Free Mercy's Destiny: Montgomery's Vampires Trilogy (Book #3) (Montgomery's Vampires Series) by Sloan Archer Page B

Our hands touched when he handed it over, and I felt a zing pass between his skin and mine. I wondered if he’d felt it, too.
    It was impossible not to notice how Joseph’s muscles showed through his clothes. He was dressed more causally than what would be expected of somebody so high-ranking, in fitted jeans and a black t-shirt. On his feet he sported those high-end distressed leather boots that are meant to look like they’re intended for construction but are actually too fancy to wear out even in the rain. Had Joseph not possessed the power to end my life with a simple order, and had I been clearer about the current state of my relationship with Robert (or clear if I even still was in a relationship with Robert), I would have been all over that.
    Though it may have been pitiful that I was holding on to hope, I still felt as if I didn’t have conclusive proof that a) Robert had not been coerced into dumping me, and b) Robert had been the one who’d made the million-dollar deposit into my bank account. It may have made me a fool, with all the writing on the damn wall, but I couldn’t help that I was still in love with the vampire.
    Also, it would have been outrageously disrespectful to hit on another man while I was living in Robert’s house. And another thing: I had to keep up the guise of being Robert’s fiancé, a fib Robert had told while we were at the VGO headquarters. He’d done it as a measure to keep me safe, and I had no intention of clearing up that misnomer only to make myself, well, unsafe.
    Joseph had brought a small, hard-shelled case. It made him look like a secret agent, but I knew what it was going to be used for: taking my blood back to Britain.
    I poured Joseph a glass of the ballerina and then offered him a seat at the table. I jumped when he spoke.
    “Where’s your fiancé?” he asked in his lovely lilt.
    I hadn’t thought to make up a cover story—because I wouldn’t have dreamed that the VGO would send Joseph! —and I couldn’t tell if he was messing with me. What if Serena and Robert had been parading all around the VGO headquarters and Joseph was mocking me by rubbing it in? But why would Joseph do something like that—mock me? Surely a vampire so important would have better things to do with his time.
    “He’s around,” I said with a wave of a hand. Hoping he’d drop the subject, I probed, “So, what’s in the case? All sorts of adorable syringes, hmm?”
    He smiled. Good God he was stunning—like, ridiculously, inhumanly stunning. I wondered if he’d been that hot when he was mortal, whenever that had been. I reflected on how different Joseph’s looks were from Robert’s, yet how they were both obscenely attractive.
    Joseph’s coffee mane was wild and unruly, similar to the boys in Swindled 5; Robert’s conservative jet-black hair rarely had a strand out of place, as if he was immune to bed head. Joseph’s chocolate eyes were warm and playful; Robert’s steely grey gaze was severe and intense, which gave most people pause when they were considering messing with him (which I thought was pretty hot, because, well, alpha). It was like . . . Like, if the two vamps were desserts, say . . . Robert would be one of those compact but ultra-rich chocolate tortes found on the menus of posh restaurants: gleaming square plate, sprig of mint, fancy drizzle of raspberry coulis, razor-sharp triangle of bitter chocolate poking out the top. Joseph, on the other hand, would be a delightfully filthy ice cream sundae, heaped with all sorts of ooey-gooey toppings: hot fudge, caramel, marshmallow fluff. Both delicious, but in two completely different ways.
    Maybe that’s why I found Joseph so attractive: because I was pissed at Robert, Joseph’s polar opposite. No, I decided, few women—if any—would need a specific reason to lust after this tartan hottie.
    Joseph opened the case, which was padded with black sponge. Stuck in the sponge were several rows of empty test tubes. He didn’t