Page 28 of Dear Mr. Vampire

He raised one brow in defiance. “Be honest.”

“No.” I lied again.

“Chanel.” His soothing voice was like a lie detector. One of his eyebrows rose in a menacing and sexy manner. His amber eyes started disarming me. I was caught in his gaze.Girl! Snap out of it!

They say confession is good for the soul. So, here goes. “Yeah, fine. I was avoiding you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged.Why did I do that?

“You know.” He tightened his grip on my forearm and pulled me closer to him. “Be honest.” He threatened. I smelled peppermint in his breath.Gum, mints, toothpaste, I couldn’t figure it out. Why did I care? Why did I want to stick my tongue in his mouth to taste it?

I sighed. “I don’t know how to do— that.”

“Do what?”

“You know, just have random sex.”

“I think you did it rather well.” His eyes undressed me for a brief second.

“I mean, I don’t know how to sneak out of a man’s apartment after drunken sex.”

“Huh, you weren’t drunk.”

“I had a lot to drink.”

“No, I told the bartender at The Castle to water your drinks down.”

What in the entire fuck?“Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t want you to be intoxicated if you blessed me with your body. Consent is important to me.”

My mind started spinning in circles. “So this was all some elaborate plan to get me into bed?”

“The plan didn’t have to involve a bed. We could’ve had sex anywhere.”

I tried to quash my anger. “Your plan worked.”

“Not completely. You started avoiding me.” His hooded eyes glared from under his lids. “Why? Why did you ghost me?”

“I didn’t ghost you, I told you. I don’t do that.”

“Do what? Please explain.”

“Sleep with strange men I barely know.”

Zand blinked a few times. “Do you really think I’m strange?”

I shrugged; realizing how insulting the word strange had come across. “No, I don’t think you’re strange. But it’s like you’re a stranger. We never dated or anything. We never went out.”

“Sex and dating are two different things and not synonymous.”

“Yes, of course not, especially for people like you.” I circled back to his previous words. “Wait, a, goddamn, minute. You had someone tamper with my drinks?”

“Tamper isn’t the word I would use.”

“It’s the one I would use.” I looked at his hand wrappedaround my forearm. Even my evil glare didn’t coax him into letting me go.

---