Real Vampires Don't Diet (12 page)

"You're kidding me."

"Don't I wish. Go get Brittany. She needs to help me with this one and you need to get inside and take care of Ray."
Valdez bounded off down the hill.

I ran inside, whispered in Brittany's ear, then hurried upstairs to check on Ray, only stopping to throw the water guns in a hall closet before I opened the bedroom door. He was propped up in bed with a laptop.

"You'll never believe" We both said it at the same time, though actually Ray whispered it.

"Okay, you first." I stopped beside the bed.

Ray grabbed my T-shirt. "Hole. Blood. And you're wet. What the hell?"

"A little attack. Water cannons. Funny and, uh, okay, a little scary, but I handled it." I can't say I wasn't pleased by the worry lines on Ray's handsome face.

He shook his head, then set the laptop aside. He pulled me down next to him. "Tell me." So I gave him a summary, highlighting my bravery, awesome intimidation skills, not to mention kung fu or whatever you call those fighting moves.

"Why"

"Talk in my head, Ray. Save the voice for the important stuff, like singing."

"Why does this Westwood hate you so much?"
Ray lifted the hem of my shirt to look at my healing wound.
"Son of a bitch.
That's got to hurt."

"Yeah, wood really stings. I had a run-in with Westwood before. He hates vampires, hunts them with a bow and special olivewood arrows, for sport. Collects their fangs for trophies and wears them on a necklace. Two of those fangs belonged to Jerry's best friend. Pretty sick, huh?"

"He sounds like Simon Destiny. A man who's too rich and too bored. Wish we could send him to Circe too."

"Exactly! Too bad Aggie only wants vampires. Brent Westwood would be a great catch for her." I entertained myself for a moment with the thought of a world without Simon and Westwood in it. "Anyway, we had a showdown on Halloween last year and I managed to get the best of Westwood. So he's been gunning for me ever since. Bad enough the male vamps are eluding him, but when a dumb, blond vamp puts one over on him, his ego just can't take it."

"A smart man would never, ever take you for a dumb blonde, Glory St. Clair. Don't know how this guy made billions.
Maybe there was a blonde helping him.
" Ray grinned and slid his hand over my wound. Ooo. Felt comforting. And sexy. Very distracting. I threw up a block. Obviously Ray had stopped pouting about what might or might not have happened between Nate and me. Sexy moves. Was he feeling competitive? Trying to see if he could win me from his buddy? I wasn't about to be the prize in a macho seduction contest.

"What did you find out on the laptop?"

"See for yourself."
Ray picked up the laptop and set it on my legs.
"Check this out."
There was a Web page devoted to the mythological (hah!

If they only knew.) Aggie or rather her real and definitely unpronounceable name. "It claims these Sirens are usually in the Mediterranean or thereabouts. I'd love to know why Circe dragged her to
our
lake. Sure wish her boss the Storm God had a Web page and an e-mail account. We could clue him in on his Siren's activities. Bet he'd be none too happy to learn she's hooked up with Circe."

"That's what I was thinking. Seems we could blackmail Aggie, threaten to expose her, if we could figure out how to
contact her big boss.
" Ray suddenly started to cough and gasped for air. Bad news. Since even a glass of water could make him sicker, all I could do was watch and wait for him to lay back and close his eyes as his breathing became even again.

"You need to feed again. I'm up for it, but I need to shower first." I looked down at my dirty shorts and the bloodstained T-shirt.

"I'll read this stuff later. Why don't you lie back and take a nap?" I picked up the laptop and moved it to a dresser on the other side of the room.

"Maybe you shouldn't feed me. You were injured. You need your strength for yourself "
Ray lay back and put his hands behind his head. He'd shucked the sweatshirt Nathan had insisted he wear earlier and was back to just boxers again. Exhibitionist. Of course he did have something worth showing off.

"Glory?"

"Uh, I'm fine, Ray. I fed from a healthy young guy outside. One waiting to scope out your friend Sienna when she arrives. I barely bled from this little cut."

"You went hunting outside? Are you crazy?"
He sat up straight, his hand clutching my thigh under my shorts.

"I had Valdez with me." I kind of liked the way Ray seemed sincerely worried about me. And his hand on my thigh wasn't so bad either. I should move back, tell him to cool it. Of course I did none of the above.

"And you came back injured anyway. Maybe next time we should just order pizza and you can do the delivery boy."

"Yeah. Might work." And Valdez would be happy to scarf down the pizza afterward. "I'm fine. I hope I warned his henchmen off, but we need to be careful if Westwood is thinking of coming back to Austin. He has a way of detecting vampires. You're not immune from an attack either."

"Vampire hunters? I can't think about that now."
Ray yawned and stretched, finally letting his hand slide down my leg and away from me. Those boxers gapped and I almost swallowed my tongue. "
I still have a hell of a headache. Stupid. Alcohol
never did this to me before. I could drink Jack all day and all night if I wanted and never feel a thing."

"This isn't before. This is after. I hope you've learned your lesson, Ray. I'm not planning to come running over here every time you have a craving for the old days and a bender." There. I guess I'd shown Ray I wasn't one of his groupies, turning to mush and willing to do whatever just because he flashed a little skin. Okay, maybe I was out of sorts because he'd just let go of me so easily. Or could he be teasing me? I gave him a narrow-eyed look.

"No, I wouldn't expect that. I've learned my lesson."
He touched his throat.
"Believe me. If I come out of this able to
sing"
He swallowed and I forgot all about ulterior motives.
"I'm scared. Glory. Singing. It's all I have. What if
"

"Stop it, Ray." I sat next to him and put my hands over his, throwing a few healing thoughts his way. "This has got to be temporary. I told you. I've had hangovers before. Bad ones. A few days, a week at most and I was back to normal." I smiled.

"Or at least as normal as a vampire ever gets. Read my mind. You'll see I'm telling you the truth." Ray gripped my hands and looked into my eyes.
"Yeah, I can see you're being straight with me. Thanks."
He pulled me down and kissed me on the lips, a sweet friendly peck.
"Go take your shower. The sooner I feed, the sooner I get cured.
Right?"

"Right." I jumped up and headed for his closet. "Ray, you know I need to go home soon. I can't keep wearing your clothes. And there's the shop. Tomorrow night I really need to check in."

No answer. I looked out and saw Ray had his eyes closed.

I guess admitting his fears had worn him out. Or relieved him so much he was finally relaxed enough to sleep. My heart squeezed and I had to force myself to go back into the closet and the problem of what to wear.

I found a red silk shirt that was definitely my color. Indulgent, but what can I say? I'd earned it. I held the shirt up and realized it would only come down halfway to my knees. It would be totally sluttish of me to wear this and nothing else. I pulled open a drawer and found a pair of his silk boxers. All right. Modesty preserved. Sort of.

Before I hit the shower, I couldn't resist checking out Ray lying in bed. Not sleeping. Now he was watching me, eyes gleaming, that wicked smile on his face like he was still reading my mind. Which he shouldn't be without my express permission. How many women had thought to toy with him before? And how many had ended up just exactly where he wanted them? I wanted What? A clear conscience for when Jerry came home again? Or the experience of a lifetime with a legendary rock star? What a hell of a choice.

"Glory?"

"Hmm?"

"You do great things for a wet T-shirt. Just thought you'd like to know that I noticed."
I scurried into the bathroom, my face on fire. Stupid, I know. I should have thrown my shoulders back and said "Thanks, Ray." But I'm still a fangirl and he's still a world-class rocker. I've listened to his CDs for hours. Watched his concert DVDs over and over again. And if vampires could dream, well, I'm sure he'd be a star in some pretty hot ones. I made the shower quick. Didn't need to wash my hair, so I wrapped it in a towel to keep it dry then picked a nice lavender shower gel I found among the offerings in a basket in the bathroom. After I got out, I inspected my healing wound. It was barely a pink spot. I put on the shirt and saw that my nipples were excited to start the party. What party? All I was going to do was feed Ray. I pulled on the boxers.

See? I was decently covered. My nipples refused to face reality and calm down.

I opened the bathroom door and found that Ray had been busy. He'd lit candles. Almost a dozen of them around the room. Oh, boy. Now what had been a simple case of me giving him a dose of healthy healing blood was turning into a seduction scene right out of one of my fantasies. Yep, a vampire might not have dreams, but she sure has fantasies. Jerry had certainly never thought about lighting candles except for light, back in the days before electricity had been invented. Nope, not thinking about Jerry now. Who was I kidding? I couldn't be with any man and not compare him to Jeremiah Campbell. Not since 1604 anyway. And all of them (and I'm not revealing numbers, you do the math) had come up short when compared to my Scotsman. Ray would probably be the same. I blocked my thoughts and smiled. Nothing was going to happen here tonight. But I wasn't about to share that thought with Ray. I wanted to see what kind of moves he made. If any.

"My shirt never looked that good on me."
Ray was still talking in my head.

"Maybe you didn't think so, but millions of women would disagree with you." I walked to the bed, putting a little sway in my hips.

II When you come out looking like that and?'
sniff
"smelling like that, you give me hope that something interesting is
going to happen here. Besides feeding. I mean."
Ray smiled and held out his hand.
"Lavender. I like."

"I like too. That's why I chose it. It's supposed to relax me. No ulterior motives."

"Are you tense? I promise not to attack you this time."
Ray pulled me down beside him.
"Or at least I hope I won't. I
didn't intend to do it last time. I went a little crazy. That's why I lit the candles. I'm trying to make things nice this time.
Last time wasn't."

"I understood, Ray. You weren't yourself. And there's nothing wrong with crazy, as long as it doesn't get out of hand." I settled next to him, facing him. I reached out and brushed the hair back from his forehead. "Quit worrying. You were in a weakened state. You've had time to recover now. I feel sure you'll be fine. Start slowly. Like you just did, smell me. Start here." I touched my neck.

Oh, pooh, my hands were shaking. So much for calm, sophisticated Glory. I'd had a thing for Israel Caine for years. Sure I was just going to feed him, but this was pretty cool. He was showing every sign of really wanting to be with me. He nuzzled my neck and I felt the gentle scrape of his fangs across my jugular. But he didn't take me there.
"You smell
fantastic. Like warm, rich blood. I can hear your heart pounding. Does it always beat this fast?"

"No." I lay back on the pillow. "Every vamp gets off to a little blood exchange. Even when it's just between friends."

"Friends. Right. You're a good friend to me, Glory."
Ray moved down my body, still just inhaling. I try. First he picked up my wrist. Then he touched his lips to the crook of my elbow. Oops. A few buttons had come open on my shirt and he nuzzled the space between my breasts.

"Soft, sweet, and your pulse is calling to me."
He eased down to my knees and then picked up one foot.
"You even have a
pulse in your ankle. But I won't bite you here. Too bony and there are much more interesting places left to investigate."

"I think you've gone far enough, Ray."

He kissed a path up my leg behind my knee.

I bit back a moan. "Ray, I said"

"Don't say anything. Just let me explore. Will's been telling me about all the places a vampire can take blood."
He carefully, oh, so slowly, moved his lips toward my inner thigh.
"There's a spot near here. Isn't there, Glory?"

"Stop!" I practically flew off the bed. Ray was left looking puzzled, like where the hell did she go? Tough. I stood a foot away and put my hands on my hips. "Okay, Ray, listen to me."

"Come here, Glory, things were just getting interesting."
He patted the bed beside him and gave me his sexy smile again.

"No, they weren't." I tapped my foot. "That spot you were headed for is an intimacy I reserve for one guy. I think you know who he is."

That wiped the smile off his face. "
I wasn't asking you to make love, just give me some of your blood,"

"Well, sorry, bud, but in the vampire world, giving my blood from that spot is all about lovemaking. I don't do that lightly." I looked down and realized I was definitely sending the wrong message. Clingy red silk unbuttoned down to there? No wonder