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Ridley trailed me to Hunters Point. She didn’t even try to hide it.
I wasn’t sure if she was protecting me or making sure I didn’t take off again, but I was pretty sure it was the first, which made me mentally roll my eyes.
At least she hung back while I negotiated a fee with the woman I selected in exchange for her blood.
The woman told me to call her Bella and took me to a room above an auto repair shop that smelled of gasoline and sex. The only furniture was a nightstand, a three-legged stool and a daybed covered with a crumpled pink sheet. Tucked behind a rattan partition at one end of the room were a toilet and a rust-stained sink.
Bella sat on the bed and brushed her long dark hair over one shoulder so I could access her throat. “Your fifteen minutes start now,” she said with a nod at the small clock next to the lamp.
Putting five twenties on the table, I sat down and gave her an easy smile to hide my distaste—not for Bella, for the situation. I’d met enough sex workers in the course of my volunteer work to know she’d probably been pushed into this life by a pimp or to feed her family, or both.
I took the minimum amount of blood, finishing before my fifteen minutes was up.
And yeah, I got a hard-on. For vampires and dhampirs, sex and the blood craving are wired along the same primitive pathways.
I wiped the blood from my mouth on the back of my hand and started to get up.
Bella stopped me with a hand on my crotch. “For another seventy-five, I can take care of that for ya, too.”
“I’m good.” I removed her hand. I was horny as hell, but Bella wasn’t the woman I wanted.
“You sure?”
“I gave you all my cash.” I lied because it was the quickest way to end this.
Bella’s plucked black brows jumped in surprise. Her painted mouth turned down. “Like hell. If you don’t wanna, all you hafta say is no. Everyone knows how rich you vampires are.”
I ignored that to wash up. “Thanks,” I said as I opened the door. “You have a good night, now.”
“Yeah, sure.” Her lips twisted in a way that was too old for a twenty-something woman. She eyed my cheap Paris T-shirt and faded jeans. “Funny. You look like one of them Dark Angels. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “I get that a lot.”
Outside the night was hot and humid. Overhead, thick clouds had piled up, wiping out the stars with a heavy hand. Ridley waited on the corner near a woman wearing leather shorts and thigh-high boots.
The woman in shorts made a beeline in my direction. “Hey, handsome.”
Ridley cut her off. “He’s mine.”
“Hey.” The woman started to argue until she took a second look at Ridley’s face. She closed her mouth with a snap. “Yeah, sure.”
Ridley fell in beside me. Her mouth was pinched, her shoulders tight. And not because I’d fed.
She was jealous.
I smothered a smile. “I only took blood, you know.”
Her pinched lips smoothed out. She moved a shoulder. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You needed to feed. You look a lot better, to be honest.”
“I feel a lot better.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her to face me. “And I think I do.”
She blinked up at me like a suspicious owl. “What?”
“I do owe you an explanation.”
“No. I—we’re not—”
I took her face between my palms and stopped her sputtered protest with my mouth. Her breath hitched and her body melted against mine.
