CHAPTER SEVEN
Aiden watched Kelly disappear into the bathroom and shut the door. He tried not to look at the damnable unmade bed that looked all too ready for the two of them to enjoy it. Naked. Oh yeah, he could imagine them naked, her naked, in vivid detail, and apparently, so could his cock, which was pressing uncomfortably against his zipper.
Aiden sat down in a high-backed chair in the corner of the room, not nearly far enough from the bed to suit him. He tried to focus on other matters, texting Troy to confirm they were still clear of trouble. Thankfully, she had blinds and curtains, so he didn’t have to worry about outside prying eyes—not from the bad guys, or his brother. He couldn’t win here. Troy hadn’t been pleased that Kelly had called him on his personal involvement in this case, and putting Troy inside with her was more trouble than not. Putting him inside with Kelly—more trouble than was safe.
The bathroom door opened and Kelly stood there, her face scrubbed free of makeup, wearing a red ‘I love Paris’ t-shirt that reached to her knees, and thankfully, covered more of her than her bar outfit had. That didn’t stop him from wondering what she had on underneath it, and he silently cursed himself, for even going there.
“I have an entire pizza in the fridge, if you’re hungry? It was buy one get another for a penny and that was just too good to pass up.”
He was hungry, alright—for her. “Pizza sounds good,” Aiden said, pushing to his feet, ready to get out of this bedroom, away from the curse of temptation that was the bed. He’d more than eagerly join her in the kitchen, where the small window over the sink wouldn’t be hard to avoid, and the bed would be. “Lead the way.” And pizza sounded damn good. He’d take any kind of substance that might tame the craving he had to taste Kelly’s blood again. He might be a vampire, and like all vampires, he had blood on his menu. But his race had evolved, the days of sunlight intolerance and daily blood intake long gone. Blood had become more a necessary monthly supplement.
Fifteen minutes later, they sat at her wooden kitchen table with girlie floral cushions on the back of the chairs. Between them sat a large cheese only pizza, two diet Sprites—because diet Sprite was all she kept in the house—and two plates.
“So do you love Paris?” he asked, sprinkling extra cheese on the two slices lying on his plate.
She swallowed a bite of pizza and looked down at her shirt. “I did until my parents retired there last year. I miss them horribly.”
“Any siblings?” he asked.
Her expression darkened, and even so, he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was without even a lick of makeup on. “I had a sister,” she said.
“Had?”
She set her pizza down. “I guess this is where I give you the same kind of full disclosure I wanted from Troy. This case is more personal to me, than not. My sister died ten years ago. Her and several other university students were all killed by a janitor working at the school. Five of them total, died before the police figured out who the killer was. The truth is, I survive the memory of losing my sister by doing my job and doing it well. I try to stay all business, and most of the time, I succeed, but I have to admit that this case is just a little too similar to my sister’s to not feel an abnormally strong connection to it.”
For the first time in years, Aiden let himself see the memory of his parents, and his younger sister, lying lifelessly on the ground in front of their home, murdered by a vampire. That same vampire would have killed him and his brothers if not for Marcus saving them and turning them into Wardens. It wasn’t a place he visited. Ever. He didn’t like how it felt. He didn’t like how vividly he could recall their lifeless expressions after so many years.
“You were right about the hunt for Andres being personal to Troy and that’s his story to tell or not tell,” he finally said. “But there was a woman, a betrayal, and a whole lot more there. It isn’t a pretty story. He’s messed up over the whole thing and he believes wrongly that Andres will somehow give him answers, and I don’t even know to what. He knows better than to get personally involved in a case, and he can’t even see that he is. It’s dangerous Kelly, for him and for you. You can’t help anyone if you aren’t here anymore.”
“I know,” she said. “I do. I’m a logical thinker, a facts person, but even so, sometimes, my past finds a way inside my head.”
“I do know,” he said. “I know because Troy’s story, my story, starts long before Andres. When we were much younger, Troy, myself, and our older brother Evan, came home to find our younger sister and our parents dead.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God, Aiden. How? Who? Why? Oh…I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. Forget I asked. But was this before or after you got into law enforcement?”
“I wouldn’t have brought it up if I wasn’t going to tell you about it but there isn’t a lot to the story. And it was before, and it was the reason we decided to take on the jobs that we do. They died in what was a random, senseless act of violence.” Which wasn’t a lie. A vampire with bloodlust didn’t chose victims any way but the easy way—whoever was in their path. “My point in this is that I’m going to get you out of this alive, but stay that way. Stop playing detective, or become one so you have a partner to watch your back.”
She studied him a long moment. “Thank you. I should have said that already. I’m glad you were at the bar and I’m glad you’re here now.”
Their eyes locked and held, a charge crackling in the air, their attraction getting stronger, nearly impossible for him to escape. And he wanted to. He wanted to escape because of the very conversation they were having. His world was about pain and death, about hunting monsters he didn’t want her anywhere near. He needed to get this conversation back to the basics, to talk that amounted to nothing, to the basic shared hunger for food. Not the more primal hunger growing inside him for this woman.
He picked up his slice of pizza. “Tell me about Paris.”
She started talking, telling him stories, of poorly spoken French and lost luggage that made him forget the idea was to put small talk between them. Instead, he was laughing at her stories, feeling more and more connected to Kelly.
When they stood up to head back to the bedroom, he grabbed the empty pizza box and put it in the trash inside her pantry, while she put the plates in the dishwasher. They turned toward each other at the same moment, and he reached out and caught her to keep them from colliding. The touch was hot, electric, consuming. He didn’t even consciously think about what came next. One minute they were staring at each other and the next he was kissing her, or more like devouring her. He lifted her, removing the barrier of his height, allowing himself to deepen the kiss, to taste her more fully. Her legs wrapped around his waist, his hand finding her backside where the shirt had lifted, where a tiny strip of a thong did nothing to cover her. He groaned with the realization, and he knew he should stop now, before he couldn’t think straight, before this went too far. Her hand slid into his hair, caressing his neck, the gentle hunger he felt in her arousing the animal that was his vampire. He could smell her arousal, almost taste the sweetness of her blood again. His gums tingled, and he knew he was in trouble.