Harper Allen - Vampaholic

Stepping over him, I walked to the front of the MINI and reached inside to the console. I popped the trunk and hastened back again, flicking a wary glance at Rawls’s prone body as I passed him. Ask me how long two coats of OPI polish plus a base and topcoat take to dry and I can tell you to the second, but predicting how long a man who’s gone down for the count will remain down isn’t my area of expertise.

However, I did have some handy gadgets relating to one of my areas of expertise in the small overnight case I always carried with me. Minutes later, having used them and a few other things on him, I surveyed the results of my handiwork with satisfaction.

“There’s something about a man in handcuffs that always gets my motor revving a little,” I murmured. “But just because a girl’s got a wicked side doesn’t mean she’s a vamp, Jack—or at least, it doesn’t mean she’s turned into a vamp yet. If you’d known that much about me, we might have ended up using these handcuffs in a completely different scenario tonight.” I’d straddled him as I’d cuffed him to the MINI’s bumper and tied each of his legs with lengths of tough nylon rope to his own vehicle, which I’d moved up behind the MINI. Now I sat back on his chest and narrowed my gaze at him.

When I’d seen him earlier I’d been distracted, first by Terry and then by the confrontation with my sisters, and I certainly hadn’t taken note of his physical attributes while he’d been trying to shoot nails in me. Jack Rawls wasn’t a bad-looking man, I realized belatedly. He was in his late twenties, although by the leaned-down look of his jaw and the sun-squint lines interrupting the tan at the corners of his eyes, they hadn’t been twenty-eight or twenty-nine indulged years. His black hair was growing out from a close trim and I got the definite impression it would be ruthlessly cropped back again the minute it started to get in his way. Not drop-dead gorgeous like Jean-Paul, or all moody and wolfishly sexy like Megan’s Mikhail, I decided, but definitely handcuffs-to-the-bedposts material. Somehow, though, I didn’t think he was the type to go for that, even if we’d met under more conducive circumstances.

“Kansas farmer stock?” I hazarded as I waited for him to come to. “Idaho? From your accent, I’m guessing you’re from one of those flat states where people do Norman Rockwell things like going to potluck suppers and having chores. It’s not only the accent, it’s the whole grim determination thing you’ve got going on, as if staking me is a duty you can’t shirk. Such a shame, sweetie. As I say, these handcuffs could have been put to much better use.”

“I don’t sleep with vampires.” As if he’d been conscious for some seconds and had simply been waiting for the right moment to startle me, Jack Rawls opened his eyes and stared emotionlessly at me. “I meant what I said. Kill me. I’m not interested in eternal life, vamp.”

Without warning he jerked his arms powerfully toward his body and tried to do the same with his legs, like a mustang lunging desperately against restraints. I grabbed two handfuls of his T-shirt and tightened the grip of my bare thighs against his rib cage to avoid being bucked off as he tried to break free, expecting him to continue his fight for a few moments before realizing it was doing him no good. But he surprised me again. Just as suddenly as he’d exploded into movement he stopped—as if, I thought with sharp interest, he’d been in similar situations in the past and recognized when it was of more benefit to conserve his energy than to continue resisting uselessly.

I made a note to add his familiarity with restraints to the list of subjects to explore with the mysterious Mr. Rawls, but my first question was a deliberately distracting one.

“Police issue cuffs, courtesy of a detective on the Maplesburg P.D. who liked playing good cop/bad girl with me,” I told Rawls. “Or was it bad cop/bad girl? Anyway, they’re not toys, Jack, and I got the rope I tied around your ankles from the trunk of your car, so you’re not going anywhere until I say you can. I also ran over your damn nail gun, so don’t bother trying to think of some way you can reach it and use it. Speaking of your car, I’ve got to ask—what’s an upstanding, vampire-hating carpenter like you doing riding around in a vampmobile?”

“I got a deal,” he said tonelessly. “Its last owner died in it.”

When I’d moved his vehicle, I’d turned off the bright headlights, leaving on only its parking lights. My back was toward them but they shone full in Rawls’s face, so I could see every flicker of expression that crossed his features, if there’d been one. But there wasn’t. The only indication of his state of mind came from the cold hatred in his eyes as he stared up at me.

Now, cold hatred isn’t the usual expression men have when they look at me. Unbridled lust, hopeless infatuation, puppy-dog pleading—those are some of the ways men look at me. Even when I’d dumped Terry this afternoon, I’d seen in his eyes that if I’d crooked my little finger as he’d stormed out, he would have turned right around and come back for the chance to spend another night with me. Rawls, on the other hand, had me sitting on his chest with the black lace of my pink panties peeking out under my hiked-up hem and, thanks to the ripped neckline of my ruined slip dress, my breasts practically spilling out of my push-up bra into his face—and still he was treating me as if I was something he’d scraped off his shoe.

I decided that Jack Rawls was beginning to piss me off just the teensiest bit.

“Its last owner being a vampire like you think I am, I suppose,” I said, my patience at an end. “How can I put this so you understand? I’m not undead, I’m a real live female.” A thought occurred to me. “You’ve seen me in the daytime,” I reminded him, clinching the ridiculous argument. “What does the fact that I didn’t burst into flames tell you, sweetie?”

“Fuck all.” If anything, the hatred in his gaze intensified. “I’ve never seen you exposed to the sunlight. Far as I can tell, no one has in a while. Yeah, you’ve shown up here a couple of times in the late afternoon, looking as sick as a dog and wrapped up in scarves and wearing dark glasses. I’ve known a vamp or two in my time who can rise before dusk if they had to and if they take the kind of precautions you do. That hasn’t stopped me from killing them.”

“Then we’d better hope you never run into Tara Reid,” I shot back, pissed by his “sick as a dog” observation, which didn’t take much effort to translate into “skanky wreck.” “News flash, Jack—when a girl’s partied a little too enthusiastically the night before, sometimes she finds jumping out of bed at the crack of dawn and singing ‘Oh, What a Wonderful Morning’ a tad beyond her. She might even reach for the Ray-Bans and be a smidge tardy getting into work. Admittedly, most hangover cures I’ve choked down could better be classified as hangover punishments, but a stake through the heart is going too far, no?”

He didn’t respond. I leaned closer to him, my arms braced on either side of his shoulders. “Okay. If I’m a vamp why haven’t I bitten you by now? For that matter, why did I defend myself with a stake?”

Just as I decided he wasn’t going to answer this time either, he spoke, his jaw clenched. “I don’t pretend to know why you creatures do any of the things you do. My best guess is that you’ll bite me when you’re good and ready, but right now you’re getting a charge out of this.”

“A charge out of what? ” I demanded. “Getting nailed to my car?”

His words ground past his teeth. “Out of sitting practically on my face and leaving nothing to the imagination while you’re doing it. Out of seeing if you can make me hot for you by using your glamyr. ” He exhaled tightly. “Out of knowing it’s beginning to work.”