Page 34 of Secret of the Vampire
“Fuck me,” Brogan muttered as I locked the door.
I glanced over at the woman again. “What does she want?” I asked him. I wasn’t overly concerned. It wasn’t the first time a customer had waited outside for us to close and the dancers to come out. And anyway, I had my own problem waiting for me to worry about.
“Not what you think,” he told me.
“Do you need to go handle that?”
He glanced down at me. “No. I’m supposed to stay with you. She can wait.”
We started walking in the opposite direction toward the house. I was thinking I’d just have to let him walk me home and then sneak out when I noticed him looking back over his shoulder. I did the same.
The woman was still there. Same spot. Hadn’t moved an inch.
I looked up at Brogan and saw his jaw clench. “Brogan, really. If you need to go handle that, go ahead. The house is only a few blocks away and there’s still quite a few people out tonight. I’ll be okay.”
He just shook his head without looking at me.
“Look,” I told him. “I’ll call Jamal. Have him meet me along the way.”
I saw a hint of uncertainty in his green eyes, but he finally agreed. “I won’t be long.”
“It’s okay. Go take care of…whatever you need to take care of.” I smiled and pulled my phone out of my pocket, acting like I was getting ready to text Jamal.
“All right.” Wrapping one large hand around the side of my head, he pulled me toward him and dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Be careful.”
“Will do,” I promised, and watched him walk away without a backward glance.
My heart began to pound, and my mouth went dry with that strange mixture of fear and excitement I felt every time Alex was anywhere near me. At least now I knew why.
The closer I drew to Basin Street where the cemetery was located, the faster my steps became, even as my mind screamed at me to turn around, to go home, to tell him this was a bad idea and that he needed to stay away from me. And really mean it this time.
But it wasn’t until the stone wall that surrounded the cemetery appeared that I hesitated at all.
What the hell am I doing?
With a quick glance around, I continued down St. Louis Street. There was an apartment building across from the cemetery, and just past the apartments was a parking lot. I waited until I was to the lot before, with one last look around, I easily leapt the wall and landed in a crouch on the other side. The cemetery was dark, the aboveground tombs casting long shadows in the faint light of the streetlights.
Due to the famous graves within, the cemetery had been subject to a lot of vandalism over the years, and so the city finally closed it to the public except for guided tours. Why humans always had to ruin everything, I would never know. However, this suited our purpose tonight just fine. And as I spotted Alex standing next to an impressive tomb with a cross on the top near the center of the graveyard, I was glad there was no one there to see how I stopped and stared.
His feet were braced apart, his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, his coat open, and his eyes on the ground in front of him. He appeared lost in thought and hadn’t seen me yet. As I watched, he gave his head a little shake, like he was shaking away ugly thoughts, and pulled out his phone and checked the screen, then shoved it back into his pocket.
I wondered how long he’d been waiting for me. And as I watched him, I couldn’t fight the response I had to his nearness. His scent came to me on the breeze, and I closed my eyes briefly as the bloodlust hit me hard, my fangs shooting down before it spiraled through me, mixing with my hunger to feel his hardness against me, his mouth on mine and his hands on my skin. Desire clenched the muscles deep in my womb, so sharp I gasped out loud.
His head suddenly lifted and snapped around, his eyes pegging me where I stood. In the darkness, they glowed a dark gold for a moment before they dimmed, blending into the shadows of his features.
Pulling his hands from his pockets, he started walking toward me and I did the same, meeting him somewhere in the middle. I wasn’t sure what I expected. That he would grab me in his arms and kiss me senseless? Or at the very least, greet me in some manner that told me he’d missed me.
But he didn’t do any of that. He drew to a stop just out of my reach. Taking his cue, I stopped also.
His eyes grew hard as they travelled over my face. “You’re afraid.”
I took a steadying breath. He was right. Beneath my need for him was still a lingering fear. “I am.”
His expression never changed, but I heard the hesitation in his voice when he asked, “Do you want to leave?”
I thought about that for a long, hard moment. Then I shook my head.
“No.”
