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“Jane, it’s Iris.”
“Iris?” she mumbled. “Did you get the Q-tips out of the VCR?”
“Jane, wake up!”
“M’wake,” she muttered. “I feel the urge to reach through the phone and smack you, which means I’m awake.”
“Right back at you. Look, I can’t really talk right now, but I need you to do me a favor. Don’t drink any synthetic blood. Throw anything that you have in the house away. Tell Dick and Andrea to do the same.”
“You know, you’re the second person this week to give me dietary advice,” Jane said, yawning loudly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know Jamie’s dating Ophelia, from the Council? She came by the house with a whole case of donor blood the other day. Said she wanted Jamie to eat better and was worried that synthetic blood wasn’t fulfilling his dietary needs. That’s not unusual, because she frequently implies that I’m not properly parenting him. What was weird was that she insisted on dumping out my entire supply of Faux Type O down the drain.” Jane paused for a long yawn. I could hear Gabriel murmuring in the background. “I take it this is not just a conspiratorial campaign to keep me from getting all chunky postmarriage?”
“I can’t say.”
“Well, if I’ve learned anything since being turned, it’s that when people offer you cryptic, half-assed advice for your own good, you should follow it to the letter,” she said, snorting loudly.
“Just promise me you won’t buy any more. Stay on donor blood until further notice. And I know you’re not really a live feeder, but maybe you should consider contracting with a blood surrogate for a while. I have contact information for a couple of them in the area, very discreet, healthy—”
“Can we stay away from arrangements that sound like you’re engaging in human trafficking for me?”
“Jane.”
I could hear her voice muffled by the pillow she was burying her face in. “OK, I’m going back to sleep now. I will follow your vague, unhelpful advice, as is my lot in life. I’ll call Andrea tonight.”
“Good girl. Sleep tight.” I hung up the phone and felt a bit better about my participation in these bizarre vampiric shenanigans. I was contemplating a cup of chamomile tea when I heard a voice behind me.
“You’re not very good at following instructions, are you?”
I turned to find Cal standing behind me, leaning heavily against the door frame. He looked exhausted, drained, but I supposed that sleeping in such a weird pattern for the last day had screwed up his internal clock. As it was, he was barely standing but still looked irritated enough that he could take my head off with little provocation or physical effort.
He was wearing a pair of navy sweatpants that barely covered his hips, hugging that well-defined V that I’d found so fascinating just a few hours before. Now I could barely look at it, look at him. His eyes were trained so intently on me that I was afraid I would freeze, like a mouse in front of a stalking cobra. The crown molding was suddenly downright captivating.
I stepped back against the counter as he stumbled into the room, glaring at me. His skin was still pale but tinged a dull pink. His eyes were glassy and bright, as if a fever was raging through his system. He stopped just in front of me, lurching forward, bracing his hands on the countertop on either side of my hips.
He snarled. “I told you not to tell anyone. Did you think that meant ‘except for the people you deem special enough to tell’?”
I fought the instinct to shrink back like a caged animal. I stood ramrod-straight, eyes trained on his. “My friend Jane lives with two other vampires, so there’s quite a bit of bottled blood circulating through their fridge. She works in a shop where humans visit every day. She has contact with her family. Would you rather she hurt someone she cares about? That would leave you with a considerable PR mess on your hands, wouldn’t it? I’m doing you a favor.”
“The tainted blood was quietly, quickly tracked down and accounted for. There are no more tainted bottles on the shelves. You would have known that if you’d asked.”
“So why did Ophelia switch out Jamie’s blood?”
“Ophelia’s paranoid and overprotective of her boyfriend.” He growled, bristling at my admittedly prissy tone. “So next time, instead of using your own judgment, I would rather you do what I ask you to, particularly when it was such a reasonable request. I would like to be able to trust you.”
>I tried to keep the ogling to a minimum, for my own dignity’s sake. But his stomach tapered down from his hips into a solid V, something I’d only seen on the covers of those men’s health magazines … which I read for the articles.
My eyes strayed south. A couple of times.
I’m only human.
My charge, however, was not human. And he would probably wake up soon either to vomit or to snack on me. So I needed to wrap up the sponge bath and go do some work that was not related to Mr. Sensitive Upchuck Reflex. I did have other clients, and I couldn’t exactly tell them that I was neglecting their needs because I’d brought a stray vampire home with me. It might give them ideas.
I set myself back to my task, carefully scrubbing the drying blood from the strange little valleys between his abdominal muscles, the dip of his navel. His skin was feeling warmer, softer, nearly human, as I worked down his body. The blood clung to the little hairs trailing toward his hips. I lifted the sheet to wipe it away and squeaked.
Somehow I had forgotten that he was naked. Clenching my eyes shut, I dropped the sheet.
