Page 13 of Flirting with Darkness

The woman made no attempt to cover herself. She rolled over and stretched. I realized that she was covered in blood, especially around her throat—the dark color of the bedsheets had hidden that from me before. She smiled, revealing pointed teeth.

“You invited a human friend, Vale?” she said, with a deep inhale that had me stepping backwards.

Vale shot her a warning glance that made her smile disappear.

“A mouse,” he sneered. “No, a rat. An uninvited pest.”

He shook out the robe he’d picked up with a single violent movement, then threw it over his shoulders.

“I knocked,” I said. “You didn’t answer. I came when I said I would.”

“Oh, so did I,” the woman said, laughing softly to herself, and Vale shot her another exasperated stare.

“What?” she said. “You don’t want to share?”

“Let’s not make any more a mess of my home than we already have. Can you give us a moment?”

She sighed, then sprung from the bed, lithe as a cat. She grabbed a piece of fabric from the bedside table and wiped the blood from her chest and throat. “I should be going anyway. Thank you for the hospitality, as always, Vale.”

She threw on a plain black shirt and trousers, which had been sitting on the ground, then strolled past me with nothing more than another long, curious stare, which started at my feet and ended at my face.

Vale stared out the window, silent, until her footsteps had long disappeared. Then, finally, he turned. He now wore a dark red, velvety robe, which he had loosely tied around his waist, so it revealed a long strip of his chest—covered in curly black hair—but, almost disappointingly, nothing below his waist.

My lips pressed together.

The robe was so…

“What?” he snapped.

“What?”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at—”

I closed my mouth. Telling people that I was laughing at their clothing, I realized, was probably not very polite.

“What?” he bit out, irritated.

“The robe. It’s just… it’s very vampiric.”

His lips went thin. “Yes, well. I am a vampire. So I see now why you’re at the top of your field.”

I stifled my laughter.

Right. Work.

“I’m here for your blood. It’s been a month, as we agreed.”

“And payment?”

I reached into my bag and withdrew a rose, carefully wrapped so not a single petal was bent or crushed. He outstretched his hand, and I hesitated, to which he heaved an irritated sigh.

“What?NowI scare you?”

He didn’t scare me. It just smelled like sex in here. I crossed the room, eyeing the bloody, rumpled sheets as I passed. Vale took the rose and stared at it, unimpressed.

“The one you gave me last time seems to be totally unremarkable,” he said.

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