Forbidden Blood (8 page)

Sawyer was handsome and received plenty of female attention. However, he didn’t date or even bring girls home.
Nobody knew what he did when the urge to have sex came over him. In the past, a few of Payton’s friends had flirted with him, only to be politely rejected.

He smiled at her
. “Besides, it’s not as if I lack female attention. You should know. You used to have a crush on me,” he said, his tone joking.

She snorted.
“Maybe when I was like five. Obviously, my taste has improved with age.”

W
hile she admitted he was attractive, she saw him as a brother. Since Sawyer didn’t have siblings, Payton felt duty-bound to tease him as only a younger sister could.

“Maybe you don’t want some random woman. Maybe you have the
hots for the female you took home. You seem more annoyed than usual.” When Sawyer failed to reply, Payton moved closer to study him. “Holy crap, that’s it.” She burst out laughing. Sawyer actually liked a member of the opposite sex. “You want her.”

“No. I do not.” He narrowed his eyes. “Just drop it.”

“You might think you don’t, but your body says otherwise.” This time
, she leaned over farther and really got in his face while inhaling deeply through her nose.

He
pushed her away, causing her to fall back on the couch, which made her laugh harder.

“I said
, drop it, okay?” His mouth turned down into a scowl.

She didn’t understand what the big deal was, but she wiped the smile off her face before
sitting back up.

“Sorry. Sheesh. I didn
’t know you were so sensitive.”

Sawyer was always so confident
that it bordered on arrogant, and it was strange to see him bothered over something, specifically a female.

“What are you doing home on
a Saturday, anyway?” he asked.

She let him change the subject.

“Oh, you know me.” She mockingly fluffed her hair. “So many people requested my presence tonight that I didn’t think it was fair to choose one over the other.” She looked at the TV, but didn’t pay attention to it. “Actually, Nathan and I broke up, and I thought I’d lay low tonight,” she said, putting the mischievousness aside.

“Oh.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sawyer wince.

“Sorry I asked.”

“Yeah…well, I broke up with him, so…you know.” She shrugged. “He turned out to be a wuss.” She shook her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought him home.”

Sawyer chuckled. “He did look like he might piss himself, didn’t he?”

Nathan had taken one look at her father and brother, and then he’d practically run out the door in fear. There was no way she could find him attractive anymore. Although, the men in her family continually intimidating the guys she dated was getting really old.

“Yeah,
I really know how to pick ’em.”

Payton just wanted someone who
wouldn’t give a crap about her family’s reputation, and in turn, wouldn’t give a crap about what her family thought of him. On some level, she knew her wish was unrealistic because she didn’t want someone disrespectful either. Yet, she longed to find a dominant male like her father and brother—correction, she
needed
a dominant male. She wanted someone who would stand up for himself and for her. Pushovers were unattractive.
No pussies
,
thank you
.

“I think you’ll be fine as far as males
go. You know you’re gorgeous.”

Payton rolled her eyes. She knew she
had been blessed in the looks department. She was basically a female version of her brother with matching black hair, sapphire eyes, and full lips. Except, where he was tall and broad, she was average height and had female curves. Unfortunately, being beautiful did not guarantee one would meet the right guy. In fact, sometimes, she wished she could be a little more average.

Payton sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

Their conversation halted with the arrival of her mother and father. They walked down the stairs into the family room, both flushed and sharing a secret smile. That was exactly what Payton wanted for herself someday.

“Sawyer,” her father said when he spotted the man. “What do you have for me?”

It still amazed her how Vance Llewelyn could go from playful with her mother to serious and down to business so fast.

“Let’s go to my office.” He kissed his wife on the cheek
, and she headed into the kitchen after saying good night.

Sawyer patted
Payton’s knee. “See ya later, brat.” He stood to go upstairs.

“You’re still up, Payton?” her father asked.

Payton turned off the TV, moved off the couch, and walked over to him. “Yeah, I’m going to bed after I talk to Mom for a minute.” She kissed her father on the cheek. “Night, Daddy”

“Good
night, Kitten.”

“
Night, Sawyer.”

“Later, Payton.”

She turned to go find her mom. Maybe someday, Payton would have what her mother had with her father.

Naya sat on her bed, watching reruns of
Friends
and eating pizza with Vaughn. She was a little in awe of everything that had happened between them. Part of her still couldn’t believe she’d slept with him.

Or fed from him.

A couple of hours had passed, and his blood was a deep hum under her skin. It was amazing. Yet, she was beginning to sense his mood, and it made her feel a little guilty.

When a vampire took the blood of another, they
would form a temporary bond, but vampires were also natural blockers, both as a blood giver and a blood receiver. They kind of had to be. Up until that point, Naya had only fed from her mother and cousin, and her cousin had fed from her. She certainly wouldn’t want them, especially her mother, to know how she felt, and she wouldn’t want to know how Arianna felt in return.

She
wasn’t getting a whole lot from Vaughn at the moment, so perhaps he was a natural blocker, too, or his blood hadn’t been in her long enough. Maybe it was both. Either way, what had been done was done. She couldn’t give him back his blood, and the little selfish part of her liked that. The only thing she could do was enjoy the rest of their time together. She would never see him again, and he never had to know what she had done.

Glancing down at her food, she thought
about how pizza made her grateful that she was required to eat food like humans. It also made her grateful that she wasn’t at home. Her parents wouldn’t be caught dead eating something as common as pizza. Just picturing it made her chuckle.

Vaughn glanced at her. “What’s so funny?
”

“I’m thinking about my family. How do I say this?” She considered her words. “I don’t want this
to come across as bragging, but they have money, and it’s been that way for generations.” How could she put it a better way? “Think of
Titanic
—how they dressed in ball gowns and tuxedos simply
to have dinner.”

Vaughn nodded as he shoved half a slice in his mouth.

He raised an eyebrow, and she realized he’d caught her staring.

“Sorry. I’ve never seen anyone put away food like you,” she said. Not even vampires
, who had larger appetites than humans due to their higher metabolism, ate as much as Vaughn. He had eaten almost a whole large pizza on his own.

“You sucked all the energy out of me. I need to refuel.”
His teasing smile was incredibly sexy.

Wow
. She fought not to blush. “
Anyhow
,” she said, returning to the original conversation. “That’s how my family is. I pictured my parents eating pizza, and it made me laugh because it would never happen. I think I would actually pay money to see my mother eat with her hands.” She smiled. “I guess you’d have to meet them to understand.”

Vaughn nodded. “I think I could picture it. So, do you have any brothers or sisters? Are they more like your parents or you?”

“No brothers or sisters. I do have a cousin though. Arianna has lived with us since her parents passed away when she was ten, and I was eleven, so we’re like sisters. We get along well, but she takes after my parents. We don’t do much together away from home. She would probably have a panic attack if she set foot in a nightclub.” Naya put her pizza down.

Due to
their having unprotected sex earlier, she knew she should bring up pregnancy and diseases, and this was probably the best opportunity without giving away her vampire status. “I’m an only child because it’s very hard for people in my family to conceive or have babies. Nobody knows why, and unfortunately, that’s the way it’s been for as long as anyone can remember.” Some vampire scientists thought it might be difficult for their species to have children to offset their strengths, enhanced senses, superior immune system, and longer life span. Maybe it was Mother Nature’s balancing act.

“I wanted to share that in case you were wondering why
I wasn’t concerned about us using protection earlier.”

She couldn’t tell Vaughn the real reason he didn’t have to worry
that she would get pregnant. A vampire and human pregnancy was virtually unheard of.

Suddenly,
her disappointment was like a smack in the face. Vaughn would make beautiful babies.
Naya, get a hold of yourself. You just met the guy.

Quickly, she
picked up her pizza, so he couldn’t see the wistful look that had bound to be on her face and remembered to finish her speech. “Also, I don’t have any diseases, in case you were wondering.”

“Ah, I wasn’t too wo
rried,” he said as he grabbed his next slice. “I’m clean, too, and it’s also hard for people in my family to have babies. I still should have asked you about condoms though. Sorry.” He sent her an apologetic smile. “I realize it’s not an excuse, but you had me thinking about only one thing, and that was me—getting inside you.”

Her eyes went wide.
Was he always this blunt
? Naya could feel her cheeks heating up.

Already having had sex with him, she shouldn’t be embarrassed by his words, but she was. It could be because he’d touched, licked, and looked at places no one but she had seen before. And even some
, she hadn’t seen. Her only previous partner had insisted they have sex missionary style under the covers.

Oblivious to her reaction, he
was focused on his pizza. He took a bite, swallowed, and continued on as if they were discussing the weather. “But I do have a sister, Payton. I’m thirty-two, and she’s twenty-three. It took my parents nine years to have another baby.”

Then
, he smiled cunningly and watched her from the corner of his eye.

Maybe he
hadn’t been oblivious after all. He seemed to like getting a reaction out of her. She smiled and pretended like he hadn’t made her blush.

“So, what do you do for a living?” she
asked.

“My family owns a lar
ge construction company. You might have heard of it. L & L Construction? We’re based out of Minneapolis.” Naya shook her head. “We do a wide range of work from remodeling homes and businesses to building them from scratch. Also, we do most of the work ourselves, employing our own subcontractors instead of hiring from outside.”

“I really don’t get over to Minneapolis much. I have pretty much everything I need close to home. We typically go to nightclubs in St. Paul, but Kenzie really wanted to check out Pulse, with it being new. Plus, she thought the location was cool
since it’s technically in both cities.”

“So, are y
ou one of those people who thinks one side is better than the other?”

“No. It’s important to my parents, but it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Same here.” He swallowed another bite. “It’s a good thing, too. If you hadn’t come into Pulse tonight, I’d be eating pizza with some other girl,” Vaughn said matter-of-factly.

She threw her dirty napkin at him.

“What?” He held his hands up in pretend shock. “I was talking about my sister.” He laughed, and his amusement was infectious, so she joined in.