Free Dead and Dateless by Kimberly Raye

hunter.
    While I’m ridiculously attracted to cool and macho, guys with pedicures and more hair products than me just don’t punch my buttons. I could so totally room with a retro sexual for an unspecified period of time (until I could figure my way out of this mess and prove my innocence) and keep my fangs to myself. No problemo.
    But a bona fide, hard-edged, rugged, naturally sexy alpha vamp?
    Problem.
    “Ain’t no stars out tonight,” the cabbie said as my nerves started to buzz and the initial panic I’d felt when I’d first called Ty welled up inside me. “It’s kinda dark.”
    “Very.” Not that it hindered me. My vamp vision cut through the shadows and drank in the monstrous warehouse.
    Obviously the chic stopped several feet away, because this small section of Washington Street looked virtually untouched by New York’s trendsetters. The porch light had been knocked out. Shadows crowded near the large, garagelike door. Rust caked the hinges. Graffiti covered the metal walls. The place screamed alpha.
    Big problem.
    I took a deep, easy breath, paid the cabbie, and climbed from the backseat.
    “You want me to wait here, lady?” he asked as he retrieved my luggage from the trunk. “In case you need to make a quick getaway?”
    I swallowed a yes and shook my head. “No, um, thanks.” I turned to stare at the building again. “I’ll be fine.”
    Or so I desperately hoped.
    “I don’t mind waiting,” the guy—Norm, according to his license hanging on the partition—told me. “You’re a really pretty lady and it just wouldn’t be right to leave you out here all by yourself.”
    Okay, so I knew he was just responding to my vamp charm, but there was something really sweet about the offer.
    I stared into his eyes and read the details swimming in his head. Norm Walker. Fifty-seven years old. Proud father of five. Even prouder grandfather of eight. Happily married to one Earline Walker, his high school sweetheart. While I was the prettiest thing since sliced bread, Earline had given birth to his kids and cleaned his house, and made pot roast once a week for the past thirty-eight years.
    Does Norm totally rock or what?
    I smiled. “I’ll be fine.” I will, I added silently, or so I hoped. I gave Norm an I’m just a really great dream and you’ll forget all about me tomorrow look, gathered up my luggage and walked to the front door.
    “You sure?” Norm leaned out the window.
    “Positive.” Go home, I willed silently. And don’t forget to stop and pick up some flowers for Earline. And candy. And offer to give her a foot massage.
    Hey, we’re talking five kids and pot roast. It was the least I could do.
    “Well, okay then.” Norm didn’t look very convinced, but another long, lingering glance from me and he finally nodded, slid back across the seat, and gunned the engine.
    I ignored the urge to turn and bolt after the cab as it rolled away.
    So what if Ty wasn’t a retro sexual? There was still hope. Maybe he just looked cool because I didn’t really know him. Sure, I knew he smelled good and felt good (all hard lines and solid muscle) and kissed good and had a very tasty blood type, but what did I really know?
    Seeing him decked out in all his bounty hunter coolness was a lot different than seeing him in his natural element. What if the hot, sexy bounty hunter was just an illusion? A carefully constructed image to hide the fact that he was (please, please, please) a total slob?
    What if there were empty bottles of blood sitting everywhere? What if he walked around burping all the time? Better yet, what if he answered the door wearing a wife beater, baggy boxers, and mismatched socks?
    I pressed the intercom button next to the door, and Ty buzzed me inside. The warehouse was three stories, and Ty lived on the top floor. I followed a narrow hallway to a freight elevator at the rear of the building and headed for the third floor.
    Ty answered the door wearing a pair of worn, faded jeans and