Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
A guy immediately came out.
“Hey!” Unlike the last human, this one was smiling, and instead of some muni-uniform, he had on overalls, and was covered with tattoos. “Nice ride.”
Al got out. “Thank you so much for this.”
“No problem, I gotchu. Rhamp’s been a customer of mine for years and years. Brings his bikes here.”
“You know what to do?”
“Yup. You can come back in—” The man checked his watch. “Let’s see, three hours?”
“That’ll be perfect.” Al hesitated and then opened the driver’s-side door a little wider. “Um, things are a little… messy inside.”
“No worries. I’ve dealt with it before.”
“I’m not sure you have.”
Two tattooed hands were put up. “Listen, I don’t ask questions about things that are not my business.” The man leaned in and lowered his voice. “And I have chemicals that can get blood out of anything. Don’t worry.”
Al sagged with relief. “Thank you so much. This means a lot to me.”
“See you in three.”
The pair shook hands, and then Al dematerialized into thin air right in front of the guy. As the man just went back inside like nothing unusual had happened, it was clear that he was either a half-breed who could go out in the daytime or he’d somehow been working with members of the species for a while now.
As one of the bays started to open, V didn’t care about all of that.
He wanted to know what the fuck was going on. Especially as the wind switched directions.
The scent of human blood was so loud in V’s nose, he almost sneezed from the shit.
What the hell had Al gotten himself into?
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
As Denne closed up Sal’s for the night and stepped out into the empty parking lot, she rechecked her phone. But like the text might have changed? In reality, she knew she was just trying to give herself a chance to rethink the plans she’d made with Al. Talking in the dark to him was one thing. Meeting up in person? Whole different ball game.
Ah, hell, maybe what she didn’t like about the situation was less seeing him again and more how much she was looking forward to it.
He’d been a preoccupation all night long. The sounds he’d made as he came. The heavy breathing in her ear through the phone. What her own body had done.
And if she saw him, she sure as hell wasn’t going to only hold hands with him.
Whatever, she needed to quit the headspin and go. And as she walked around to her usual spot to dematerialize from, she told herself this was just until the mating. That was it. She was going to stop cold turkey as soon as she went through the ceremony with t’On.
Like Al was the vampire equivalent of smoking.
Or heroin.
Now, there was a compliment every male wanted to hear.
When she was in the shadows, she closed her eyes, but it was a good minute and a half before she could ghost over to the address he’d given her. And although she was confused why he wanted her to go out there, she wasn’t unfamiliar with the area: Her disappointment when he’d suggested Latham Plaza as the place to meet up had offered insight into exactly how far from reality her romantic fantasies had taken her.
What did she expect, though? A nice dinner at almost eleven p.m.? He was on vampire time even if she wasn’t.
“At least a snack at a diner, maybe,” she murmured as she re-formed where she knew it would be dark. “Or maybe his apartment.”
Actually, no, that was a bad idea because she didn’t know if he had roommates. Or again, what if he had a female? The one in the glass house might have been his sister, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone else—and Denne wanted him, but she was not interested in fucking up some other female’s or woman’s situation.
So that was a question she did need to ask before this went any further.
Walking out of the darkness thrown by a walkway between stores, Denne glanced around the empty lot, and saw nothing but snowbanks and lampposts breaking up the football field’s worth of space.
“Where you at, Al.”
She snagged her phone and texted him. Then checked out the storefronts: Restaurants, a tattoo parlor, little shops that sold clothes and shoes and household stuff. For a brief moment, she imagined coming here with him some Sunday afternoon, the pair of them wandering along the sidewalk with the human couples, imagining their mated future with excitement because they were about to move into their first house.
It would be in the spring, by the way. And she and Al would both be able to be out in the sunshine, even though now that he was through his transition that was a no-go for him.
Shadows had no problem with the daylight, but his kind couldn’t handle it.