AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I snorted. “The girls you normally bring home are sad for entirely different reasons. ”
“I’m sorry…what was that? Was that a joke?”
“At your expense,” I reminded him.
“I’ll take it. So long as you don’t start crying. You know how I feel about women who cry. ”
“God, you’re charming. ”
“And you came here to fuck me, so there’s no accounting for taste. ” He rubbed his throat and smiled at me.
Heaven help me, I smiled back. I was so out of practice, my cheeks hurt to make the gesture.
“Do you have anything to drink?” I asked.
“If you’re hoping for blood, you came to the wrong place. I like—”
“Fresh from the tap. I know. You’ve used that line maybe eight million times since we first met. ”
Holden smirked unapologetically.
“How about something a little harder?” I regretted my choice of words immediately when he lowered his gaze and his grin broadened. “Ugh, you’re incorrigible. Truly. ”
“You love it. ”
He brushed past me and into the miniscule kitchen that made my own closet-sized one look downright palatial. Vampires, by and large, had no use for kitchens. If a girl was hoping for a home-cooked meal from her vampire boyfriend, she might want to reconsider her dating pool.
What he lacked in culinary trappings he made up for in a booze cupboard. Turning towards me, he held Jameson whiskey in one hand and Glenlivet scotch in the other.
“My island nation sends greetings. Would you prefer the luck o’ the Irish or the kick in the teeth of Scotland?”
I walked to the small counter that divided his kitchen from the main living space. “Don’t kid a kidder, Chancery. We both know you’re English. ”
“Aye. ” Holden had no discernible English accent in spite of spending his entire human life there. Turns out when someone spends damn near two hundred years in America, they tend to lose their accent over time. But he could switch it on as easily as twisting a faucet, and sometimes he let a Britishism slip into his speech. Right now he was doing it intentionally. “And all those damned Scots and Irish are good for is booze, so take your pick. ” He jostled the bottles at me again.
“And what if I was craving some love from Mother Russia?”
He snorted. “Does it look like I have a freezer?”
I pointed to the scotch. Recently I’d tried to drown myself under my own weight in Jameson, and I didn’t think I’d be able to stomach the stuff for a while. Better to be safe than sorry. He pulled out two lowball glasses and plunked them on the counter, filling each with two fingers of scotch. I didn’t bother asking for ice given his recent proclamation of having no icebox. This felt like a straight-up scotch kind of night, anyway.
“Thanks. ”
“Don’t thank me. I’m just getting you drunk so I can take advantage of you. ”
“How do you know I’m not a weepy drunk? Wouldn’t that throw a wrench in your seduction plans. ”
He made a face, distorting his handsome features in an ugly and comical way.
“Besides,” I continued. “I came here offering myself to you on a silver platter and you got all high and mighty. You refused me. That’s a first. My ego is feeling a little bruised. ” I swallowed the scotch in two big gulps and slammed the glass down on the counter.
“I stand by that move. Do I look like sloppy seconds to you?” He indicated his toned abs and the generally unbearable hotness of himself.
The unbearable hotness of himself?
I stared into the empty glass. “Did you roofie me?”
Holden rolled his eyes. “Again, I draw your attention to exhibit A. ” He pointed to his face. “Do I look like I need date-rape drugs to get women?”
