Page 57 of Bad Luck Vampire

Seeing that she was awake, Alasdair had announced that he would call and rent a car for their journey to Niagara Falls, but then she’d stood and crossed the room to him. His gaze had slid hot over her naked body and then he’d met her halfway and taken her into his arms. Neither of them had thought about Niagara Falls since.

Until now, and it was well past dinnertime. They hadn’t had lunch, which was probably the only reason she’d left the bedroom. She’d woken up too hungry to even consider waking up Alasdair for another round. Besides, she was actually getting sore. Really sore. Her poor body wasn’t used to so much pleasure. She now understood what Bobby had meant by chafing and thought a break would be good.

“I don’t mind,” Sophie told him. “We can always go another time. Besides, it would have been a waste of money at this point.”

“Why?” he asked with surprise.

“I doubt we would have made it out of the room to see any of those things you mentioned, the theater and whatnot,” she pointed out. “And if that’s the case, staying here and enjoying each other is just as good and costs us nothing.”

“We would not have stayed in the room,” Alasdair assured her, moving to the sink to get a glass of water.

“No?” Sophie asked dubiously. It seemed to her they had trouble keeping their hands off each other. She couldn’t imagine it would have been any different in Niagara Falls.

“I had plans to wine and dine you, and show you the sights,” Alasdair announced, turning to lean against the counter with his water.

“Yeah?” she asked, glancing over with a smile.

Alasdair nodded. “I was hoping it would give us a chance to talk and get to know each other better if we were somewhere we couldn’t...” His gaze slid down her body in the red silk robe she was wearing and his mouth quirked up in a crooked smile. “Where you could not distract me with your luscious body.”

“Hey, you’re pretty distracting yourself, so don’t blame me for the problem we have keeping our hands off each other,” Sophie said lightly, deliberately avoiding the subject of his desire for them to talk and get to know each other better. That idea made her extremely uncomfortable. That suggested a relationship, and Sophie had sworn off those after the death of her last fiancé. Dating and having fun was fine, but she didn’t expect or want anything deeper than that. Maybe.

Scowling at her own thoughts, she asked, “How do you like your steak?”

“Rare,” he answered at once, and then asked, “What was life like in the group home?”

Sophie stiffened briefly, but then decided she could answer that without getting too personal, so told him, “Pretty grim.”

“How so?” Alasdair asked.

The scrape of a barstool across the tile floor had her glancing around to see that he’d sat down at one of the chairs at the island and was even now pulling the cutting board and vegetables she’d set there in front of himself. When he picked up the knife lying there and began to slice up the cucumber she’d intended to use as part of the salad, she turned back to the stove.

It was another minute before Sophie answered him. “I don’t know what most group homes are like, but the one I was at was a big, old house. It was kind of a spooky place and all the kids swore it was haunted.” She chuckled faintly at the memory.

“Was it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Only by the caregivers who were supposed to look after us.”

“What were they like?” Alasdair asked.

Sophie’s mouth tightened as she thought back to those days. “Most of them were okay. They were nice and really wanted to help us, I think,” she admitted. “But there were a couple of others who were just bullies. They’d yell and verbally abuse the kids over nothing. We all knew they were just trying to push someone to react physically by either shoving or striking out at them. But we also knew that if that happened there’d be hell to pay.”

“How?”

Sophie turned the steaks over. “Staff was allowed to restrain the kids if they got physical, but the bullies did more than that. They’d punch and choke them and call it restraining.”

“Did that ever happen to you?” Alasdair asked, his voice concerned.

“Oh, heck no. The bullies usually went after the boys, not us girls,” she told him. “We girls didn’t have to worry much about them, just the perverts.”

“The perverts?” Alasdair asked, sounding shocked.

Sophie gave him an amused smile over her shoulder. “You’re surprised that predators would tend toward jobs where vulnerable children were easily accessible?”

Seeing the concern that filled his face, she returned her attention to the steaks and said, “One of the pervs took an interest in me. But I got lucky.”

“How so?” Alasdair asked, his voice sounding grim.

“When I first moved there, I was given a room with a girl my age named Beverly.” Sophie smiled at the memory. “She was a sweetheart. We became best friends pretty quickly and she warned me about the two pervs on staff, Chester the Molester and Sicko Steve,” she said, recalling the nicknames the kids had given the two men. Shaking her head, she continued, “Beverly told me never, under any circumstances, to allow them to get me alone.

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