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Chapter 2
Piper
Bleach burned my noseas I scrubbed at the bathtub in Allister's bathroom. It made my eyes tear up and my nose itch. My fingers were going numb from scrubbing so much, but either Allister was fucking with me or he had killed a whole lot of something.
I was hoping for the former. No one wanted to be cleaning blood regularly, but thinking back to the beginning of this job, I realized that was exactly what I'd been doing.
"Fucking psychos," I muttered to myself as I shook my head.
One would think that after weeks of cleaning this house that I would get used to the nuances that came with working for the Durand brothers. Well, I guess they weren't brothers in the traditional, related-by-blood way. I still wasn't quite sure how that all worked. They weren't exactly throwing out answers like candy around here.
Since my revelation about the vampiric nature of my bosses or, ick, masters, as they wanted to be called, life has been relatively normal... if you ignored the dinner party with the slutty vampirina and creepy Valentine. They made horror movies about guys like him.
Ever since I'd gotten those flowers from my new undead admirer, I'd had nightmares that kept me up at night, so much so that I ended up having to find the most boring books in the library just to knock me out. Last night's run-in with Marcus and Wynn made me flush in embarrassment.
When I slipped out of my bedroom, I'd never expected to run into anyone, or I would have put something else on. It wasn't until I was in the chilly library with two of brothers that I realized how little I had been wearing. If Marcus noticed, he didn't show it, but Wynn clearly did.
Remembering the hungry look in Wynn's sapphire blue eyes, I shivered. We hadn't had many run-ins since Valentine and Theresa had visited. I'd done my best to avoid all of them the best I could, especially Wynn.
Even if I hadn't already been panty-dropping crazy about him before I took his blood to heal my wrist that Rayne ‘accidently’ broke, I couldn't be around him now without wanting to jump him. It was an obvious side effect of taking his blood. However, I noticed that the more days that passed, the less aggressive the hold was on me. Sure, I still wanted to tear Wynn's clothes off and have my wicked way with him, but it was more on a normal human level now and less ‘I'm being forced to want you.’
With that thought in my head, I finished up cleaning Allister's bathroom, something I was going to get back at him in some way for later, and headed to the next room on my list, Rayne's.
While Valentine and Wynn were still important issues, they didn't trump the biggest one I had, Rayne. Loud-mouthed, too sexy for his own good, and a major pain in my ass.
Ever since he kissed me to save me from Valentine, I hadn't been able to shake these feelings for him. Well, the one feeling, a singular feeling that made me want to jump his bones every time I saw him.
So, he was also on my list of masters to avoid. Which you think wouldn't be hard when we had an opposite sleep schedule, but I still ended up running into Rayne on occasion. Either on purpose, his, not mine, or because fate was having a laugh on my behalf.
It wasn't like I hated him. He was a pain, of course, but one damn fine kisser. The hero thing, saving me from Valentine, put a cherry on top of the already dangerous bad boy part of the whole vampire hottie package.
"I thought I might find you here," Rayne’s voice came from behind me, stepping right out of my thoughts into reality.
I jolted, and pain exploded through my head as I hit it on the bathroom sink. Groaning and grabbing my head, I eased back onto my heels, sponge still in hand.
"Are you okay?" Rayne said as he appeared beside me, concern filling his features as his hand reached out as if he was going to touch me. He thought better of it and dropped the hand as he waited for me to answer.
"Don't sneak up on people, and you won't be responsible for causing them to mental issues," I told him with more snap than I wanted.
Hurt skated across his features, and those amber eyes flinched away from me for a split-second, but then it was gone. His face smoothed over, and in place of the hurt, there was an arrogant snarl.
"Well, maybe a hit or two on the head would make you a better person.” He scowled and stood to his feet. “God knows your personality sucks as it is."
Jumping up after him, I threw the sponge down and shoved a finger at his face. He wasn't much taller than me, so it put us at an even level, something I was thankful for when trying to be threatening. "You listen here if anyone needs a personality adjustment it's you. You're an asshole and a jerk, and... and..."
Rayne grabbed my offending finger and jerked me closer until our bodies aligned with one another. I could make out the freckles on his pale skin and the different shades of red in his hair. The hot feel of his breath on my face made me ache in new ways than before.
"And totally hot for you," he murmured. His eyes locked with mine, and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me. Those long pale lashes of his fluttered as his face dipped down, but I pushed him away.
"Don't do that."
He released me with a confused frown. "Don't do what? Kiss you?"
"Yes." I pulled down my polo shirt and leaned down to pick up my discarded sponge. Giving him my back, I went about gathering the rest of my cleaning supplies. "I don't have time for whatever sick game you are playing."
"Who said I was playing?" Rayne came up behind me, his words a hot promise of something, something I couldn't let myself believe. I knew him. He was just as bad as Valentine.
There were two possible reasons why he was here now. One, he genuinely wanted me and was looking to pick up where things left off that night of the dinner party, or two, he just wanted to mess with me. Rayne could sense how much that kiss had affected me, and it’s not like I could very well control my reaction to him now, anyway. So, the only conclusion was that he’d come to torture me about it.
