Page 4 of Don't Bite The Boss
“I’d know,” he grins as he unbuttons his jacket and sinks down into the leather couch, his long legs stretched towards the coffee table, “I do it all the time when I’m sailing.”
I say nothing as he leans forward and shrugs off his jacket, casually throwing it across one arm of the couch and sending a puff of his cologne and the faint scent of his sweat and blood in my direction. All my muscles tense in a savage and primitive dual response; I crave his bloodandhis body.
“Don’t even think about it,” he grins, “I’ve still got the vest on under my shirt.”
“I wasn’t thinking about it,” I mutter.
‘Lies.’
“Sure,” he smirks and shakes his head. “I wasn’t sure Christopher was in his right mind when he first told me about your kind,” he stares at me, his eyes full of interest. “I mean, I knew the world was a strange, strange place. But experiencing how strong you were when you grabbed me in your office and seeing the size of the bruise your bite left on my shoulder, even though your fangs didn’t penetrate my vest,” he shakes his head again, “amazing.”
“Thank you,” I mutter, reaching for my bottle of water and curling my legs back underneath me. I’m wearing my habitual khaki camouflage pants with a black long-sleeved shirt and maroon Doc Martens. It’s what I usually wear both in the office and out in the gardens. I am no Charlotte when it comes to clothes, with her feminine prints and flowing dresses, and no Serena with her sexy little suits. No Tess either, if it came to that matter, with her slightly hippy, mumsy fashions. I dress for work, for potential battle, in the field and out, and for comfort. I figure now, as I sit cross-legged on his jet, that there is no point in trying to act unnaturally ladylike or even professional; that ship has sailed.
“Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” he asks, his voice deep and smooth, his chocolate eyes sparkling with curiosity.
I shrug. “I guess there are no secrets anymore. Christopher obviously doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut; another reason he won’t see another birthday.”
His twin frowns. “On the contrary, I know Chris would never tell anyone about Serena, or you and your kind,”
“He told you,” I snort.
“We share everything,” he says simply, keeping his eyes on mine, “and let’s not forget my niece is now also a vampire – he could hardly keep that from me.”
I ignore his reference to the little teenage monster he and his brother obviously love so much, and wonder, idly, how he manages to hold my gaze. Most men flinch from our stare. His eyes, I notice, are the same colour as his dickhead brother’s and yet, there is something else. They don’t seem as hard, there is merriment behind them, a little softness that his brother doesn’t have, perhaps never had. Still, it’s not his eyes I’m drawn to.
“Well then, you can share a cemetery plot,” I mutter, “because Christopher is playing a deadly game, a game he can’t win, not only by revealing our existence but in thinking he can out-gun our enemies. Serena is a fool for marrying him, but he is an even bigger fool for wanting to stay human now that they are married.”
“Perhaps,” he shrugs, “but by the sounds of it, Serena is more than capable of protecting herself, and him. And he has specialists working on a range of weapons and defences, now that he knows what he’s up against.”
“He has no idea,” I shake my head, but he has piqued my interest, “what kind of weapons?”
“Like my vest,” he shrugs “and other things.”
I think over all I have experienced at the hands of our enemy, Solomon. His strength, his cunning, his total and complete lack of mercy or any other human emotion. From the moment he had captured me from the backstreets of the London slums where I had plied my trade as a flower girl, all those centuries past, I had experienced nothing but pain and degradation at his hands. And I had soon learned there were some fates worse than death.
If Solomon wants us back, and we now know that he does, no force on Earth, no human force, will be able to stop him.
It’s only a matter of time.
“In the end, it won’t work. They need to run,”
I close my eyes momentarily, unconsciously pushing my hand to my mouth to try to hide where my fangs have run out as his scent drifts across to me in the close confines of the cabin, and the jet takes off.
“Is that why you are here?” he asks, leaning close to study my expression, dangerously close.
“I came because you hired me,” I grit out between clenched teeth, turning back to the window to try and control my urges.
“Are your fangs out?” he murmurs.
I nod.
“Am I especially nice-smelling to you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I mutter, turning back to him.
I decide not to tell him that, yes, he is totally irresistible to me, an individual that we vampires are attracted to so thoroughly in every way that it is almost impossible not to ravish them. But the guilt, the terrible guilt we feel after we do, is something we never forget. Fortunately, for the human, the call is as unique between Irresistible and vampire as a fingerprint. Only one vampire will be drawn uncontrollably to that person, and such people are rare. Consequently, the Irresistible may live their whole life and never cross paths with their destined vampire. And a vampire might go centuries without stumbling upon anyone they find irresistible.
But he was the second I’d come across – and I hoped to hell he didn’t end up the way the first one had.
