Page 16 of Bloody Temptations

“Oh, I didn’t—” I begin to stutter, but Kai waves me off.

“On the house. Tell us what happened.”

He stands back, arms folded over his chest, mirroring Belinda’s no nonsense stance. It’s alotto be stared down by the both of them.

“I can’t accept—” I’m interrupted again, this time by Belinda.

“Yes, you can. But for the love of the Gods and their tiny being babies,spill. I have work to do.” She makes a hurrying up gesture, but softens her impatience with a smile.

“It’s nothing. Seriously.” I shift uncomfortably on my stool, trying to cross my legs before I realise I can’t and picking up my glass for something to do with my hands. “I just had a run in with someone at the supermarket. I went to buy blood and the guy was all weird about it.”

Kai and Belinda wince as one.

“Ouch,” Kai says, leaning across the bar to pet my arm reassuringly. It’s the type of casual, friendly touching I’m still not used to from him. It makes my heart lurch every single time. And tonight is no exception.

“Ooft.” Belinda sucks at her teeth. “Being a baby vamp is rough, hun. I wish I could say it gets better, but really, you just get better at letting it roll off your back. It was a him problem, love. Not you. Remember that.”

She pats my arm too, and not even a flicker out of my stupid heart. It does make me feel a smidgen better, though, and I smile a little more genuinely this time, my head bobbing.

“Yeah, it’s not the first time. It just… extra-sucked today.”

It really wasn’t the first time I’ve faced vamp-haters in the wild. Sometimes it even works in my favour—no one ever wants to sit next to me on the bus. But tonight really shook me. I wasn’t lying when I said it wasn’t even a big thing.

I got sent home early from work because we were overstaffed, so I decided to swing by the supermarket to pick up some blood.

When I got to the front of the line, the checkout attendant had a low-key freakout when I asked him to get the blood out of the locked fridge.

He stood as far away from me as he possibly could, going out of his way to make sure that his hands didn’t touch mine when he took my vamp ID card, which is kind of impressive because he was shaking like a leaf.

I knew the guy was scared—I just couldn’t believe he was scared ofmeof all things. I couldn’t even catch flies when I was acat. How am I scary? What exactly did he think I was going to do? Leap over the counter and drain his blood right there in front of everyone?

The guy looked like he could squash me like a bug. And it was six in the evening, for fuck’s sake!

There was a family doing their grocery shopping. A group of teenagers trying to buy condoms. A trio of old grandpa looking men grumbling about the teenagers. All of them,right there. And this big guy, with a tattoo covering his head, and sharp, stabby looking horns looked at me like I was some kind of monster.

“Wanna talk about it?” Kai asks when Belinda wanders off to go talk to Lifo about stock levels.

I take a sip of the drink he made me. It’s good.Reallygood. Like my regular blood-apple martini with a twist of something extra.

“Absolutely not.” I manage to smile for real this time and take another sip. “Tell me about what’s been going on here instead.”

Kai laughs again. It’s low and warm and turns my insides to jelly. I’m positively molten as he leans across the bar again, resting on his elbows so he can get as far into my personal space as he can.

My fangs throb as they get sharper. I can’t help but notice the flex of his tendons where his neck meets his collarbone. I’m transfixed, but Kai doesn’t seem to notice that he’s reduced me to a puddle of brain cells again. He looks at a point beyond my shoulder, keeping his voice low.

“Keep an eye on Belinda and Lifo. He’s absolutely obsessed with her, but she hasn’t given him the time of day until tonight. Something’s going on. It’s almost as good as your app thing.”

He says it like he doesn’t demand I tell him the latest stories every time I’m in. He’s hooked, we both know it.

“Notnow! Be cool, dude!” He says when I turn to look at the pair at the other end of the long bar. Covering the slightly too loud moment, he stands up and starts cleaning the bartop with a towel he’s picked up from somewhere.

There is another moment. A glimmer of something in our shared smile. The way his eyes sparkle with laughter. The conspiratorial tip of his head and raised eyebrow. The snickers we share over the night as I keep an eye on his coworkers.

There is something definitely different going on there. For starters, Lifo is actually beingnice. Which is a change. I hope I don’t look like he does when he stares after Belinda—all pathetically doe-eyed like a hopeless sap. But Kai is right… There is something different going on. Usually, Belinda is oblivious to Lifo’s pining, almost pointedly so. Tonight though, she’s almost… entertaining it.

The whole thing entertains me, at least. And Kai’s right again—it is almost as good as a solidCrumblesdrama. By the time I’m curledup in my bed, the run in with the shitty checkout attendant is all but forgotten. All thanks to Kai.

I almost feel bad, scrolling through the videos, about jerking off to yet another compilation of him dirty dancing on a bar top. Almost.

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