Chapter 6 #2
The singing from downstairs died away after ending on a haunting note that lifted goosebumps on my arms.
Taylor took a sip of her drink. “Wow.” But as she licked her lips, it was unclear whether she was talking about the music or the taste of her cocktail.
“Yeah, I know. I…” A movement at the top of the stairs caught my attention.
Jason.
My mouth dried and I turned away to hide a sudden rush of desire. That was…unexpected. Except maybe not. Taylor’s trouser snake phrase echoed through my head again, and I fought not to look.
Do not look. Do not look. Do not look.
But my words of command to myself didn’t help. My gaze skimmed his waistline…then lower. I sipped my drink and mis-swallowed, choking on my discovery. Perhaps Taylor had been right. Python, after all.
My cheeks warmed, and I looked anywhere but at the man rapidly approaching our table.
I could still see him, though. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his approach.
Damn that man, and damn the tailored suit that fit him like he should never wear anything else.
As he drew a chair to our table, citrus notes and something more base and elegant carried through the air, and I breathed him in.
The man even smelled like sex. I crossed my legs, and Taylor shot me a glance, her nostrils flaring.
I didn’t even dare look at Jason. All supernaturals had an incredible sense of smell, and if Taylor could detect my desire, I didn’t want to know if he could, too.
I watched the others in the VIP area instead, as I waited for him to speak. Although I desperately wanted him to change his mind and go away. Anything to make me less self-aware.
This level of attraction was so unlike me. There was something instinctive…animalistic about it. I usually had more self-control. Was this how my pack members felt all the time?
Some of the vampires on the other side of the mezzanine area were watching Jason, their gazes interested, an eyebrow raised here and there, but if he cared about their opinions, he didn’t show it.
He didn’t move from where he’d seated himself, and he didn’t even look tense or worried to be mixing with two of Conri’s pack so openly.
Except he wasn’t really mixing with Conri’s pack—he was watching me. His gaze was fixed on me, and he hadn’t altered that since his approach. I didn’t even need to look at him to know. I sensed it.
Taylor nudged me, and when I glanced at her, she nodded in Jason’s direction.
“He’s looking at you.”
I don’t know if she’d tried to mouth those words or whisper them, but she failed on both counts, her voice unnecessarily loud against the low hum of other chatter now that the music was back to background level.
I widened my eyes and would have hissed her name again if that wouldn’t have turned us into a couple of preteens leaning against the wall and wistfully watching the hot boy at a middle school dance.
She shook her head reproachfully. “Your move,” she said, and this time I didn’t know whether to be thankful that she’d managed a whisper or not.
I drew a deep breath. Hopefully a calming one. Then I faced him. His deep brown eyes were fixed on me, although it was like they were lit with sparks from within, and I responded to that heat. I took another breath. Cooling rather than calming this time.
“What’s with the VIP shit?” I managed to sound both flippant and caustic as I channeled my earlier anger over the land deed into my question.
“I don’t need any special treatment, and I don’t believe my brother will ask for it.
The nature of our relationship is strictly business.
” My mouth dried and something in my chest tugged in protest on those last two words.
He shrugged, but it was as if his movement was deliberately casual. Like he was being careful. “We can be friends, too.”
But there was something else. What wasn’t he telling me? Vampires didn’t act like this. Not with members of a shifter pack, and especially not with the only human member of a shifter pack. I was the lowest of the low.
Vampires always had something about them—an air of entitlement, in my experience. I suspected it came with being so long-lived. They seemed to believe they were above everybody, and they acted like most other species bored them.
So Jason’s sudden attention now was unusual. Except we were trying to negotiate a business deal that he wanted to go his way, so maybe not so unusual after all. He had the expectations of both his king and the New Orleans regent resting on him. He’d probably do very many things to come out on top.
Before I could say anything, Taylor patted my knee to get my attention.
“Cosmo next, I think,” she said before she drained the last of her margarita. “But before that—” She broke off and looked between Jason and me, a small smile of mischief twisting her lips. “I think I’d like a dance.”
“You should stay here, Taylor.” I shifted my position as I protested her plan, but she pressed her hand against my leg again.
“No need to get up. I can find my own way down the stairs. Besides, I don’t think you’ll make much of a wing-woman tonight. You two should stay and…chat.” Extra meaning was heavy in her tone, and I nearly groaned.
Taylor was almost desperate for me to find someone. A boyfriend…a partner…anyone. Sometimes, I thought she’d settle for me finding a fucking one-night stand. But that really wasn’t my thing.
Especially not for my first time.
But because I couldn’t date inside the pack, my opportunities were seriously limited, so Taylor was clutching at straws in Nightfall. Perfect.
“Stay and have your cosmopolitan now,” I suggested, clutching her hand as she suddenly became much more graceful and flexible than usual, calling on her inner wolf as she twisted carefully from my grasp. “Stay a little longer?” A pleading note entered my voice.
She shook her head. “Nope. And I mean it—you stay here. I don’t need you cramping my style and stealing all the guys down there.”
A low growl rumbled from Jason as she spoke, and she laughed.
“See? He agrees.” She laughed again and began her descent down the staircase, extra pep unmistakable in her step.
Traitor.
“She looks like she’s having a good time.” Jason only briefly glanced in the direction Taylor had disappeared in as he spoke.
I forced a chuckle, but it grated at the back of my throat and came out sounding unnatural as I swept my hair over my shoulder then immediately wished to put it back where I could hide behind it. “That might have something to do with the free drinks.” I sounded prim and uptight and…ugh.
But I’d been serious before. We had a business relationship. I couldn’t be taken in by a vampire’s tricks. They had a way of seducing when sex wasn’t even on the table, a way of making people do things. A compulsion.
And Jason was certainly compelling.
Almost against my will, I looked at him again, taking in the fit of his suit and the way his biceps muscles bulged even in his jacket and the top two buttons of his shirt, casually undone now and offering tantalizing glimpses of his skin now that his black tie was tucked carelessly yet artfully into his top pocket.
He clearly considered himself off duty right now.
“She looks like she might be a while.” He didn’t look toward the stairs again, but it was obvious he was still talking about Taylor.
“Mmhmm.” I made a noncommittal noise as he moved from his chair to occupy the space in the booth where Taylor had been.
Panic stole anything else I might have said. I didn’t want him to sit there, so close, right next to me. His scent was overwhelming, the citrus notes lodging in my chest, the touch of patchouli reawakening my desire for something darker…something that had always been forbidden.
Something that I really didn’t want now, even as I glanced at his crotch again.
Accidentally. I had accidentally glanced there again, but my face tightened as my cheeks heated, and I didn’t dare look up in case he’d seen me. Shit. I’d ogled a vampire. Many, many times tonight.
Sitting in this booth with Jason was way different to sitting in the packhouse. There, we’d had a table between us, and the contract had stood in the way of all else. It had focused my mind and kept me from doing anything but think about the pack and what Conri was owed.
Conri. That was it. I latched onto my brother’s name. Thinking about him would prevent me from doing anything stupid now.
I inhaled a shaky breath, but that goddamn scent flooded my senses again. It was as if it was made just for me. Something about it spoke of home and comfort and protection, and I took another sneaky inhale of it—like a fix—before I spoke.
“Oh, I don’t know. Taylor could really be back any minute.” I crossed my fingers as I spoke.
Of course, my friend wouldn’t be back anytime soon. She was out there trawling for action, and I had no doubt she’d find some.
It was hard to speak to Jason without breathing, but I had to keep my head on straight. I parted my lips slightly to breathe through my mouth instead. I was more used to vampires smelling of blood and death, and that would have been easier to cope with.
This was the species that had killed Conri’s and my parents, of course.
Our mom and the man who had always been absolutely my dad, no matter my true heritage.
No matter Jason’s scent or his manners or his congeniality and insistence that we could be friends, that wasn’t ever going to happen—he was still one of them.
Vampires were bad news. Always bad news. They were apex predators, killing machines, and they were obsessive and duplicitous when they saw something they wanted. In this case, Jason had a business deal in mind, and I needed to guard against him and his ability to effortlessly gain what he wanted.
He wouldn’t expect me to put up a fight. I suspected no human ever did.
But I wasn’t an ordinary human. I’d grown up in a wolf shifter pack, and even if shifter didn’t form part of my genetic make-up, their attitude did. And my survival instinct did.
Yes, Jason Martin had met his match this morning when I walked into the room in the packhouse instead of Simon, even if he didn’t know it yet.
I’d had years of protecting myself against shifter insults and even clumsy attempts to lure me into bed so they could win a bet, and I wasn’t about to let my guard down for one overly confident vampire.
I gathered my strength around me like a shield and smiled at Jason, my confidence suddenly cool rather than heated and flustered.
I could take him on.