Page 35 of Deadly Cravings

An invisible, hyper-sexual vampire almost killed my boss, and I was all a-flutter over him. I scoffed, shaking my head down at a blank notepad. The pen tip dug into the paper, and I forced my fingers to relax. The phone had stopped ringing, which was fortunate because if I’d answered, I would have been panting.

Helping here was supposed to keep me away from my mercurial neighbors, but if Asher hovered around, that would defeat the purpose.

A poke in the middle of my back made me jerk to the side and the pen skidded across the desk. A big black mark scratched across the page. I whirled to no one there. I could imagine the smirk he had though.

Annoying vampire kept pressing my buttons. He was lucky I wasn’t stabbing this pen into his eye. I scowled at the empty air behind me and dropped into the rolling chair. Fingertips grazed my shoulder, pressing into the tight muscle.

“How long are you hanging around?” I tried to not move my lips with the query.

“Whenever you’re ready I’ll hitch a ride with you.”

I scoffed. “Have you dismissed whoever you had ‘keeping an eye one me’?”

“It’s for your safety.” Whatever he was selling, I wasn’t buying. Honestly, I doubt he believed it himself with the humor seeped in his voice. ‘Friendly neighborhood vampire’ my left toe. This was all about control and keeping me under their thumb.

The ridiculousness of the situation shot me into a laughing fit. This was not my life right now.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel though. They needed me to help them find their vampire friend. That descriptor sounded off. Did vampires evenhavefriends?

“Tell me about Ren,” I burst out, sounding slightly crazed.

His hand settled on my neck, thumbs pressed into my muscles again, and I melted into the seat as he kneaded. I bit back my whimper. He was so confusing. On one side, he seemed flippant and almost considerate, but on the other was the vampire that had forced me to the desk to shove his fingers into my pussy.

“Ren is a bit of a dick?—”

“Like Jax?”

Asher chuckled. “A different way than Jax. Ren is calculated, you’d think he’d learn with all those centuries under him . . .” He clicked his tongue disapprovingly

“Centuries...” My lips felt numb. “How old is he?”

“He was turned in the mid seventeen hundreds at thirty-five.”

“Holy shit—” I coughed into my fist. Right. Vampires—Immortality and all that jazz. “And the rest of you?”

“Tobias and Bastien are the oldest.” Tobias looked to be around my age, twenty-six, but Asher mentioned Tobias being a priest in the sixteenth century.

“Tobias looks young.” I said it more to myself than to him.

“He was turned while he was younger.” Well, that made sense. “Jax and I are the youngest born seventeen-eighty-two and turned when we were thirty-one.” Those were a lot of ancient numbers. He’d also mentioned another name.

“Who is Bastien?”

“You don’t need to worry about him.”

“There’s a lot of people I don’t need to worry about, huh,” I muttered.

I read between the lines he was skirting. Like he told me to not worry about the woman they were with too. “Why are you answering all my questions? Because I won’t live long or because I’ll be a blood-whore?”

“Who taught you this phrase?” His fingers twitched against my shoulder. I hated how his voice conveyed he didn’t take anything I said seriously.

“Unless that’s been your plan all along.” I said through gritted teeth. Well, jokes on him, I was already a blood-whore.

His ministrations paused for a beat before resuming. “Would it be such a bad thing to be my blood-whore?” Every cell in my body froze. I couldn’t breathe anymore.

The rubbing on my shoulders paused again. “Just playing with you, Pet.” He chuckled and his sweet breath brushed against my cheek. “I will keep you nice and safe.” There was that vow again that made my entire body clench with longing. His sweet breath caressed my ear, enflaming lust through my senses. “After all, I want to savor fucking you.”

“Oh.” It came out as a breathy sigh. His lips pressed into my cheek. I couldn’t trust what he said as much as I ached to,so I would continue with planning my escape from this vampire infested town.

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