Page 14 of Dark Embers

Growling, I stomped to the dumpster and snatched a stained, discarded pizza box that was hanging over the top of it. I wrapped it around my hip so that it was more or less covering my stubborn erection, then strode back to face her.

A laugh pushed between her pursed lips, and she doubled over with it, cackling as she slapped her knee. “Is this our thing now? We’re just going to show up in each other’s lives naked at random?”

I ignored her ridiculous question—even though she kind of had a point—and pressed the issue.

“What are you doing out here all alone at this time of night?” I demanded.

“Well, I was walking to the bus that would take me home,” she said, gripping the strap of her bookbag on her shoulder. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Her catty tone both excited and provoked me.

“You were almost attacked by that mugger,” I snapped, pointing at her still unconscious attacker.

She looked over my shoulder at the crumpled figure and frowned. “I could’ve taken care of him myself. I didn’t need your help. Hell, just a few days ago I ensnared a vampi—” She snapped her mouth shut, and I saw red again.

“You did what?” I hissed, outrage and fear flooding my nervous system.

She actually had been attacked by a vampire? A few days ago? And she was still venturing into dark alleyways all willy-nilly?!

“It doesn’t matter. I took care of it,” she said flippantly, folding her arms and jutting a hip to one side.

“Do you have a death wish? Are you insane?”

She threw her hands up. “What does it even matter to you? I’m not one of your students, remember? I’m nothing to you.”

Her last statement silenced me. She had no idea how wrong she was, even though I loathed that very fact. I wished she really was nothing to me.

Her face sobered, hiding the resentment that had just been there. “What are you even doing out here? What? Are you stalking me now?”

“No, of course not!” I replied with a little too much insistence. “I was just out for a flight to clear my head.”To getyouoff my mind.“I had no idea you’d be walking the streets like a lost kitten.”

Her nostrils flared at my subtle reference to our last encounter, and I childishly enjoyed getting a rise out of her.

“What vampire attacked you? What happened?”

She rolled her eyes, but I could see a secret hiding in them. “Like I said, I took care of it. But, thank you for swooping in like a knight in shining—um—feathers to help me with that guy. That was surprisingly noble of you.”

I frowned. While I did like to think of myself as a noble guy, this hadn’t been an act of nobility. It had been an act of possession.

“Yeah, well, because I’m so noble, let me at least give you my phone number,” I said with forced irritation. “If you’re going to make a habit of getting yourself into dangerous situations, I want you to have someone you can call to get you out of them. And if you really are a target for the vampires, you’ll need protection.”

I went back to the dumpster and dug around for a not-so-filthy piece of paper and something to write with. She came up behind me and tapped on my shoulder. When I turned around, she handed me her phone with a new contact form open on the screen.

“You know, you could’ve just asked for my phone,” she said with a sly arch of her eyebrow.

Feeling like a dumbass, I took the phone and lifted my other hand to tap in my number, realizing too late that I still needed that hand to hold up the fucking box.

She snorted a laugh as my erection sprang over the box as it fell, and I scrambled to bend over and pick it back up.Will the humiliations never end?

“Just tell me the number, and I’ll enter it,” she said, her chest heaving as she struggled to contain more laughter.

I quickly rattled the numbers off, beyond eager to get the hell out of here.

“Save as Big Bird,” she said. “Got it. Thanks.”

My eye twitched at the ridiculous name she’d assigned me. “Just get home safe, please.”

She gave me a two-finger salute. “Sure thing. You better flutter off before you get arrested for indecent exposure.” Her eyesflickered to my box, and I really could have just died, right then, right there.

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