Page 25 of Love Bites

I could almost believe one shoe was an accident, but two?

No male vampire wouldaccidentallydrop both of their shoes into a pool.

Someone was trying to summon me.

I couldn’t prevent the wave of excitement—and dread—when I realized there was only one man who would summon me like that.

Hale.

With all the fury of a pissed-off woman, I grabbed both of the shoes and swam hard to the surface, throwing both shoes out of the water first.

“What kind of asshole summons a woman with his shoes?” I demanded, lifting myself smoothly out of the water. Magic was probably radiating off me, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t like Hale hadn’t felt it before.

I—

“Sorry,” an unfamiliar man apologized, and my gaze jerked upward.

Oh, shit.

He wasnotHale.

Very much not Hale.

And I’d thrown shoes at him.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I thought you were Hale.”

“It’s fine. Getting hit in the face with a shoe is a good way to keep a guy on his toes,” the man said, his gaze glued to my breasts.

I sighed inwardly, and tried to pull my magic back. I hadn’t had anywhere near enough from Hale, and I was physically hungry on top of that, so my control was basically nonexistent.

“You should throw another shoe at me. Maybe it will make it easier to stop staring at you?” he mumbled.

I laughed, grabbing the shoe and tossing it at him.

He made a noise of complaint. “Useless. Throw it like I’m Hale again.”

“Dowhatlike you’re me?” the growl was the only warning before Hale himself sped into the room, stopping beside the stranger.

“She threw a shoe at me,” he explained quickly, fighting desperately to look away from me. “She thought I was you. I used it to get her attention while she was underwater, because we had no rocks.”

I stood smoothly, crossing the room so I could grab my oversized t-shirt off the floor. Water rolled down my body, and I fought the urge to scratch at the layer of glitter the chlorine had formed over my skin.

Scientifically, I didn’t think it made a shred of sense for chlorine to create glitter. But siren magic didn’t make sense, so that was that.

“Why are you sparkling?” Hale asked me, his eyes now glued to me too.

“Chlorine and siren magic don’t mix well.” I shook my arm, and a small amount of glitter fell from my skin. Most of it wouldn’t come off until I scrubbed like hell. Even then, a lot of it would simply refuse to budge for a few days. That was fine, though. Sirens made good disco balls.

“That’s in the note, but I didn’t think it would make glitter… fascinating.” The new guy started to flip to a new page, to makenotes, but Hale pulled the notepad out of his hand and scanned the words I’d written.

“Why are you signing a note with a heart for a guy who isn’t your mate?” he growled at me.

“Do you even have a normal voice? All you do is growl at me.” I wrung my hair out, watching glitter-water pool beneath it. “Hearts make things nicer. They don’t have to be romantic. Everyone knows that.”

The perplexed expressions on their faces told me that everyone, in fact, did not know that.

“Never mind. Do you guys have a kitchen here or something? I need to eat before I cause an orgy to break out.”

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