Page 127 of The Midnight Order
He pinches my cheek from behind before slapping my ass and getting out of the shower. “I can feel you blushing from here,” he calls as he towels off.
Shaking my head with a smirk playing on my lips, I quickly wash.
When I get out, he’s gone, giving the illusion he was never there to begin with.
That’s half the battle in my chest since I stepped into this world: is it even real?
Chapter 33
Silver
Coming down from the shower,I run my hand along the wooden railing that runs the length of the stairs. Being in the manor is like being in another era. Everything looks like a scene out of Downton Abbey. Other than that, I’m the main character, and none of the men living beneath its roof are gentlemen. At one time, they were, perhaps.
The scent of food cooking invades my nose long before I enter the kitchen. Jasper diligently moves from one pot to the next, humming some long-forgotten tune softly.
I watch him as I slide onto a stool at the island bar. He flips the steak in the pan before tipping it toward him, then uses a spoon to bathe it in the sizzling butter cooking beneath it.
My stomach grumbles as I lick my lips. “That looks delicious.”
He startles slightly before turning around and flashing me a devilish grin. “To you, maybe.”
“You eat food, right? Occasionally?” I note the second steak that’s already resting on a bamboo cutting board off to his right as I ask.
“We do. We can tolerate it, though it doesn’t satisfy the craving for blood. It is an old pastime we partake of.”
I snort. “Pastime.”
He turns off the heat and moves the steak next to the other on the cutting board to rest before turning back toward me. “When you’re as old as we are and don’t need to do such tedious tasks, you’ll find you forget them altogether. I don’t think I’ve eaten food in well over a year until I had coffee with you.”
“Speaking of, did the drugs not affect you?”
His eyes fill with something he doesn’t speak to life as I watch him seem to fight with something he’d rather not tell me. “Let’s talk about that over dinner, shall we?”
He leads me over to the table, where he also sits. I hadn’t heard Milly come in, but when I turned my attention back toward the kitchen, she was plating our dinner.
Jasper pours us both healthy glasses of wine, and once Milly has our food in front of us, she exits as soundlessly as she’d entered.
Even though the food smells delicious, knots wind through my stomach as I watch Jasper for any signs that he’s angry about how I behaved. I was drugged, sure, but I was less than ladylike, and I know it’s hard enough for them to resist my blood when I’m not offering it drunkenly to them.
“I’m sorry about everything that happened,” I offer.
His red eyes narrow as they turn murderous. “None of this was your fault.”
“I know that I’m just?—”
“Do not apologize to me again.” The command is curt and has me sitting straighter in my chair.
“I’m sorry that I was too lax with your security.”
I laugh. “Like you could’ve known some psychopath dosed the coffee.”
There’s a beat of silence that I use to my advantage to get my thoughts and worries straight before I open my mouth again.
“It wasn’t Karen, was it?”
“I have no answer for you yet on that front.”
I swallow. Lifting my fork, I spear the steak, using my knife to slide through the tender meat as my mind works over the last few weeks.
