Free Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc by lesley

hard to do in my current position,
    so I mumbled a “Yes,” instead.
    “And what were you going to do if you found out that I
    did?”

    I figured, “Kill you,” probably wasn’t a good answer.

    66

    “Call the police,” I said instead.
    He snorted. “A likely story. Is that why your ‘towing
    service’ asked if I was going to die with a smile on my face?”
    Oops. I’ d forgotten that with his superior senses, he would have heard both sides of my conversation with Miles. No wonder he hadn’t let me hang around the house afterwards. I frowned. Why hadn’t he killed me  –  or at least   tried   to kill me  –last night?
    “If you’re going to kill me, just get on with it,” I said. I  wasn’t making any progress in my current position, which  meant I had to inspire him to lower his guard. If he bit me,  maybe I could lull him into a false sense of security.
    “Tempting,” he murmured, then  grazed my skin with his  teeth. Teeth, not fangs. “But I want to know more. Did Jeffrey  hire you?”
    Due to factors beyond my control (i.e. a need to eat), there were times I was forced to purposely misplace my conscience.  However, it always seemed to find its way back to me. I didn’t want to get Jeffrey killed, not when he’d obviously been right about Ross Blackburn.
    “Who?” I asked, hoping I sounded convincingly clueless.
    “I know he was very upset about his mother,” Blackburn  said, ignoring my question. “I  don’t blame him. Elizabeth didn’t  deserve to die so young, but her cancer had other ideas. Whether  he knows it or not, he’s better off not having had to spend the  next year watching her suffer.”
    “So you’re admitting you killed her?”

    67

    I felt him shrug. “Not that it does you any good, but yes. At her request, I might add. She was already beginning to decline.  Now tell me, did Jeffrey hire you?”
    “I don’t know anyone by that name.” I’m a good liar, but I  didn’t think I had much chance of pulling this one off.  Blackburn obviously had reason to believe his stepson had hired  me. Still, I had my professional pride and I wasn’t giving up my  client. I decided I’d try to distract him. “How did you know  what my handler said on the phone?” I asked. “There’s no way  he  was talking loud enough for you to hear him across the  room.”
    To my shock, he laughed and let go of me, though he still hovered uncomfortably close, his palms pressed against the wall on either side of my head. Slowly, I turned around to look into those smoky eyes. He was grinning at me, making no attempt to hide his fully extended fangs.
    “You’re still under the impression I don’t know what you  are?” he asked. “I thought you were quicker on the uptake than  that. If you could smell the blood over my toothpaste, what  makes you think I couldn’t smell it over your whisky, or  whatever it was you used to try and cover it up.”
    Well, so much for lulling him into a false sense of security.
    Of all the shitty luck! Why did I have to take a contract to kill
    someone who turned out to be a bigger, stronger vampire?
    “I sighed and would have crossed my arms if he weren’t  invading my space so much. “I didn’t try to cover it up. The guy  I drank from was drunk out of his mind, So you know what I  am, and I know what you are.  Where does that leave us?”
    “With me thirsting for Jeffrey’s blood.”

    68

    I opened my mouth to continue my charade that Jeffrey didn’t hire me, but Blackburn shut me up by planting his mouth on mine. I struggled pointlessly for a moment, then let myself go limp and passive. The touch of his lips and tongue did sinful things to my insides, but I had no inclination to give in to my lustful desires. Hormones be damned, I wasn’t letting him get away with being a sexual bully.
    Blackburn quickly grew bored with my  passive resistance and pulled away. He smirked at me, and I was sure he knew he’d