Wanton With a Vampire (7 page)

She knew she was overreacting, but she was
still annoyed— not so much about his offer to buy the glasses as
his mention of the many women he’d been involved with. “You must
date a lot of shallow women.”

“I don’t date,” he said simply.

That was true; Alek Draksel slept with women,
but he wasn’t looking for anything more than that. For the first
time in her life, that worked out well for her, and she smiled.

“I’m not sure I want to know what brought
about that smile,” Alek said wearily.

“Then go cook dinner while I call Ivy,” she
said.

Alek hadn’t been nervous about having dinner
with a woman in more than two-hundred years. That is until tonight.
He was so on edge, he almost lost a finger dicing an onion. Women
did not make him act this way. Then again, Trish wasn’t just any
woman. She’d been turning him inside out since the moment he’d set
eyes on her. In all his years, he couldn’t remember ever wanting a
woman this much, but he was determined to take care of Trish and
not take advantage of her.

Still, even knowing he couldn’t have Trish,
Alek was in the kitchen trying his hardest to impress her. Crazy is
what he was. If he were a different man, he could pursue her as
more than a fling, but he hadn’t been that type of man in a very
long time.

“I’m not sure that pepper is going to get any
cleaner,” Trish said from behind him.

Alek turned and gave her his charming smile,
the one he’d used to get many women into bed. Tonight, it was more
of a shield to avoid having Trish see too much. Later, he’d
probably laugh at his own foolishness. Aleksandr Draksel, playboy
extraordinaire, was shaken by a woman.

“Give me that poor pepper.” Trish snatched
the vegetable in question from his hand. “I’ll help you cook. What
are you planning to do with this pepper?” Trish let out a
giggle.

“What do you find so amusing?” he asked,
loving the way her smile lit up the room.

“You,” she answered, lifting one shoulder in
a half-shrug. “Who would have guessed you’d be acting nervous
around me? I mean, I’m usually the one stammering like an idiot
while you flirt. Now, what do you want done with this pepper?”

“Diced,” he said. “I was thinking about the
absurdity of my reaction to you as well. In all honesty, I’ve been
acting differently around you from the moment I saw you.” Alek
concentrated on starting the potatoes, careful to avoid looking at
Trish.

Trish snorted. “Yeah, right. I’ve heard all
about your ultimate man-whore ways. You probably flirt with
anything with boobs.”

“Only if they’re nice boobs,” Alek retorted,
turning to watch the pretty blush spread across Trish’s cheeks.
That’s when his self-control deserted him, a common occurrence when
Trish was nearby. Gliding across the floor, he knew he was being an
ass, but that seemed to be his coping mechanism with this
woman.

Instead of looking uncomfortable, Trish
abandoned the pepper and turned to face him. “How would you say
mine compare?” she asked with a coy smile that made his heart skip
a beat.

For a very tense moment, Alek simply stared
at her. The temptation to kiss her was strong, and he wasn’t sure
where he found the strength to resist that temptation. Finally, he
cleared his throat and moved across the room. “I’d better get back
to work or you’ll never have dinner.”

“Thank you,” Trish said.

That got his full attention. “For what?” he
asked, looking at her over his shoulder.

“For trying so hard to be a gentleman,” she
explained without looking up from the pepper she was cutting. “It’s
kind of funny that you’re trying to be a gentleman when I don’t
want you to.”

“Did you ever want me to?” he queried,
keeping his expression as blank as possible.

“I don’t really know,” she said after a long
pause. “I mean, I thought I wanted you to act like a gentleman.
Your flirting made me uncomfortable, but not in the way most guys
do. There were plenty of times I was more than a little tempted by
you, but I’ve never been into casual sex.”

That was the reminder Alek needed. Trish was
a woman who wanted and deserved the real thing. She was a woman who
deserved better than him. It was quite a while before either of
them spoke again, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. On the
contrary, cooking dinner with Trish felt natural, even if they
weren’t talking.

“I need to stop letting you feed me,” Trish
said as Alek filled her plate.

“This is a perfectly healthy meal,” he
said.

“I get that you guys don’t put on any weight,
but carbs are not my friend,” she said. “If my backside gets any
bigger, I won’t be able to find jeans.”

Alek worked hard to resist the temptation to
check out the sexy backside in question— a backside he was quite
fond of. “You worry too much. The women of my kind have higher than
average metabolism rates too.”

“Good for them. Need I remind you that I’m
not one of your kind?” Trish asked before taking a bite of her
potatoes.

“We both know you’re going to get plenty of
offers to change that,” he pointed out and instantly regretted it
when he saw the look of panic in her eyes. “Don’t worry,” he
quickly added. “You’re still considered under my brother’s
protection, so no one will pressure you.”

“But the single men of your kind will be
sniffing around,” she said. “I know that sounds crude, but it’s how
it feels when I have men hitting on me.”

“Trish, I promise I won’t let any of the men
in my family harass you.”

“What about the other families?” she
asked.

“My father alienated most of them centuries
ago, and that rift still exists. You’re unlikely to have problems
with them. Only Justin and Sofia associate with the other families,
and I doubt either is going to share details about you.”

“You’re probably right,” Trish agreed with a
sigh of relief. “Justin would be afraid of upsetting Caitlin, and
Sofia hardly seems the type to encourage conversation about another
woman.”

Alek chuckled. “You understand Sofia pretty
well.”

“Yeah, she scares me most of the time,” Trish
admitted.

“That’s a healthy reaction to Sofia,” he
said. “What did Ivy say?”

“She’ll meet us there tomorrow. I hope this
doesn’t turn out to be a huge waste of everyone’s time.”

Alek let out a long breath before speaking.
“I have a feeling it won’t, and that worries me.”

“Why does it worry you?” she asked.

“I don’t want you to witness your father’s
death,” he said. “If there were a way to talk you out of this, I
would.”

“I need to know what happened,” she said.

“I know,” he conceded in frustration. “For
the record, I’m not telling you not to do it. If I were in your
position, I’m sure I’d do the same thing. I mean, if I’d had a
decent father. My father’s death should be marked with an annual
parade. That did not come out the way I intended it to.”

“It’s not exactly a secret that your father
wasn’t well-loved by the family,” Trish assured him.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “The way I
said that made it sound like I was competing for best sob story.
We’re talking about you, and only a complete dick would turn it
into a talk about his rough childhood.”

“Alek,” she said, reaching out to place a
hand on his bare forearm, an act that sent a jolt of lust through
his body. How was it that this woman made him want her no matter
what she did?

“Are you listening to me?” she asked, shaking
his arm.

“No,” he admitted. “My apologies, but I
didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“We should clean up and head to bed,” she
suggested. There was a beat of silence before she shook her head.
“You must be exhausted if you aren’t making some suggestive comment
about what I just said.”

Oh, he wanted to say something, but he wasn’t
going to.

Alek loaded the dishwasher while Trish put
away the leftovers, then they both walked into the living room so
they could go to bed— separate beds, he reminded himself.

“Goodnight,” Trish said and gave him one last
smile over her shoulder before heading into her room.

Alek merely stood there watching her door.
Shaking himself out of his strange mood, he grabbed his bag and
made his way into one of the spare rooms. His eyes nearly popped
out of his head at what he saw. “What the hell?”

He heard Trish’s giggle from across the
living room before she called out. “That’s Caitlin’s room. As you
can see, she and Justin still use it. You might want to sleep in
Lyd’s old room. It looks like Barbie puked in there, but at least
you don’t have to dodge the swing in the middle of the night.”

Alek took one last look at the room with the
sex swing hanging in the middle and the handcuffs attached to the
headboard. His nephew was definitely much more adventurous than he
would have guessed.

Trish’s hands shook most of the trip out to
the place where her father had died. She was afraid of what she
would see, but more afraid she wouldn’t be able to see anything.
There was also the freaky stuff she was seeing every time she
opened her eyes, but keeping her eyes closed in the car was
difficult, especially when Alek kept reaching over to pat her
knee.

Her nerves kicked into high gear as she
stepped out of Alek’s car and looked around.

“Are you okay?” Alek asked, looking like he
really wanted to help her but had no idea what to do. Twice, he
moved like he was going to put an arm around her, but he stopped
himself each time.

She nodded and gave him a wobbly smile.
“Thank you again for coming with me, and for insisting that Ivy
meet us. You were right about me needing help.”

Ivy and another woman were waiting for them
by the train tracks. The other woman was petite like Ivy with brown
hair pulled back in a severe bun. Round, wire-rimmed glasses
covered her blue eyes. The disgusted glare she gave Alek was
quickly masked and followed by a comforting smile directed at
Trish.

“This is my cousin, Willow,” Ivy said. “At
short notice, her talent is the closest I could find to yours.”

“I see dead people, usually ones who died in
horrible ways,” Willow announced, sounding a little like a ditzy
teen.

Trish just stared at her, not quite sure what
that had to do with her own new ability. Then again, she didn’t
understand her own ability, so maybe they were related in some
way.

Willow laughed, looking younger and much less
annoyed. “I totally get why you’re so confused. When Ivy asked me
to come with her, I felt the same way. I was like, ‘seriously, you
think just because we both have freaky abilities that we’re, like,
the same?’ Welcome to the exciting world of having a talent that
creeps everyone out.”

Trish gave her a nervous smile. “I hadn’t
thought about how what I do makes other people feel yet. I’ve only
been doing this a couple of days, and it freaks me out.”

Willow slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“You’ll get used to it. We’re working on getting one of our
clairvoyant cousins out here to work with you. No one does exactly
what you do, but they’ll understand you better. Until then, you’re
stuck with me.”

“Thank you,” Trish said, more than a little
overwhelmed.

“Just breathe,” Ivy said in a soothing
voice.

The train tracks weren’t far from the road,
but her father had died at just after midnight when the lighting
was bad and very few people were out. A witness might have made the
whole thing easier for her mom to accept, but no one had seen
anything. Even the train operator hadn’t seen her father jump onto
the tracks.

Trish had been here dozens of times, but
today, she was filled with a dread like she’d never experienced
before. She had no idea what she expected to see, but she was
surprised to see nothing more than the train tracks in front of
her. Everywhere she went, she saw things from the past, but looking
at the spot where her own father had died, she saw nothing. How was
that even possible?

When she looked farther down the tracks,
Trish clearly saw three boys running toward them. One of the boys
fell, and then the lights from the train came in the distance. The
boy tried to stand, but had somehow managed to get his foot stuck
in the tracks. The terror was obvious in his large brown eyes as
his friends struggled to pull him from the tracks. His mouth opened
to let out a scream. At least, Trish assumed it was a scream. One
of the most disconcerting things about these visions was that she
couldn’t hear any of what was happening. Releasing the breath she
was holding, Trish was relieved when the boy was dragged from the
tracks in the nick of time. Strange that she was worried about
something that might have happened decades ago.

“Is it your father?” Alek asked, pulling her
back to the present.

She reached out and gripped his hand, needing
the anchor to the present. “No.”

“You might not be able to see what happened
because you’re too close to the situation,” Ivy suggested.

Trish looked at Ivy. “Does it work that
way?”

Ivy shrugged. “Actually, I have no idea. This
is new territory for me.”

“Your dad wasn’t a cop, was he?” Willow
asked. She’d moved away from the group and now stood closer to a
copse of trees.

“Yes,” Trish said. “Although, he was on leave
at the time of his death.”

With a nod, Willow’s attention returned to
the copse of trees. “He was,” she said to empty space before
turning back to Trish. “Detective Williams?”

Trish nodded, and her skin was prickling as
she wondered if Willow was talking to her dad. When Trish looked
back at the tracks, there was a bright flash, and then she saw the
past. It was strange knowing it was daytime while seeing night.