Page 34 of Vanessa’s Bravery

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Thank me by finding happiness.”

Cole felt a smile steal itself onto his lips. He could do that. He could find happiness. With the right woman. And with the courage to lay himself bare before her. Even if that meant that he was making himself vulnerable and risked disappointment. Love and happiness were worth the risk. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

17

Vanessa had awoken in the late morning bathed in sweat after sleeping only four hours. She’d heard footsteps and the closing of a door. Maybe Ethan had only just come home. But the sounds in the otherwise quiet house weren’t the reason why she couldn’t sleep. She was in heat again. She’d rushed into the shower and turned on the cold water, before standing under the spray for a good ten minutes. It cooled her body down somewhat, but it wouldn’t last long. She knew that. She knew exactly what would help her right now.

Only wrapped in a towel, Vanessa reached for her cell phone, hesitating. Would it be desperate if she called Cole right now? Maybe not. After all, before he’d left Ryder and Scarlet’s house, he’d said that they would talk today. He hadn’t mentioned who would call whom. While she was still contemplating if she should make the call, her cell phone rang. It was Cole.

Her heart began to beat excitedly, and the blood in her veins raced as if she was trying to catch the last bus. She took a couple of steadying breaths, before she tapped on answer.

“Cole, hi.”

“Hi. I hope I’m not calling too early.”

His deep voice sank into every cell of her body, reminding her vividly of how he’d taken her last night.

“Not at all,” she managed to say without sounding too needy.

“Good. I was thinking since we still have a lot of things to discuss, you know, about me booking you exclusively, why don’t I take you out to dinner tonight?”

Fuck! She had to work tonight. With the rogues still terrorizing the city, she needed to patrol just like all her colleagues. Nobody was getting the night off.

“Oh, uhm,” she said, hesitating. She had to tell him that she wasn’t a sex worker, and that wasn’t exactly something she wanted to discuss over the phone. “How about lunch instead?”

“Yeah, sure, that works,” Cole replied.

“There’s a little French bistro on Polk. I’ll text you the address.”

It wasn’t that she loved the restaurant she suggested, but this one was only a couple of blocks from Cole’s condo. And that was important, because once she was close to Cole, she was sure her symptoms would become more pronounced, and she might not have a lot of time to make it somewhere private before she would tear the clothes off his body.

“All right. Shall we say in an hour?”

“Yes.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Cole replied, his voice dropping an octave lower, making him sound like pure seduction.

Vanessa felt heat rise into her cheeks, making them feel like she was ablaze. Her throat was tightening, and she was unable to speak. She disconnected the call and inhaled sharply.

Fuck!

That man could turn her into a puddle of need with only his voice.

Before she lost all her senses, she quickly texted him the address of the restaurant, then tossed the cell phone on her bed and opened her closet to pick out a suitable outfit.

By the time she was dressed, she was just as hot as before her cold shower. Maybe a bottle of blood would make her feel better. She checked in the small fridge of her room, but it was empty. She grabbed her handbag and her jacket, and headed downstairs into the kitchen.

The fridge was mostly stocked with bottles of human blood, though there was also some human food for when Ryder’s wife, Scarlet, visited. Over the last few years, Vanessa had switched to mostly bottled blood for her sustenance. It kept her strong and alert for the job she had to do every night. On occasion, mostly in social settings, she consumed human food, though she wasn’t as keen on it anymore as she’d been as a teenager. Human blood simply fulfilled her needs much better than regular food.

Vanessa emptied one entire sixteen-ounce bottle and felt better. She placed the glass bottle in the recycling bin, then walked into the panty, grabbed a six-pack of bottled blood and refilled her own mini-fridge in her room. Back downstairs, she headed for the foyer, where she halted abruptly, inhaling deeply. The scent that rose into her nostrils brought back memories of being in Cole’s arms.

She was clearly hallucinating. Shaking her head, she opened the front door, and left. She decided to walk to the bistro on Polk Street, since it wasn’t far, and she was way too early. Besides, according to Sebastian, who’d left her a message yesterday, her car was still sitting in Scanguards’ underground garage and didn’t show any signs of life. She would have to get another car, but she wasn’t in the mood to think about choosing one right now. Her mind was filled with too many other things.

In her mind, she rehearsed how to tell Cole that she wasn’t a sex worker. Still, she was nervous, because she cared about him, and she figured that if he’d kept such an important fact from her, she would feel betrayed too. Not only that. This wasn’t the only piece of information she’d kept from him. How she would tell him that she was a vampire was a whole other story. In hindsight, perhaps she should have wiped his memory of the attack. At least then, he wouldn’t instantly associate vampires with evil.

When she turned onto Polk Street and arrived in front of the bistro, she was sweating, and this time, it wasn’t only because she was in heat, but also because she was afraid that she’d kept too many things from him, and that he would never be able to trust her once he knew the whole truth.