Must Love Fangs (Midnight Liaisons)

by Jessica Sims

  He nodded again, his expression thoughtful. “Your no-show could have run a background check and found out that Minnie didn’t exist.” He pulled out his phone and began to flip through screens.

  “What are you doing?” I asked warily.

  “Looking up Minnie’s profile.” Then he frowned, looking back up at me. “No picture?”

  “I send it if they ask for it,” I said defensively. “Why should looks matter?”

  “Because you’re dealing with men,” he said bluntly. “Did you send a picture to this last guy? Send it to me.”

  I sent the photo to Josh’s profile.

  His eyes widened. “What the hell is this?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling defensive. “Just a picture I pulled off the internet. I thought it might convey fun and lightheartedness.” You know, all those things I wasn’t good at myself. “It’s kind of a silly pose, but I thought it might look natural.”

  Josh continued to stare at the picture, and then back at me. “That’s not you, right?”

  I snorted. “No, that’s not me. She’s putting her fist in her mouth, and I can’t do that.”

  “Marie,” he said slowly. “That’s not her fist. That’s not even her body part.”

  I snatched the phone away from him and studied it for a minute . . . good God. “I . . . oh.” A hot flush crept over my face, and I quickly handed the phone back to him. “I thought it was just a silly picture,” I said defensively.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “Well, I think I’m beginning to see why date number three was afraid to meet you.”

  “Shut up.”

  Josh only grinned at me. He glanced back down at the picture, shook his head, then clicked his phone off and tossed it on the table. He slouched in the booth, his gaze moving over me.

  I internally squirmed. “What?”

  “I see three main problems.”

  “Well, what are they?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  Now he was just torturing me. “Of course I want to know,” I said, feeling exasperated. “Would I be sitting here in the middle of the night with you if I didn’t?”

  He winced and clutched a hand to his chest, as if shot through the heart. Those long-lashed eyes closed dramatically. “Marie, that hurts me. Deeply.” His tone was playful, but I got the impression that I had actually hurt his feelings.

  “You knew why I was coming here,” I said. “Either help me, or leave me alone.”

  “I’ll help you, but I have conditions.”

  “What kind of conditions?”

  “If you want to find a vampire, you have to let me help you.”

  “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

  “No,” he said. “I mean really help you. You work at a dating agency, right? You help clients make a match.” He tapped his chest with a finger, and my gaze went to that tight shirt straining over his big shoulders. “I’m an expert on women.”

  “I’ll just bet you are,” I said dryly.

  Josh tilted his head, as if studying me. “Don’t believe me? I think my track record speaks for itself.”

  “Oh, it says something, all right. It says that you know how to bait the hook, but—”

  “Bait a hook?” he sputtered, laughing.

  “—but I haven’t seen anything that tells me that you know how to have a relationship,” I continued, ignoring his laugh. “You never stick around long enough to find out. You like the chase, Joshua Russell. You get a girl, date her, and then you dump her.”

  “If we’re going to compare fishing to women,” he said softly, his eyes gleaming dangerously, “I not only know how to bait the hook but I also know how to reel in my catch. If I’m throwing back what I’m catching, it’s because I’m after a different sort of fish.”

  “The one that got away?” I teased.

  He laughed, and the tension was gone. “Something like that.”

  He made his endless string of dates sound so . . . practical. He stopped dating them because they weren’t what he was looking for. That sounded very reasonable. Or was I just falling under his spell? I sighed. “All right. So how can I catch a vampire?”

  “You need to be caught by a vampire. There’s a difference, and that’s where I come in. I’ll help you bag a vampire, but you have to take my advice seriously if this is going to work.”

  I watched him uneasily. It was a generous offer, and yet . . . “I don’t understand. What are you getting out of this?”

  “How about the knowledge that you’ll be safe?” His lips tightened, and I found my gaze going to his warm, curving mouth, framed by a day’s stubble. “You’re human, and you’re pretty much approaching every vampire asking them to date you. That’s not the safest situation, Marie. Get mixed up with the wrong vampire, and you could be in trouble.”

  Danger hadn’t been on my mind, it was true. I didn’t care about the consequences. I hated that he was making me slow down and think about them. “So this is your knight in shining armor thing? Like you do with her?” I thumbed a gesture at Carol, on the far side of the restaurant, taking an order from a trucker. “Patron saint of lost causes?”

  “No,” he said bluntly. “This is about me giving you what you think you want. I don’t know why on earth you want a vampire, but you’re determined to get one. And since you’re fixed on this course of action, I’m going to help you.” He picked up his coffee cup, realized it was empty, and reached for mine. “I want you to see that you really don’t want a vampire. They’re not like in the movies.”

  “I’m not that shallow,” I said quickly. When he brought my cup to his lips and placed his mouth directly over where I’d been drinking, a funny flush went through my body.

  “All right, then, maybe I’m the shallow one. Because I see your desire to get it on with a vampire and think that maybe, if I show you how vampires really are, you’ll change your mind.” Those gorgeous eyes focused on my face, making my mouth go dry. A slow, lazy grin began to spread over his face as he drained my coffee and put the cup down. “Maybe you’ll go cougar instead.”

  Somehow I didn’t think he was referring to me dating younger men.

  Maybe I should have told him the truth. But the words caught in my throat as he continued to grin at me expectantly. The way he was laughing with me, flirting with me . . .

  He was treating me like one of the girls he dated.

  And call me crazy, but I liked being attractive to him.

  “Why me?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  I wasn’t pretty like Ryder, or flirty. I wasn’t soft and feminine like Bathsheba. I was all hard angles, dark hair and glasses. I didn’t laugh and joke around like Sara. I was acerbic and distant. What did he see in me that made him stay here? Made him more or less offer a one-night stand if I changed my mind about dating a vampire?

  “Because,” he said slowly, spinning the small coffee cup with his big fingers, “I’ve never met anyone as alone as you, Marie. You hold everyone away from you with that icy frown. You need a thawing.”

  He leaned forward, all devastating grin again. “And I’m pretty sure I could make you melt.”

  • • •

  We left the restaurant after that, with me feeling incredibly flustered and unable to converse with Josh. Despite his talk, he’d paid for my dinner and escorted me back to the agency, then left—probably to give Carol a ride home.

  I worked for a few more hours, pretending everything was normal, when Ryder eventually slunk back to her desk, every blond hair in place, her clothes neat. She said nothing about her transformation. I said nothing about it, either. If she wanted to talk, I was here.

  Ryder never wanted to talk about it, and I understood.

  When dawn crept over the horizon, Bath and Beau came into the office. They both looked alert and happy, whereas Ryder and I were dragging, as always, at the end of our shift. They greeted us, then headed on to Bath’s office, their heads together as they talked. As soon as they got to the off
ice, the door shut and Bathsheba’s laughter trilled out.

  Ryder smiled, even as it turned into a yawn. “It’s nice to see people in love, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged. “If you’re a hopeless romantic, I guess.”

  She made a face at me. “We work at a dating agency. We should be hopeless romantics.”

  She had a point.

  Ten minutes after eight—as usual—Sara came into the office, an enormous cup of Starbucks in her hand and her mouth looking like she’d just been making out in the car. Which she probably had. “Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “You two look fresh as daisies.”

  “Don’t make me growl at you,” Ryder teased with another yawn.

  “She probably likes that,” I said slyly and began to shut down my computer.

  Sara only grinned, running a hand through her chin-length, shaggy red hair. “Did you guys get far on Bath’s project?”

  “Not too far,” I admitted. “I’ll give it more of a go tonight.”

  She just made a noise of assent and flopped down at her desk, texting on her phone with her free hand. A few minutes later, Beau left Bathsheba’s office and strolled out. Bath immediately headed for the coffee, and I noticed her mouth looked recently kissed, too.

  I felt an envious pang. Maybe there was a hopeless romantic inside me, after all.

  With the day shift now in the office, Ryder and I left. I drove home to my small apartment and tossed my keys and purse on the table by the door. I took a shower, changed into my pajamas, put on soothing music, and drank a cup of chamomile tea. I was utterly exhausted.

  Yet when I got into bed and tried to sleep, it wouldn’t come. My mind kept racing, thinking about Josh. His hand at the small of my back. That lazy, flirty grin he tossed my way as if it hadn’t been a dangerous thing. His concern and affection for Carol, who didn’t have anyone to look out for her.

  I’ve never met anyone as alone as you, Marie.

  If I was, it was because it would hurt everyone less when I died.

  I tossed and turned for a few hours, wanting to weep in frustration. I glanced at the Virgin Mary figure on my nightstand. It had been my mother’s before she’d passed on, and her mother’s before her. I touched the figure. Please. Let me sleep. Let this all be a bad case of anxiety.

  But I couldn’t sleep. It was like my body no longer knew how.

  Eventually, I got up and grabbed a jigsaw puzzle box. It was either that, or cry. I turned the TV on in the background and shook the pieces out on the table. My mother had loved puzzles and had done them when she’d been unable to sleep at night. Now I was following the same patterns she had followed.

  The thought made me want to weep even more.

  • • •

  I twisted my hands in my lap, my feet swinging nervously under the examination table, the paper runner crinkling with every swing of my foot.

  When the doctor entered the room, he wore a puzzled look. “Back so soon, Marie? Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I lied. “I just wanted to talk about my medication.”

  The doctor flipped open my chart. “You’ve lost six pounds since you last came in.”

  I shrugged. “Just watching my weight.”

  He eyed me. “You were here last Tuesday.”

  “Stomach bug. I’m better now. That’s not why I’m here, anyhow. I wanted to talk to you about the sleeping pills you prescribed.”

  “Are they upsetting your stomach?” he asked, folding his hands around the clipboard and studying me.

  “Actually, I wanted to see if you had something stronger. Or if it’s okay to double the medication from time to time.”

  Like every night.

  The puzzled frown grew. “I already have you on the strongest dose, Marie.”

  “Oh, okay. I just thought I’d check.”

  He put down the clipboard and moved to my side, bringing out his scope to check my pupils. “You look tired. Are the pills not working?”

  “Not really,” I confessed. “Maybe a different pill? Something I haven’t tried yet?”

  “In the last few months, you’ve tried everything I can recommend. If it’s not helping, there might be other factors we need to look at.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.” I didn’t want to become his science project or guinea pig once he found out exactly what I had. That was why I switched doctors constantly. “I’ve just been under a lot of stress lately, and I’m working nights, so I’m sure that’s not helping things.”

  He ignored my excuses, checking my pupils and continuing to examine me. When he was done prodding, checking my ears, nose, throat, and my pulse, he stroked his chin, frowning. “Marie, I’d like to send you for more tests.”

  My heart sank. “All I really want are some stronger pills.”

  “If the pills aren’t working now, a stronger dose isn’t going to do anything for you. I think there’s a larger problem at hand, and I’d like to run some blood work. There are some rare illnesses that can cause insomnia, and I’d like to rule them out.”

  Yeah, I was familiar with those diseases. I gave him a tight nod. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

  “We can schedule for you to run down to the blood center today, if you like, and once the results are in, we can discuss where to go with this. Again, it may be nothing, but I want to rule out every possible scenario so we can get down to a cure.”

  He patted my knee. “Just see Betty at the front desk on the way out and tell her that I’m sending you to the lab for more tests. I’ll update your chart.”

  I grabbed my purse, thanked the doctor, and slid out of the room. He paused to talk to a nurse, then headed down the hall to see another patient. I glanced at the front desk, then turned and walked out the front door.

  I wasn’t going to go for more blood tests. I already knew what was wrong, and I didn’t want a doctor poking and prodding me for the next six months in an attempt to find a cure, when the only one that I knew of involved fangs and neck-biting.

  Still . . . My stomach knotted, I pulled out the card of the Alliance doctor and dialed.

  “Little Paradise Family Clinic,” a woman announced. “How can I help you?”

  “I need to see the doctor. Today, if possible,” I told her. “I’m having trouble sleeping and wanted to see if he could recommend something.”

  She typed for a moment, then paused. “The doctor has an opening at four today.”

  “Four sounds great. Thanks.”

  Chapter Six

  You look like hell,” Sara told me bluntly as I entered the office Saturday night.

  The office was only closed on Sundays, and Ryder and I alternated on the overnight shift on Saturdays. It wasn’t so bad, since it was only a half shift until midnight.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, not even having the energy for a sarcastic comment. In the last three days, I’d gotten probably a half hour of sleep. My repeated catnaps and sleeping pills had only made things worse. I existed in a half-awake stupor, and my entire body felt as if it had been run over by a truck. This was just the early stages of the disease, though. It would get much worse from here on out.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she asked, moving over to my desk, looking worried. “Is something going on?”

  “Just not sleeping well,” I told her. Understatement of the century.

  “Is something bothering you? Is it money?” She bit her lip, clearly concerned about me. “Family problems? I’m not trying to pry, honest I’m not. I just want to help. You look like you’re going through a rough patch.”

  I gave her a wan smile. “I’m fine. Seriously. I just need some caffeine and I’ll be good.”

  She reached out and squeezed my hand. “I’m here if you want to talk.”

  “Thanks, Sara, I appreciate it.” But I can’t tell you anything, because you’d tell your sister.

  The bell clanged and a shadow loomed in the doorway of the agency, blocking out the setting sun—the massive form of Ramsey Bjorn,
resident were-bear, scowling monster of a man, and tiny Sara’s mate.

  She gave my hand another comforting squeeze, then bounded over to him, flinging herself into his arms. “Hey Huggy Bear,” she said. “Did you miss me?”

  “Yes,” he said gruffly.

  She gave him an enthusiastic kiss in response and whispered something into his ear that made the man flush red. When he caught me staring, he scowled in my direction.

  I hastily booted up my computer.

  “We’re out of here,” Sara told me, sliding down from Ramsey’s arms. “It’s Xbox night at our place, so if you need me, just let it keep ringing. We’ll hear it over the noise eventually.”

  “Will do,” I said. “So, are all the Russells there when you guys play?”

  Because a certain Joshua Russell hadn’t shown up in two days after promising to help me with my vampire situation, and it was ticking me off.

  “All of them,” she said cheerfully. “I’d invite you, but . . . ”

  “Work, I know.” I wasn’t all that interested in video games anyhow.

  She brightened. “Maybe next weekend, when it’s Ryder’s turn to do the night shift?”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. If Josh kept avoiding me, I’d hunt him down.

  They left, Ramsey’s big hand resting on the back of Sara’s neck and her arm looped around his waist. I watched them go, wondering how that worked for them—Ramsey was so enormous and strong, and Sara was small and fragile.

  I blushed at the mental image. Not my business.

  I buried myself in work, pulling out the stack of folders of inactive clients. I’d give Josh two more days, and then it was back to hunting down vampires in the hopes that they’d want to date me.

  Right now, I see three things that are the problem.

  That had bothered me more than anything. I wanted to know what those three things were so I could fix them and move on to the next stage of my plan.

  I called clients for hours, leaving voice mails when the clients were unavailable. Voice mail was tricky. I had to make sure not to give away discreet information; no mentions of paranormals or shifting, and certainly not vampires. Nothing that could be used against someone. My message was bland. Hi, it’s Marie from Midnight Liaisons. If you’re not currently seeing anyone, we’d love to set you up with just the right person. Give me a call back and let’s talk about updating your profile.