
“No!” Will threw back his head and howled.
“Fair is fair.” Valdez wagged his tail. “I’d never grab any part of you, Glory, unless it was to save your life.”
Damian frowned. “Blade has much to answer for, saddling you with this . . . menagerie.”
I dropped a bite into Valdez’s open mouth. “This one saved my life and Flo’s not long ago.” I finished cutting the steaks into bite-sized pieces and set the plates on the floor, a good three feet between them. “Eat. I’m running out of time. I need to relieve Lacy in the shop.”
“You really do spoil the beasts.” Damian frowned at the dogs. “But I guess they do have their uses.”
“Damn right they do.” I patted them both on the head, but they were too busy inhaling steak to notice. “I guess it’s some latent mothering instinct, but I don’t mind doing for them.”
“Regrets, Glory?” Damian put his arm around my shoulder and guided me into the living room. “I know I’ve only planted one kind of fantasy in your mind, but if you ’ve got a notion to play housefrau, I’m up for it.” He turned me to look into my eyes, his hands warm on the back of my neck.
I couldn’t help it. I looked south. Yep, Damian was up for anything.
“Picture this, Glory. I’m Joe Ordinary, coming home from a hard day at the blood bank, and you’ve just put little Fang down for his nap.” His finger gently stroked the sensitive area behind my ear.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Damian was way too good at the whammy. And I was way too good at jumping right into his fantasies. But then he was a multitalented seducer. The husky voice, the practiced slide of his fingers into my hair. I felt him lean closer and suck my right earlobe into his mouth.
“Stop it, Damian. And don’t swallow my earring. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Come on, Gloriana. Relax. I’m just getting to the good part.” He plucked out the earring and tucked it into my hand, the hand which had somehow landed on his nice wide, way too masculine chest.
Okay, this is the part where I should have shoved him away and called a halt. But Damian is nothing if not inventive. So I just stood there, silent, a safe three or four inches between us. Except for his lips on my earlobe. Was he reading my mind through my block? I admit my ears are one of my hot spots.
He took my silence as consent and drew me another inch closer. “You greet me at the door, Gloriana, wearing nothing but an apron. One of those sheer things. And high heels of course. Italian stilettos. ” He hummed and slid his tongue down to the pulse point in my throat. I braced myself. If he so much as touched a fang to me, I was shoving him through the wall and into the next room.
“Gloriana,” he whispered. “I’m so stunned by your beauty that I drop my car keys. You bend over to pick them up and—”
“Stop it. Right. Now.” My face hot, I gripped my self-control like it was the last life jacket on the Titanic. At least his mention of stilettos had put me back on the Flo track. I shoved, though not nearly as hard as I could have. I put the sofa between us and pushed my vintage silver earring back into my earlobe.
“I got to you. I know I did.” Damian stuck his hands in his pockets again, making it clear that I’d gotten to him too.
“Remember why you’re here, Damian. This could be serious. What about the EVs? And why do I think maybe Flo ’s new boyfriend is connected to them somehow?”
Damian’s brows hit his hair line. “Do you know this? That Florence is sleeping with an EV?”
“Not for sure. But I’m pretty positive she’s been hitting the Vamp Viagra.” I sat on the couch. “You should have seen the look on her face when she was telling about that stuff.” I looked up at Damian. “Have you tried it? Do you think it’s addictive?”
“I certainly don’t need to try it. But I have. A woman I knew was into it. And I’ll admit it. I’ll try anything once. Okay, twice.”
Damian waggled his eyebrows, then collapsed on the couch next to me. “This woman was wealthy, beautiful, of course, and she couldn’t make love without it. She was addicted. Not me, of course.” He tapped his fingers on his dark jeans. “I won’t lie to you. The sex was fantastic and lasted for hours.” He looked at me. “But I like being in control, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” I could have launched into a litany of reasons why Damian’s mind control bits had hurt me, yada, yada, but he was on to something. “I wouldn’t like that. Losing control.”
“I did things, felt things. Pleasure, of course. Incredible, endless gratification. ” Damian smiled. “Now that I remember, maybe I’ve been hasty. We could try it together, Gloriana. ”
“I don’t want any part of it.”
Damian shrugged. “I had to give it a shot. I wasn’t serious anyway. That Vamp Viagra. It messes with your mind. I couldn’t stop when I wanted to. Couldn’t slow down and think.”
“Thinking is highly overrated. Especially if you’re getting great sex.” Will had emerged from the kitchen licking his lips. “I’d try that Vampire Viagra in a heartbeat.”
“So says a man who lives and acts like a dog.” Damian’s lip curled. He turned his back on Will. “Now you’ve got me worried about my sister. She’s too easily persuaded to take chances. It comes with having lived so long and so well. Florence is always looking for the next big thing.”
“Aren’t we all? But Flo’s usually satisfied with a shoe sale. This is different.” I squeezed Damian’s hand. One thing I liked about him was his family loyalty. I didn’t have a family. But then, even when they were alive, my parents had ignored me, ashamed of my lifestyle. The whole “actresses are sluts and whores” thing. I’d gotten over it, but sometimes I wished . . . Nope, I wasn’t going to start a pity party.
“What should we do? Where do these EVs live? Should we go see them?” I didn’t want to, but if Flo was in danger . . . Hey, she was my family. All my close vamp friends were. I glanced at Damian. Yeah, even Casanova.
“That’s what they want, Glory. For you to hand yourself over to them. Kaplan told you that. You ain’t going within miles of their hideout. Even if we could find it.” Valdez stretched and ambled over to collapse at my feet, pretending like he hadn’t just waved a red flag at this bull. I gave him a look he couldn’t misinterpret.
“The dog has a point. They are drug dealers. Vicious drug dealers. They keep a low profile or I would have already known they were in the area.” Damian looked scarily serious. “I’m sure they have plenty of customers, though. But I’m sure they screen those carefully. This Vampire Viagra isn’t something you can buy on a street corner. Unless things have changed, they control the production and distribution with an iron fist.”