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She’d known Jude since she was a child, so it seemed strange to have feelings for someone who had given her piggy-back rides.
She paused in her typing to massage her hands once more. They
were tingling again, which also happened anytime Jude showed up. Tingling hands, flushed skin, sweating. Even her heart felt laden when he was near.
She had it bad.
If every once in a while she suspected something more realm-ish might be at work with her fairly recent interest in the Mastyr of Kellcasse, she ignored the thought. She was one-hundred-percent human and had no interest in hooking-up with a vampire.
So, she kept typing.
Despite her love of realm-folk generally, and that the Gold Rush had been a gathering place for their kind for three decades, she’d never seen herself as having any kind of future away from Port Townsend. She loved her bar, her cliff-side home, her Puget Sound lifestyle. She’d never even dated a realm man, just humans, which was another reason that her sudden profound lust for Jude had come as such a surprise.
The whole thing had started about four months ago. She’d been re-stocking cleaning supplies when he’d come into the small space. She’d intended to greet him, maybe even give him a hug which she offered to all the Guardsmen for the hard work they performed every night of their lives.
But as she turned and met his smoky gray eyes, some kind of switch got thrown deep inside her feminine soul. He’d been almost family to her and just like that, she wanted to see his broad shoulders without his shirt on. Even her nipples had puckered with sudden profound interest, something he’d noticed because she’d been wearing a t-shirt. Hard to disguise aroused nipples through a silk bra and a thin layer of cotton.
He hadn’t said anything for a long moment, just stared at her breasts. He’d blinked a couple of times, and the closet, barely big enough for both of them, soon filled with a very peppery-spicy, masculine scent that clipped her at the back of her knees.
She tottered and would have fallen, but he caught her arm and held her up. “You okay, Hannah?”
He’d searched her eyes, and she nodded but very slowly like she was moving underwater.
She’d made up some excuse about not having eaten all day, but ever since that closet incident, she’d been lit up like a Neon sign, despite the fact that she ignored him as much as she could.
Of course it was hard to pretend Jude didn’t exist in a room about twelve-feet square since Jude was built like a tank. Muscles on muscles.
His deep voice, resonating with a number of delicious layers, rolled over her. “So how are you, Hannah?”
Just keep typing.
Her breathing faltered. “I’m fine. Heard you came in earlier with a couple of your Guardsmen just to wrap up the night.”
“I did, but I sent them off a bit ago. Wanted to have a word with you before I left. I’ve got about twenty minutes to get my ass back to my house in central Kellcasse.”
“You can always stay in the bunkroom.” She kept her fingers moving, but her cheeks flamed. Would he misinterpret the suggestion as a come-on?
“I know, but I’m a fast flyer. I’ll make it.”
Jude was a fast everything, the most powerful vampire in his realm.
“What’s up?” Just trying to keep things friendly and even.
“I haven’t seen you in a few days. Everything okay in here?”
“The center is humming, as usual. Your techs did a brilliant job setting everything up. But you know that.” Clack, clack, clack.
The communications room was a recent addition to the back of her bar, part of a Nine Realms plan to keep messages flowing outside the realms. The enemy, known as Margetta the ancient fae, had ways of blocking realm-to-realm communications. Centers in access point cities, like Port Townsend, kept information moving swift and sure among all nine mastyr vampires.
This time, Jude drew close and once more she struggled to breathe, his peppery scent hitting her hard. He smelled like something you’d rub on meat and cook for a long time. Allspice maybe.
She took a slow drag through both nostrils, and her body heated up a little more.
He leaned close, ostensibly to look at the monitor, but she knew he struggled as she did, feeling things he didn’t want to feel either. She often caught him staring at her with a hungry look, or checking her out when she moved through a room.
She’d been no different.
“So you’ve been emailing back and forth with Lebanon.”
