Chapter 17
17
V anessa had awoken in the late morning bathed in sweat after sleeping only four hours. She’d heard footsteps and the closing of a door. Maybe Ethan had only just come home. But the sounds in the otherwise quiet house weren’t the reason why she couldn’t sleep. She was in heat again. She’d rushed into the shower and turned on the cold water, before standing under the spray for a good ten minutes. It cooled her body down somewhat, but it wouldn’t last long. She knew that. She knew exactly what would help her right now.
Only wrapped in a towel, Vanessa reached for her cell phone, hesitating. Would it be desperate if she called Cole right now? Maybe not. After all, before he’d left Ryder and Scarlet’s house, he’d said that they would talk today. He hadn’t mentioned who would call whom. While she was still contemplating if she should make the call, her cell phone rang. It was Cole.
Her heart began to beat excitedly, and the blood in her veins raced as if she was trying to catch the last bus. She took a couple of steadying breaths, before she tapped on answer .
“Cole, hi.”
“Hi. I hope I’m not calling too early.”
His deep voice sank into every cell of her body, reminding her vividly of how he’d taken her last night.
“Not at all,” she managed to say without sounding too needy.
“Good. I was thinking since we still have a lot of things to discuss, you know, about me booking you exclusively, why don’t I take you out to dinner tonight?”
Fuck! She had to work tonight. With the rogues still terrorizing the city, she needed to patrol just like all her colleagues. Nobody was getting the night off.
“Oh, uhm,” she said, hesitating. She had to tell him that she wasn’t a sex worker, and that wasn’t exactly something she wanted to discuss over the phone. “How about lunch instead?”
“Yeah, sure, that works,” Cole replied.
“There’s a little French bistro on Polk. I’ll text you the address.”
It wasn’t that she loved the restaurant she suggested, but this one was only a couple of blocks from Cole’s condo. And that was important, because once she was close to Cole, she was sure her symptoms would become more pronounced, and she might not have a lot of time to make it somewhere private before she would tear the clothes off his body.
“All right. Shall we say in an hour?”
“Yes.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Cole replied, his voice dropping an octave lower, making him sound like pure seduction.
Vanessa felt heat rise into her cheeks, making them feel like she was ablaze. Her throat was tightening, and she was unable to speak. She disconnected the call and inhaled sharply.
Fuck!
That man could turn her into a puddle of need with only his voice.
Before she lost all her senses, she quickly texted him the address of the restaurant, then tossed the cell phone on her bed and opened her closet to pick out a suitable outfit.
By the time she was dressed, she was just as hot as before her cold shower. Maybe a bottle of blood would make her feel better. She checked in the small fridge of her room, but it was empty. She grabbed her handbag and her jacket, and headed downstairs into the kitchen.
The fridge was mostly stocked with bottles of human blood, though there was also some human food for when Ryder’s wife, Scarlet, visited. Over the last few years, Vanessa had switched to mostly bottled blood for her sustenance. It kept her strong and alert for the job she had to do every night. On occasion, mostly in social settings, she consumed human food, though she wasn’t as keen on it anymore as she’d been as a teenager. Human blood simply fulfilled her needs much better than regular food.
Vanessa emptied one entire sixteen-ounce bottle and felt better. She placed the glass bottle in the recycling bin, then walked into the panty, grabbed a six-pack of bottled blood and refilled her own mini-fridge in her room. Back downstairs, she headed for the foyer, where she halted abruptly, inhaling deeply. The scent that rose into her nostrils brought back memories of being in Cole’s arms.
She was clearly hallucinating. Shaking her head, she opened the front door, and left. She decided to walk to the bistro on Polk Street, since it wasn’t far, and she was way too early. Besides, according to Sebastian, who’d left her a message yesterday, her car was still sitting in Scanguards’ underground garage and didn’t show any signs of life. She would have to get another car, but she wasn’t in the mood to think about choosing one right now. Her mind was filled with too many other things.
In her mind, she rehearsed how to tell Cole that she wasn’t a sex worker. Still, she was nervous, because she cared about him, and she figured that if he ’d kept such an important fact from her, she would feel betrayed too. Not only that. This wasn’t the only piece of information she’d kept from him. How she would tell him that she was a vampire was a whole other story. In hindsight, perhaps she should have wiped his memory of the attack. At least then, he wouldn’t instantly associate vampires with evil.
When she turned onto Polk Street and arrived in front of the bistro, she was sweating, and this time, it wasn’t only because she was in heat, but also because she was afraid that she’d kept too many things from him, and that he would never be able to trust her once he knew the whole truth.
Vanessa entered the bistro and spotted Cole sitting at a small corner table. He rose instantly and waved at her. She strode toward him, smiling, her body heating even more. Yes, he was definitely the catalyst that sent her into heat.
At the table, Cole reached for her and leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to her cheek. “I’m so glad you came.”
She smiled at him. “Hi.” Her throat began tightening. Should she order food and drink first, before she sprung the truth on him?
“Take a seat.” He pointed to the half-moon shaped bench.
“Thank you.” Vanessa tugged on her jacket to take it off, and Cole immediately stepped in to help her like a gentleman.
“You look a little flushed,” he commented. “Are you hot?”
Vanessa sat down, while he laid her jacket over one of the unused chairs. Cole took the seat next to her on the bench, close enough to touch.
“It’s really warm in here.” Nevertheless, she inched closer to him so her thigh touched his.
He turned his face to her, while beneath the table, he slid his hand on her thigh. “I’ve already had time to study the menu.” He pointed to the menu in front of her. “Take your time.”
“I know what I want.” Both from the restaurant’s kitchen and from Cole.
“Good, we’ll order.”
He waved at a waitress, who took their order a moment later. When she left the table again, and promised to come back shortly with drinks, Vanessa knew it was time to confess the truth.
“I’m sorry I had to leave so abruptly last night,” Cole said, before she could form a sentence. He lifted his hand from her thigh and reached for her hand.
“Me too,” she confessed as he held her hand in his.
“Have you thought about my proposal? About me wanting to hire you exclusively?”
She hesitated. This was as good a segue as any. “About that. Uhm, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Vanessa noticed a look of dread wash over his face, and saw his lips parting, getting ready for a protest, but she couldn’t let him interrupt her.
“You can’t hire me, because I don’t work for Vera. I’m not a prostitute.”
Her words coincided with the waitress placing their glasses of white wine on the table. The woman’s eyes widened, but she turned away quickly and retreated.
Cole blinked, while his forehead furrowed, and he gave a light shake of his head. “But… no, no, you were at Vera’s, and you slept with me. You didn’t protest when I said that I wanted you.”
“That’s right. But you might remember that Vera tried to protest and took me aside.”
“I thought that was because maybe your shift was over.”
Vanessa shook her head. “Vera tried to talk me out of it, because she didn’t know you. She was worried you might hurt me.”
For a few seconds, Cole just sat there, saying nothing. He’d let go of her hand earlier and now shoved it through his hair, rubbing his scalp.
“But why would you agree to sleep with me when you don’t work there?”
She leaned closer. “Because I wanted you the moment I saw you.”
Their eyes met, and she waited for him to digest the information. Would he judge her?
“Weren’t you afraid that I could hurt you?”
“No. I could see in your eyes that you’re a nice man.”
“Just nice, huh?” He smirked. “You know that’s normally the death knell for a guy, being called nice.”
Beneath the table, she placed her hand on his thigh, then slid it up to his groin.
Cole almost choked.
“Not just nice,” Vanessa whispered, leaning in. “Sexy, hot, passionate. A selfless lover. What woman wouldn’t want that?”
He put his hand over hers, stopping her from moving it even farther up. “Okay, so now that we’ve established why you slept with me, would you please tell me who the guy in the red Lamborghini was?”
Surprised, Vanessa pulled back and looked straight at him. “You followed me?”
He quickly shook his head. “No. I was on my way to a business meeting, when I noticed the car. And it’s such an unusual one to find in San Francisco that I stopped for a moment to admire it, when you got out of it and went into that Victorian on Pacific Avenue. Last night, I thought he was a client of yours, but since you don’t work for Vera... Is he your boyfriend?”
Relieved that Cole hadn’t been stalking her, she smiled at him. “He’s my brother. He dropped me off because my car broke down.”
Cole let out a breath. “Thank God. But who was the woman he drove off with?”
“Scarlet, my sister-in-law. She’s the mother of the twins.”
“So that was her husband? Pretty young.”
“Actually, she’s married to my oldest brother.”
“And you had to babysit for them?”
“Yes, the twins are a handful. They can’t just get a regular sitter. It has to be a family member or a good friend. Nobody else will put up with them.”
Because a regular babysitter would find out pretty quickly that the twins weren’t human. They flashed their fangs at the most inappropriate times, and when they were naked, everybody would see the growth on their groin.
Cole nodded. “Okay, now that that’s cleared, there’s still one thing that I don’t understand: what were you doing in a brothel?”
As he asked his question, the waitress came with their meal, and placed the plates in front of them. Vanessa caught her shocked gaze, before she pivoted and hurried away.
“I work with the City of San Francisco to look after streetwalkers, the homeless, and the drug addicts. Occasionally, I bring prostitutes to Vera’s to shelter them if they get in trouble with a john or a pimp. That’s what I was doing there that night.”
“Fuck me,” he said on a breath. “I had it all totally wrong. Will you forgive me?”
“Forgive you for what?” She shook her head. “I was the one who let you believe that I worked there. I lied to you.”
Cole took her hand into his. “I don’t care. Though it does bring up something else. Now that I can’t hire you to sleep with me, how am I gonna get you to be with me?”
She hadn’t expected him to be so easygoing. This had gone better than she’d expected. She wished telling him that she was a vampire would go just as well, but she doubted it. However, that was a matter for another day.
“In your bed?” she murmured, lifting her hand to his face to run a finger along his jaw.
“More than that. I’d like the whole girlfriend experience…”
She brushed her cheek against his, the contact making her aware of just how hot her own skin was. “How about you get the check, and we get out of here and go to your place, before we totally traumatize the poor waitress?”
“I like the way you think.” He turned his head and caught the waitress’s attention. When she came to the table, he addressed her, “Can we get this food to go? And the check, please? Thank you.”
As the waitress hurried away with a relieved look on her face, Cole turned his face back to Vanessa. “You know that we’ll never be able to eat here again, right?”
Vanessa chuckled. “I think that’s a fair assessment.”
He dipped his face to hers and kissed her lips tenderly, while he slid his hand to her nape, making her entire body tingle with arousal.