A Vampire for Christmas(39)
Oh, yeah? That’s not what I have in mind to eat.” He willed his fangs down and worked his best scary snarl on her.
The woman tilted her head, eyeing his canines, but he didn’t feel so much as a shiver when he leaned against her body. What was wrong with mortals nowadays? Their scare factor had dropped off the scale.
Aren’t you afraid?” he demanded, feeling his own fears rise from that awful night a year ago when the vampires had attacked him in the subway. Yes, he’d been fearful. He hadn’t believed in monsters, hadn’t time for that fantasy bullshit. Now he couldn’t get away from it.
I’m not afraid,” she offered boldly.
Daniel laughed inside, but on the outside he remained serious. Sweet little thing didn’t know what she was dealing with. She probably thought the fangs were fake. Or…
I get it. You’re one of those chicks who gets off on men with fangs. You put posters on your walls and swoon over the movie star vampires with the stupid hair. Like to tail around behind us, and beg to get bitten.”
Not particularly.” She reached for his face, which made him flinch, but the soft yarn mitten managed to stroke his aching chin. “I bruise easily, and I can’t abide stupid hair.”
She was not processing the enormity of her danger. Must be in shock.
Daniel tightened his jaw, but when he met her eyes, the anger that had built inside him for a year dissipated like a faulty snowball dispersing midair. It felt wrong to play the big bad to brave Miss Bright Eyes. Why hadn’t he been capable of standing up to his attackers like she had? He wasn’t a pansy, and he used to go a few rounds in the boxing ring every weekend with a buddy. It was just that werewolves were so strong.
I live at the top of the stairs,” she said, thick snowflakes dusting her lacy dark lashes. “Why don’t you come up and let me tend that bruise. Who beats up a vampire and actually wins?”
Werewolves,” he said sharply, and then waited for her to panic.
But she didn’t. Instead, she nodded, accepting. Something was seriously wrong with this woman.
They didn’t win,” he corrected. “You arrived just when I—”
I know. You had them right where you wanted them.” She slid out of his grasp and started up the stairs that hugged the side of the brick brownstone, her boots clunking on the iron steps. “Coming?”
Daniel couldn’t figure what had just happened. Maybe the woman was a witch or demon or—hell, someone in the know. Mortals didn’t accept him so calmly. Screaming was the usual response. The occasional stake was to be expected.
Shoving a hand over his hair, which was wet with snowflakes and probably some of his own blood, he licked his lips. The bruises and wounds the werewolves had inflicted would be gone in minutes. But resist an invite into a pretty woman’s home?
He looked around, shuffled his feet, and shoved his hands into his front jeans pockets.
He was a monster, and a hungry one at that. The pretty lady had best beware.
OLIVIA ADORATA SHRUGGED off her winter coat, wool mittens and hat, and tossed them over the back of the worn leather easy chair in the tiny apartment she rented throughout the year, but only got to visit about five out of the fifty-two weeks. Her hair was a mess and she wore yoga pants and a bleach-stained shirt. She hadn’t expected to encounter a handsome man on her way home, or to so boldly invite him in—make that a handsome vampire.
Behind her, the vampire stood in the open doorway, snowflakes whipping in around his tall, lean frame and onto the carpet. A vampire.
She’d met plenty of actors who played vampires and even a nonactor who had completely believed himself a denizen of the dark. But she’d never met a real vampire. Thanks to her mother’s penchant for all things spiritual and otherworldly, Olivia believed they existed, or at least, wouldn’t discount them just because she hadn’t met one before.
She prided herself on being open-minded, but hadn’t expected to ever come face-to-face with one—and come so close to his fangs. That had freaked her, but she possessed the incredible ability to remain calm on the outside while inside she was screaming. Attribute that to her profession. Never let them see you sweat.
And how to be frightened by a man who looked like he belonged in a men’s fitness magazine? The muscles were apparent through his thin leather jacket, and that solid jaw and sharply buzzed dark hair added to his appeal. Freckles on his nose granted him a bit of a boy-next-door look—with fangs. She loved freckles.