by June Stevens
“I don’t date vampires,” I said, my voice little more than a gasp as I pushed my hands under Jarret’s shirt to get to the smooth skin beneath. I let my fingers play over the taught muscles of his back.
“This isn’t a date,” Jarret replied against my neck. His tongue traced a path from my chin to my ear.
That was true. Jarret was technically on duty for the Black Blade Guard. He was my bodyguard while my sister, his best friend, worked a case that potentially put my family in danger. So despite the fact that we had spent every waking moment together for the past few days, we weren’t dating.
As I thought about what Jarret had said, I pulled his shirt up over his head, giving my hands full access to his broad, muscular torso. I slowly ran my hands over his ridged stomach and up so that my palms grazed his tight nipples, eliciting a moan from the big man.
“I don’t have sex with vampires, either,” I said, holding my arms up so he could remove my shirt. A low moan forced its way through my lips as he lowered his mouth to my breasts, dropping soft, light kisses over each one. Then he moved to the nipples, sucking one into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, and nipping lightly with his teeth before moving to the other.
“And I don’t have sex with my friends’ sisters,” he said in between nibbles. “I guess that makes us both a couple of rule breakers.”
Jarret knelt in front of me, kissing my flat stomach as his hands slid up my thighs, under my skirt, and hooked onto my panties. He pulled them down in one agonizingly slow, sensual movement, and then lifted each of my feet to pull them off. “Are you sure no one will hear us?” he asked, his voice so thick and husky I could barely understand him.
I rolled my head back against the wall as he began kissing his way back up my torso. We were in the back storage room of Pinky’s Pub. It was well past dawn and the pub was closed for business. “We should be fine. Fiona slept at Ian’s last night and River has already gone to the market. Though Pinky is asleep upstairs, the noise-canceling spells will block any sounds, even from his vamp ears.”
I stopped talking as his mouth returned to mine, and we melted together in a frenzy of tasting and exploring. I fumbled with the button fly of his pants until he pushed my hands away and quickly divested himself of the garment. With no effort at all, Jarret lifted me, his hands sliding under the smooth globes of my butt. I slid my legs around him, pulling myself tight against him as the hot, throbbing evidence of his desire nestled between my legs.
“Last chance to say no,” Jarret said through clenched teeth.
“If you stop now, I will kick your ass,” I retorted, sinking my teeth lightly into his earlobe.
Wordlessly, Jarret lifted me higher and positioned himself at my entrance. Then, with one hard, swift thrust, he was inside me.
***
I came awake on a gasp.
“Oh, shitballs!” My breathy exclamation reverberated in the quiet of the empty room. I clutched the sheet to my bare chest, breathing hard and trying to get my bearings. I was shaking, actually freaking shaking, from the dream. It had been so vivid and real, an almost exact memory of the first time Jarrett and I had been together a little over six months ago. Even now, I could almost feel the warmth of his touch, the scent of him, lingering on my skin.
I was losing my mind. That was it. There could be no other explanation. For some reason seeing Jarrett again had caused some sort of psychotic break. Yes, that was it. That too-hot-for-words kiss coupled with the fact that I hadn’t had sex in six months had melted my brain and made me start having vivid, sweaty, leave-you-shaking sex dreams. This was just great.
Wait. Had it really been six months since I’d had sex? I sat in my bed, naked under my sheet, and thought about it. Yep, it really had been six months. I hadn’t been with anyone since Jarrett. Not a single person. And it wasn’t just sex. There hadn’t been a make-out session, a sexy dance, or even a kiss. How was that even possible?
Well, it was no wonder I was having sex dreams about the hunky vampire. It was a surprise I wasn’t having naughty dreams about every random man I met. Yet, I hadn’t. Until now I hadn’t even thought about it. Well, that wasn’t completely true. I’d had more than a few fantasies about Jarrett in the first few weeks after our fling. But that was totally normal, nothing weird or obsessive. And the fact that I hadn’t had sex, or even wanted to, with another guy since then meant nothing. I was growing up, maturing.
Yes, that was it. And it was only natural to be a little shook up after such a sexy kiss with no follow through. Okay, yes. It was all normal. It had nothing to do with Jarrett as a person. I had no particular attachment to him. None at all.
With that decided, I threw back the covers and crawled out of bed. Glancing at the clock beside my bed, I realized I’d been asleep less than six hours. It didn’t matter. After that dream there was no way I was getting back to sleep any time soon. My skin still felt a little tingly and my whole body was buzzing. If I were seeing someone, I’d go find him and give him a wild ride to work out this excess energy. But since I’d just established that I hadn’t had a guy on the line in six months, I’d have to find something else to do.
Dressing in a loose tank top and shorts, I went down to the training room on the third floor. The room was large, taking up half of the third floor, but sparsely decorated. A large, heavy bag hung on one end and a variety of weapons, weight training tools, and padded mats were lined up against one wall, but the rest of the room was empty, giving plenty of space for exercise and sparring.
I did some stretches to warm up, and then spent the next hour throwing kicks and punches at the heavy bag. When the last of the pent-up energy left my body, and I started to feel tired, I gave up the workout and went in search of humans and food.
I found River and Pinky downstairs in the pub’s kitchen bottling honey-mead. Standing next to each other, my twenty-year-old sister and my over-two-centuries-old adoptive father looked like they were the same age.
“Hey guys.”
River turned around, her smile wide. “Anya! You’re up early.”
I grabbed an apple from a bowl on the counter and bit in. “I’ve been up a little while, I couldn’t sleep.”
“Everything okay?” Pinky asked.
“Yeah, just weird dreams,” I said, quickly adding, “Weird, not bad,” when I saw Pinky’s expression fill with concern. When I first came to live with him and my sisters, I had nightmares almost every night. For the first few months, he let me sleep in the backroom of the pub instead of upstairs so he could check on me throughout the night. I hadn’t had a nightmare in years.
“Okay,” he said. He pointed to my clothes. “You been working out?”
“Yeah. I figured I might as well do something constructive. You guys need any help?”
River placed three bottles of mead alongside several others on a rolling cart. “I don’t think so. This is the last of the mead, and nothing else is ready to bottle.”
“Do you need help setting up the bar? I didn’t see Farrah around,” I said, referring to the newest employee and resident of the pub. Farrah had been one of many victims in the case Fiona and Jarrett had worked on last year. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to, or hadn’t wanted to, return to her own home when she was released from the hospital after recovering from her wounds. Fiona, a consummate savior of kids in trouble, had asked Pinky to take Farrah in. At first, he had told her she could do a few chores around the pub for room and board, but she’d quickly started working full time cleaning the pub and helping River in her garden. She was also slowly becoming a part of the family.
“She already did most of the prep, but she’s taking a nap right now. She’ll be up in a couple of hours. Since it will probably be a pretty slow night and it’s Gerald’s night off, I figured it was a good time to start showing her the ropes of bartending. She should know how to do things so you can take off more than one night a week once in a while.”
“Or so you can take a night off, ever.”
/> “Bah, why would I want to do something crazy like that? I live to serve.”
Pinky laughed as he said it, but it was truer than he probably would have admitted. Running the pub wasn’t a job for him; it was a part of his nature. One only had to watch him in action to tell he truly enjoyed chatting with patrons, serving drinks, and laughing. Whenever Pinky was around, there was usually a lot of laughing.
I reached up and kissed his cheek. “You know what, you’re right. Everything would probably fall apart around here if you took the night off.”
He wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. “Not with my Anya to keep things going.”
I held onto him for a moment, savoring the feeling of safety and love that filled me when Pinky embraced me. After a few minutes I pulled away. “Okay, if you guys don’t need me, I’m going to the bathhouse down the street to soak in some bubbles for about a gazillion hours.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” River said. “You really reek.”
I stuck my tongue out at her, put my nose in the air, and turned and walked out with as much dignity as I could muster considering the fact that she was right. I stank.
***
I thought I was going to pass out from sheer boredom. When Pinky had predicted a slow night he’d grossly understated. At this pace, slow would be an incredible tempo increase. Other than the five regulars in the back playing poker and a young couple necking in a dark booth in the corner, the pub was empty. Pinky was at a table teaching Farrah the differences between the various alcoholic beverages we sold, pointing out the ones which were brewed in-house. The only thing that saved me from becoming comatose was my sister Fiona.
“So, when does Ian’s night class let out?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t until dawn. If she left, I’d have to resort to busywork like wiping down clean tables and sweeping the already clean floor, just to stay awake.
“In a couple of hours. I was expecting to be working tonight as well, but the raid we had planned was a bust. We went to the camp we’d been tipped on and found the slavers had skedaddled, if they even were slavers. It could have been a group of traders or gypsies. My money’s on a band of merchants that stopped overnight before heading into the city for market week. It was a small campsite with evidence of only one wagon. Slavers would have had several. There would have been wheel tracks everywhere.”
“Unreliable informant? Was it one of yours?” I asked, loving the conversation. I had gone through most of the same training at the Academy as Fiona, but my Norm status kept me from going into law enforcement in any capacity other than administrative. I wasn’t the sit-behind-a-desk-all-day type, so I’d come to work for Pinky instead. Having Fiona tell me about the cases she was working on had always been a favorite part of my day. I’d really missed it since she’d hooked up with Ian. I’d never seen her so happy, though, so I couldn’t begrudge her the time she spent with him. It just made me enjoy our conversations that much more.
“No. It came from someone the City Guard had arrested for assault. Apparently, he didn’t want to pay for something he wanted at the market, and when the vendor took exception to his merchandise walking away, the guy attacked the vendor. He was trying to cut a deal for himself by saying he had information on a band of slavers.”
I made a face. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been some of his cohorts camping there.”
“Very likely, and they cut and run when he was picked up. No matter. I’d much rather spend the evening chatting with you, and then snuggling with Ian, than wrestling sweaty slavers and doing paperwork.” She sipped her wine.
I took a sip of my own ale. “Glad to hear I rate higher than sweaty slavers. That was a great visual, by the way.”
Fiona grinned and opened her mouth to say something, but our attention was pulled to the door when it opened. A tall, dark-skinned vampire with a smooth, bald head and neatly trimmed beard entered. He walked across the room in a sexy, smooth stride.
“Luca,” I said, grinning and genuinely glad to see my friend.
“Hi, Sweetness,” he said, and pulled me into a tight hug.
His arms were warm and firm around me, and he smelled incredible, yet there were no stirrings in the pit of my stomach. This was a completely platonic hug.
“You changed that silly no vampire dating rule yet so you and I can get sweaty later?” he asked, dropping a light kiss on my cheek and letting me go.
“Not a chance,” I quipped, moving out of the hug.
“Aww, come on, Baby Girl. Not even for me? Not even just once?” He put his hand over his heart in mock pain.
“Luca, you are the reason the rule exists in the first place,” I teased, feeling a little twinge of guilt. I had broken the rule before, yet was not even tempted to do it again. At least, not with anyone new. Especially not with Luca.
My no-vampire-dating/sex rule had been born more out of practicality than any aversion to the race. Though everyone was welcome in Pinky’s, the majority of our regular clientele were vampires. Not that I hadn’t ever dated someone I met at the bar, but the rule made it easier to set boundaries. There was another reason, too. Vampires, especially those that had been around since before the Cataclysm, were odd creatures. Their unnaturally long lives caused them to go one of two ways, either chronically prone to one night stands, or lifetime monogamy.
Vampires could die, but there were no known diseases or natural causes that could result in the death of a vampire. And with their quick healing abilities, they were damned hard to kill. In the vampire world, a lifetime commitment basically lasted forever. Which meant a norm, like me, would have to be infected with the N-V virus and undergo “the big change.” That was something I wasn’t even remotely ready for. And since you never knew exactly what type of vampire you were going to get, it was better to stay away from them altogether.
I couldn’t even try to think about why I had made an exception to the rule with Jarrett, but it could have been because I knew up front he was a classic roamer. He and my sister had been friends for more than half a decade and I hadn’t even met him until six months ago. It seemed likely I’d never see him again. Of course, that way of thinking had come back to bite me in the ass this morning.
I should have foreseen that he’d roll through town on occasion, and it should be okay. I was friends with plenty of guys I’d once dated. Seeing Jarrett shouldn’t push my libido into overdrive. The blame was on my lack of sex.
Surely once I got back in the dating game, having him pop up once in a while wouldn’t keep playing havoc with my sleep. I wouldn’t mind getting jazzed up over him if I weren’t so positive that Jarrett Campbell was of the chronic, one-nighter variety. He probably hadn’t spent more than one night with the same woman in three hundred years. It was too bad. Though I wasn’t the kind to wait around for a guy, I wouldn’t mind getting sweaty with Jarrett again on occasion, if I were unattached when he was in town
Luca Jensen, on the other hand, was another case entirely. The sexy, umber-skinned vamp had the smooth talk and charm of a bed-hopper, but there was something about him that made me believe at his heart, he was the one-woman-vamp type. A norm woman who got involved with him would have to be prepared to make the big change. That was definitely not me.
Instead of a potential romantic partner, Luca was one of my best friends. He knew my rule and respected it and me. For him, flirting with me was safe because he knew no matter what, we would stay platonic friends. As for me, I could enjoy his company and get all the relentless flirting and gratuitous ego stroking I wanted without any messy strings. It was really a win/win.
“Mead?” I asked, walking around the bar.
“Whiskey.”
I shot him a glance. “Aren’t you on shift?”
Luca was the head Med-Mage at City Hospital, the government medical clinic that catered to Blades, City Guard, and government personnel. He worked the night shift and usually came in for a mead on his hour break. He only drank whiskey on his nights off.
“I’ve
been on shift since the start of my shift last night. We had a full class of trainees fresh from the Academy start their apprenticeships today. I spent the day in orientation with them, and then assigned them to the med-mages they’ll be shadowing for the next year before they can go to other clinics in the city-state.”
I knew vampires could go long periods of time without sleep, but I never really thought about how long. Pinky slept at least a few hours every day. The idea of being awake more than thirty-six hours exhausted me just thinking about it. “You should be home getting some rest.”
He laughed. “Worried about me, Baby Girl? Don’t be, I’m fine. I could have worked my full shift tonight, but the jittery energy of first-day interns tends to get to me after so many hours. I figured since I’m the boss, I could take off early and come knock back a few before heading home to bed.”
I placed a shot glass in front of him and poured whiskey into it. “Leave the bottle,” he said.
“Okay, but if you get so drunk you pass out in the middle of the floor, I’m not moving you. You’ll wake up with boot prints on your pretty face.”
He flashed a sexy grin. “Fair enough.”
Of course he wasn’t concerned. It would take much more than one bottle of whiskey to make him drunk enough to pass out. Vampire metabolism worked crazy fast on alcohol.
I kissed my palm and then blew it in Luca’s direction. “You let me know if you need anything else,” I told him with a wink, then went back to sit with Fiona.
“Sometimes I find it hard to believe the two of you never hooked up,” Fiona said after I sat down.
I looked at her. “We’re just friends. Besides, you know my vampire rule.”
She gave me an odd look. “Yeah, I know.”
There was no way in hell I was going to ask her what that look meant.
We sat together quietly for a few minutes before Fiona nodded to where Pinky and Farrah sat. Pinky had an assortment of bottles on the table in front of him and was pointing at each one while Farrah named them. “Those two seem to be doing well together,” she said.
