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“I will stay out of the basement,” I swore. “If you agree to stay away from my cookware.”
“Agreed,” he said, patting my shoulder again. “We’re goin’ to be OK. When I’m not actively tryin’ to get rid of someone, I’m actually a very easygoin’ roommate.”
“Oh, sure, you’re a charmer.” I lifted my head and looked directly at him for the first time since the conversation started. It amazed me that I could move it so easily. My neck felt as if it had had a bowling ball lifted off it.
“If we’re going to make an honest go of this, we’re going to have to abide by some rules.”
“More rules? I’ve already agreed not to attack you with kitchen implements!” I exclaimed, feigning indignation.
He gave me a withering, and somehow incredibly sexy, glare.
“Such as?” I asked.
“I stay out of your room,” he said. “And you stay out of mine.”
“Like I wanted to visit your lair.” I snorted.
“I think a part of you is a little curious about it,” he said, grinning cheekily.
“I’m a little curious about tattoos,” I shot back. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to get a tramp stamp.”
“I think you’d look hot with a tramp stamp,” he said, tilting his head and giving me a long, speculative look that made a shiver ripple up my spine. “A cute little kitten… wavin’ a very sharp knife.”
“Funny,” I retorted. “And on that note, I promise that I won’t threaten you with my knives anymore. No more hitting you with pans. No more tainting your blood with evil pepper juice. If you’re civil to me, I’m civil to you. It’s what I should have said in the first place.”
“Agreed. And I will stop callin’ you a psycho.”
“You called me a psycho?”
He shrugged. “Not to your face.” He took a long pull from the bottle of synthetic blood, the faintest lines of a grimace crinkling the corners of his mouth.
“Not as good as the real thing?” I asked.
His brows drew up in surprise. “You offering?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head emphatically. “No, no, no. I’m just curious about what that tastes like to you. What would make it taste better, that sort of thing. I’m trying to enter this cooking contest for vampires—”
“The Bloody Bake-Off?”
“Yes, and I can’t quite get a grasp on what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s more than that—I’m, aw hell, I’m just sucking beyond the telling of it.” I unwrapped the remnants of the red-wine reduction sauce and held it up for him to sniff. “I’ve done everything I can to cover up the taste of the synthetic blood, but all of my efforts made my vampire friends sick. And if I don’t figure out what I’m doing wrong, my life here in the Hollow is going to be… well, less than I’d hoped.”
He brought the sauce up to his face and winced. “You’re probably lookin’ at it from your own perspective, what tastes good to you. You make something that sounds good for a human palate and then add some blood. You need to think about what tastes good to a vampire, start with the blood, and work from there.” He held up the half-empty bottle of synthetic blood. “This doesn’t taste like anything. For vampires, it’s not so much bein’ hungry as bein’ really, really thirsty. You can’t think of anything else until you feed. Human blood, donated or live-fed, answers that thirst and lets you think clearly again. This? This is like drinkin’ water when you could be havin’ an ice-cold lemonade.”
“Hmmph.”
He snickered at my distaste. “I take it that you’ve never thought about being turned into a vampire?”
I pulled a frown. “Well, everything I cooked would taste spoiled and rotten to me. Not exactly a great career move.”
“Good point.” He sighed, pushed to his feet, and wiped his hands on his jeans, as if his palms had been sweating. “OK, get up, wash your face, and show me some of these samples that made your friends upchuck.”
I sniffed, more than a little startled by his friendly tone and the way he stretched his long fingers toward mine. I was sure I’d misheard him. “What?”
“Look, I’ve tried coming up with a contest entry of my own, but I can’t boil water without startin’ a fire. And you can’t seem to grasp the whole vampire-taste-bud thing. But if we combine our efforts, we might have a chance at winnin’ this thing.”
“That’s why I’ve been finding the burned pans? You were cooking on your own?”
“Sadly, yes.”
