Chapter 5 – Luna
Chapter Five
Luna
There were only two people left when I let myself into Dark Ink—and only one of them I recognized. Nilesh, one of Jack’s new hires to fill in the ranks after Angela’s departure. He was working on a client, and I gave him a polite head bob as I ducked into Jack’s office to get caught up.
I surveyed Jack’s desk dryly. He’d apparently been so sure of my survival he’d left all of the mail in a pile for me to deal with.
I sat down in his chair and started going through it, tossing everything unimportant in the trash and listening to the running tattoo machine outside.
After that I started going through emails—Jack had at least made an attempt to stay up on these, booking clients for the shop.
I still double-checked all his work. Jack didn’t strike me as the thorough type, at least not where office work was concerned.
But he had offered to change me. Straight up, no strings. I’d worked for Rosalie for seven years and never gotten that close to it before. I put a hand up to my lips that I’d colored in with a purple lipstick so dark it was almost black, and sighed.
What if my new Master had just been a little slower?
What if I were sleeping the true sleep of death, in Jack’s coffin, right now?
I heard the machine outside turn off, and a quiet murmur of conversation as Nilesh finished up his art and got paid.
There was a polite knock on the office door not long after. “Come in,” I said.
Nilesh opened the door up so it framed himself.
He was just a little shorter than Jack, and well-built: dark eyed and darker skinned, excellent cheekbones, with just the right dusting of beard-shadow, the kind that made you wonder what it’d feel like between your thighs.
“Hey. Just wanted to let you know I was closing up in here.” He looked me up and down. “Are you feeling better now?”
Not particularly. “Yeah.” I pushed myself away from the desk. “Why do you ask?”
“Jack said something about you having the flu.” He moved to lean against one of the doorframe’s sides. “I told him I wanted to bring you some soup, but he said I couldn’t come over. Which begs the question why you’re crashing at his place?” he asked, with a sly grin and a slight shrug.
Why indeed. I gave him a brave smile, hiding my angst. “Shit’s complicated and rent’s high?”
He laughed, his lips revealing a row of even white teeth. “I hear that,” he said, then looked around. “Did you want to be alone?” he asked, raising a concerned eyebrow. “I mean—not like that. I’m just new to Vegas. If I leave, is it safe for you to be here by yourself?”
Considering everything else I’d recently survived, it’d better be.
I had the nightblade my Master had given me in my bag, and while its magic was supposed to only work on “good” people, I was pretty sure I could stab some merely “bad” human with it, if I had to.
I had a vague recollection of getting a good swipe in on somebody at Vermillion with it, before passing out from blood loss.
I still didn’t feel fully like myself now, though. I couldn’t believe Jack had essentially time-traveled me for a week with vampire-commands, and I didn’t want to think about how he probably sat around pouring broth down my throat or cleaning up the rest of me.
“Luna?” Nilesh asked, distracting me from my thoughts. I glanced up at him. “It is Luna, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, shaking myself lightly. “And you’re right.” Anything I was doing here now I could finish up tomorrow night, after I’d gone out and eaten the world’s biggest cheeseburger. I started closing screens on the computer.
“About which part?” he asked, clearly teasing. I looked up at him again and blinked. He was wearing a dark-red T-shirt and jeans, and I got the feeling that his five-o’clock shadow was the real thing, not a styled affectation, like he’d actually come in for his shift earlier cleanly shaved.
He was, for all intents and purposes, pretty. Pretty as in pretty-much-my-type. And what would serve me even better than catching up on a week’s worth of solid food would be catching up on feeling alive, because I almost hadn’t been.
I let a wicked smile pull the corners of my lips up. “The part where I do want to be alone. With you. In here,” I said.
I watched slow realization light his eyes, then he quickly stepped into the office and closed the door behind himself. “You aren’t dating him, right?”
“Jack?” I asked, my voice high. I dragged my lower lip temptingly through half-closed teeth before I answered him. “Would you actually care if I was?”
He looked momentarily pained. “I would, but I would also regret asking you for the rest of my life.”
I laughed, standing up before sitting down on the desk, making the small room feel crowded on purpose.
“No. We’re just,” I started, but truth was I didn’t know what Jack and I were.
I just knew I was trapped with him for as long as my Master wanted me to be.
“He’s just helping me get back on my feet is all,” I said.
I leaned back on my hands against the desk behind me.
“Exes.” Nilesh rocked back, nodding.
I did nothing to confirm or deny his supposition, basking in my power.
I wasn’t a vampire—yet—and I wasn’t using magic, though I knew some, but there was still a certain energy in just being a forthright woman.
The kind of woman who was used to getting what she wanted, no matter what.
“Is that a risk you’re willing to take?” I shrugged innocently, while giving him a knowing grin.
“To be with you?” he said, his voice going lower as he pushed off the door in my direction. “Absolutely.”
He put a hand on either side of my hips as I grabbed the front of his T-shirt to drag him down to my level.
Our teeth clashed and I didn’t care. I wrapped my legs around his thighs and dragged my fingernails against his scalp, as he grabbed my ass and pulled me near, making my skirt ride up—and then I stiffened, pushing him back.
He went with it instantly. “Too fast?” His chest was heaving underneath his tight shirt, and the outline of his hard-on against his jeans wanted to make me promises.
I looked at my hands like they belonged to someone else. “It’s just,” I began, trying to place why everything felt so weird all of a sudden . . . and then I realized that this was maybe the first time I would be sleeping with someone in ages because I wanted to.
Not because a vampire had ordered me, or because I had to prove something to one.
“It’s okay,” he apologized, taking a further step back, turning for the door.
“No, don’t,” I told him, putting a hand out to stop him. “I just need a moment is all.” I was so used to just doing this with Rosalie, under her watchful eye, seducing someone because she wanted to know all their secrets—or being taken by my new Master because he needed to feed.
How long had it been since I’d had this kind of freedom?
At least seven years.
Nilesh gave me a gently confused look. “Are you sure you’re feeling well?”
In the fullness-of-time sense, no . . . because I still had a genetic disease that was going to ravage me if I didn’t become a vampire, quickly. But for the purposes of tonight . . .
“Yeah,” I told him. “Come back?” I asked, my voice soft.
He moved to stand in front of me again, this time seeming much more chaste. “You’re, like, double sure?”
“Only if you have two condoms, yeah.” I looked up at him, feeling an unfamiliar true smile spreading across my face. “But if you have three, then I’m triple sure.”
He laughed and then he came for me.