Page 42 of Bad Luck Vampire

She’d take her blouse off and pull that on, Sophie decided. But not until Alasdair returned. That thought had barely made it through her mind when the chime made her look toward the door to see Alasdair returning.

“There was no one out there,” he said as he locked the door. “But I heard a vehicle engine starting up when I looked out the break room window. They must have pulled out before I got to the door.” He raised his eyebrows in question. “Could it have been Megan coming back for something?”

Sophie shook her head. “I only caught a glimpse, but I’m pretty sure it was a man.” Turning, she headed toward the hall before saying, “It could have been Bobby dropping by to check on me. Or Papa, Mr. Tomlinson,” she corrected herself. She’d trained herself never to call George Tomlinson “Papa” in the office. Just as Megan and Bobby avoided calling him Dad or Father here. It was an effort they all made to try to be professional. “They often check on me when they know I’m working late.”

“Do they often park and look in the windows before coming in?” Alasdair asked dubiously.

“No,” Sophie admitted, but then changed the subject and said, “I don’t have any spare clothes to change into here so I’d say my working late is done for tonight.” Pausing as she reached her office door, she glanced back to ask, “Would you like to take the pizza and stuff to my place to finish up?”

Even from that distance she could have sworn his eyes began to glow golden as his gaze swept down her body in a caress she could almost feel. “Yes.”

His voice was gravel, smoke, and full of promise. It sent a fine shiver through Sophie that had her swallowing as she nodded. Her own voice was husky and a little breathless when she said, “I’ll grab my purse then and come back to help gather the food.”

She ducked into her office then and stripped off her blouse as she crossed the room. Pretty sure it couldn’t be saved, Sophie dumped it in her garbage can, and grabbed her sweater off the back of her chair to pull on. It was a knee length kimono-style sweater without buttons, but she found a pin in her desk drawer that she placed at the level of her bra bottom. It left a lot of cleavage on display and the bottom flowed out to the sides as she walked, leaving a lot of stomach on show as well, but Sophie didn’t care. She doubted she’d be wearing it long anyway.

Alasdair already had almost everything cleaned up and packed away when she got to the break room. He was just downing the last of his soda when she entered. He then quickly rinsed the glass and set it next to her own already in the draining rack, and they began to gather up all the food he’d packed away. Everything but the shrimp, she noticed. He must have gobbled that up while he’d cleaned too, she thought, and was kind of glad. Sophie disliked it enough that she didn’t even really want it in her refrigerator at home.

They were quick about turning off the lights and locking up, then Sophie helped Alasdair load the pizzas and everything into his SUV before hurrying to her own car. She was starting the engine before it occurred to her that she hadn’t thought to tell him her address. With that in mind, she kept an eye out as she drove, to be sure she didn’t lose Alasdair, who was following her.

Once at her apartment building, Sophie waved Alasdair to the drive around in front of the entrance, and then drove down into the underground parking to her designated spot. By the time she parked, retrieved the foldable shopping trolley she used for groceries from her trunk, and took the elevator up to the ground floor, Alasdair was waiting at the door with the bags she’d found at work for the pops and appetizers.

“I’ll bring the pizzas,” he said as he helped her load the bags into the trolley so that the containers holding the salads and appetizers wouldn’t get crushed.

“Don’t be silly. I can set the pizzas on top and you won’t have to carry anything,” Sophie insisted as she straightened from arranging the bags.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Positive. That way if you can’t find a parking spot close by, you aren’t having to cart the pizzas a long distance,” she added.

After a hesitation, Alasdair nodded and then hurried back to his SUV for the pizzas.

“Just buzz once you get back and I’ll let you in,” Sophie told him as she unlocked and opened the glass door to the lobby.

Nodding, Alasdair watched until she had crossed to the elevator and pressed the button. Fortunately, one of the elevators was on the ground floor and the door opened at once. Sophie steered her trolley onto it and then pushed the button for her floor and waved at him as the elevator doors closed.

Alasdair got back into the SUV he’d borrowed from work, and then winced and rubbed his stomach. While he’d enjoyed the pizza when he’d eaten it, it wasn’t sitting well. He’d started having sharp pains shortly after leaving Sophie’s workplace and they were getting worse by the minute.

Or maybe it was the shrimp, Alasdair thought as he shifted the SUV into gear. In the end, he’d had more shrimp than pizza. He’d kept popping the little morsels into his mouth as he’d worked to clean up their mess in the break room, and had ended up eating the lot of them. Alasdair had heard that seafood could go bad quickly if not kept refrigerated and by his guess there had been more than an hour between when he’d picked up the food and when they’d finally sat down to eat in the break room. Who knew how long it had been done and waiting at the restaurant for him to pick up before that.

It would be better if it was the shrimp, since Sophie hadn’t had any, he thought grimly as he stopped his vehicle at the end of the curved driveway to eye traffic. There wasn’t much at that hour, but there was a car across the street just pulling out of a parking space and driving away.

“Damn, some good luck for a change,” he murmured under his breath, and quickly pulled out onto the road to claim the spot. It was as he got out of the SUV moments later that the pain in his stomach went from a growing ache to a stabbing pain. It was bad enough that it had him stopping abruptly beside the vehicle and hunching forward, both hands moving to his stomach. It felt like someone had stabbed him.

Definitely bad shrimp, Alasdair thought grimly, and staggered around to the back of the SUV, intending to grab a couple of bags of blood to help his body deal with the issue it was having. One minute he was opening the back of the SUV to access the blood cooler, and the next he was on his knees between his vehicle and the one behind it, tossing up his stomach’s contents onto the pavement. He’d heard the term projectile vomiting before, but never experienced it until now. It was painful and nasty, made worse by the volume of blood accompanying the ejection of food from his body.

There was a lot of blood. In fact, once the food was gone, he kept vomiting up blood for several minutes before it finally stopped, but then he felt much better. At least, his stomach felt better. The pain was gone, he just felt dried out and a little crampy everywhere. He needed to top up on blood to make up for what he’d lost, Alasdair realized as he slowly got back to his feet.

Turning to the open back of the SUV, he climbed inside and pulled the door closed. He didn’t need anyone witnessing him sucking back bags of blood.

In her apartment, Sophie quickly kicked off her high heels, rolled her trolley into the kitchen, and began to store everything in her refrigerator, which turned out to be something of a trial. Living alone, she didn’t have tons of food in her fridge, but six large pizza boxes, four large pops, and all the salads and appetizers took up a lot of room. It required some rearranging and clever stacking to fit everything in.

The entire time Sophie was working at it, she was listening for her buzzer, sure Alasdair would be back before she finished. But he obviously had some trouble finding a parking spot, because she was just finishing when her buzzer finally sounded.

Pushing the refrigerator door closed, Sophie rushed out to the buzzer and pressed the button to let him in. Then she turned and walked to the end of the entry hall to look into her living room to be sure it was clean.

Satisfied that she didn’t need to rush around cleaning up, Sophie turned and walked back toward the door. She then stood there shifting from one foot to the other as she waited, her mind replaying what had happened in her office and then in the break room between her and Alasdair. She was pretty sure they were going to pick up where they’d left off when he got here. At least, that was her plan. It was why she’d put everything in the fridge. They could warm it up and snack on it later. Unless he was really hungry, of course. Maybe he’d want to eat first.

Sophie was fretting over that when he tapped on her door. Stepping forward, she pulled her door open, took one look at his expression, smiled, and grabbed him by his shirtfront to drag him into her apartment.

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