Must Love Fangs

Chapter Five

There was a time when I’d have been excited about going out to a late-night dinner with a gorgeous man. A time when, if he’d put his hand on the small of my back to guide me down the sidewalk, I’d have shivered with delight. Tonight I had a handsome, gorgeous man with his hand on my back, walking at my side, and it just bothered me. I was filled with annoyance. What did Josh so arrogantly think he could teach me about dating a male vampire? I was the one who worked at a dating agency, after all.

I strode down the sidewalk and tried not to think about Ryder, who was having a bad night. Instead, I focused on my situation, since it was a worse night for me. Josh easily kept up with my angry strides, his big form staying protectively next to me.

He gestured at a nearby restaurant. “How about that?”

I eyed the yellow sign with a frown. “A diner?”

He grinned down at me and I was distracted by how close he was, by his touch on my lower back. “Why not? Open all night.”

“It just seems so . . . ”

“Casual? It’s not a date.” His hand nudged my lower back, directing me toward the restaurant’s lit parking lot.

My mouth tightened. Of course it wasn’t a date. “You don’t need to remind me. And since you picked, you’re paying.”

“Why? It’s not a date.”

I gritted my teeth. “Fine.”

When we got inside, the elderly waitress lit up at the sight of Josh. “There’s my boy,” she crowed in a voice that sounded as if she’d smoked too many cigarettes. “How are you, Josh darlin’?”

He gave the small, stout woman a bear hug. “I’m pining away with love for you, Carol.”

She gave a raspy chuckle and swatted his bottom. “You want your usual?”

“You know I do.” He glanced over at me. “I brought a friend. She’ll probably want a menu.”

The waitress glanced over at me, her nest of overly bleached curls tilting as she studied me, then she squeezed him in a half hug. “You go pick a table and sit anywhere. I’ll get your food started.”

“You’re an angel,” he said with a grin.

I rolled my eyes and followed him to a rounded booth in the far corner of the nearly empty restaurant. When I slid in on one side, Josh slid in right next to me. I immediately scooted all the way around to the far end, putting some distance between us.

That seemed to amuse him, which only made me more irritated.

“I see why you wanted to come here. You get free food every night just because you flirt with the old ladies?”

He grinned. “Not every night, and I don’t flirt. They just love me.”

As if to prove this point, Carol showed up with two glasses of water and a coffee for Josh. She set it down in front of him, tugged his ballcap off his head in a proprietary move that surprised me, then smoothed his hair like a mother. “No hats inside, young man.”

Josh gave her a rueful smile. “Sorry.”

He looked even more boyish with his hair sticking up wildly. If it hadn’t been for the scruff on his face, he would have looked far too young.

“This one’s too charming for his own good,” Carol said affectionately, chucking Josh’s unshaved chin as if she’d been a doting mother—or grandmother.

“He only thinks he’s charming,” I pointed out. “He just expects everyone else to think it, too.”

She chuckled again, that horrible smoker’s rasp. “I like this one, Josh.”

My face colored, which made Josh grin.

“You want the same thing he’s having, honey?” she asked me.

Anything to get her away from the two of us. “Sure. Thank you.”

She put a coffee mug down in front of me and filled it, then left with another smile at Josh.

“So that’s your schtick?” I said irritably. “To be a charming freeloader?”

“First of all,” he said, lifting the coffee cup to his lips, “I pay for everything. Carol doesn’t make enough to buy me dinner on a regular basis.” He sipped it and then grimaced. “Her coffee is shit, though.”

But I noticed he still drank it. Maybe telling her would hurt her feelings.

“And second?” I prompted, opening a few sugar packets and dumping them into my cup.

“Carol works four nights a week. Her husband died three years ago and she lives in a small apartment on the bad side of town. It scares her to take the bus, so she tries to get a ride with friends. I stop in to check on her and give her a ride when she needs it.”

That was . . . unexpectedly nice of him. “So she’s a shifter, too?”

“No,” he said. “Just a lady with no one to look after her. So I do.”

I said nothing. Carol swung out of the kitchen with two massive stacks of pancakes and plopped them down in front of us, then dropped a bottle of syrup on the table. I stared at the massive stack. That was a lot of pancakes.

Josh put a hand over his heart and gave Carol a pleased look. “You make my heart melt with your delicious food.”

She chuckled again. “I’ll be back with the rest when it comes off the grill. Dig in.”

As she left, I eyed the pancake mountain, then looked over at Josh. “The . . . rest?”

He leaned in. “You ordered the same thing I get, right? Perhaps you didn’t realize that shifters eat a lot?”

I admit it hadn’t been the first thing on my mind. “So what exactly did I order?”

“Two club sandwiches, a skillet scramble, these pancakes,” he said, pointing. “And a steak.”

“A freaking steak? With all this? That’s revolting.”

“Does that mean I get to eat yours?”

“Only if you want to buy it from me,” I said, mashing my fork into the pat of butter on top of the pancake mountain. “That’s what I get for trusting a pretty face.”

“So you think I’m pretty? Marie, you flirt, you.”

“Voyons. It’s a figure of speech, tabarnak.”

“And more French. You know that’s sexy, right?”

“You know I just called you vile things, right?”

“That’s how you flirt.”

“I hate you.”

“More flirting.”

I ground my teeth and forced myself not to reply, since he’d practically consider it a declaration of love. Instead, I focused on swamping my pancakes with syrup, then taking a bite. Delicious. I’d be totally wound up from the sugar and coffee later, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I could sleep anyhow. I ate a few more bites in companionable silence as Josh neatly cut his pancakes into perfect triangles and ate them without a bit of syrup.

Carol stopped by with the rest of the food by the time I’d eaten three pancakes and was feeling full. Josh, meanwhile, had polished off all of his pancakes and was more than ready for the next course. While I retreated to my coffee, he dug into the sandwiches, scrambled eggs, and steak, chatting with Carol for a few minutes. He asked her how her job was going, and listened attentively when she complained about a coworker who was taking all the extra shifts. He asked about her hot water heater, which hadn’t been working properly in the last month, and volunteered to take a look at it. She turned him down with a wave of her hand. He even asked about her cat. Carol left a few minutes later, smiling.

I digested it all in silence. It was clear that Josh knew the woman well and took an interest in her life. That seemed . . . odd to me. Josh was such a love-them-and-leave-them type that I hadn’t imagined him to be the kind to chat with lonely elderly ladies.

There was another side to the incorrigible flirt. Either that, or this was all an elaborate ruse to get women to fall into his arms. Take them to a low-key diner, charm them with his relationship with an old, down-on-her-luck woman, then they’d tumble into his bed faster than the speed of light.

Even as I told myself that, it didn’t fit. What playboy was going to hang out at a diner with an old woman to talk about her cats?

“So,” I said when we were alone again. “You were going to tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

He stopped eating, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and nodded. “First, I need to know the whole thing. How many vampires have you gone out with?”

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him everything. Well, if I couldn’t get a vampire to show up for a date, it wouldn’t matter. I had to take my chances with Josh. “I’ve gone out with three. At least, I tried to go out with three. First there was Valjean—”

Josh shook his head immediately. “He’s hooked up and left for Europe. You know Ruby Sommers? Pretty little were-jaguar? Sister to Jayde?”

I didn’t, but it was clear that he knew all the “pretty little were-jaguars” in town, which made my teeth grit. “I know he’s hooked up. Anyhow, we never went out. I went out with Bert.”

He laughed. “No way. Seriously? World of Hurt Bert?”

I wasn’t going to have any teeth left if I kept grinding them. “He’s a vampire, isn’t he?”

“Only in the barest sense of the word. The man’s a loser. I can’t believe you went out with him.”

And Bert had told me that I wasn’t his type. That stung a bit more right now than it should have. “It was only one date.”

He nodded. “Turned you down, didn’t he?”

I gaped. “How did you know that?”

“I did a spin of guard duty for Bert last summer. He likes ’em . . . ” He gestured, indicating a rather large butt, and then began to jiggle his hands.

“Yes, I know,” I hissed, slapping his hands down. “Badonkadonk.”

“I was going to say ‘big booty hos’, but that works,” he said with a laugh. “Anyhow, that’s why he’s single. He’s selective, and the dating pool is kind of lean when it comes to that sort of thing. No pun intended.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, well, number two turned me down, too. He didn’t even show up to our date.”

He nodded. “I’m not surprised.”

“Why are you not surprised? I am.”

“Vampires tend to be skittish.”

I eyed the Russell Security T-shirt that he wore. “I noticed. So they’re paranoid?”

“To the extreme,” he agreed, sipping his coffee again with a grimace. “Vampires are a dog-eat-dog society. You look at someone’s blood partner the wrong way, and you could find yourself with a contract on your head. You go into someone’s territory and set up shop, there’s a contract on your head. It’s like the mafia with fangs. The smart ones lay low or leave town fast.”

That sounded awful. There was so much that I didn’t know about vampires, and I was quickly realizing that Josh could help fill in some of the fuzzy edges. “So what’s a blood partner?”

“A vampire’s mate is called a blood partner. Blood partners only drink from each other. And since vampire women are rare, you’ll find a lot more single male vampires, since every female that isn’t partnered pretty much has her choice of men.”

Interesting. That sounded like it could work in my favor. If vampire females were highly prized, my willingness to become a vampire female would probably be looked upon positively. “So why aren’t there many vampire females?”

“Same thing as female shifters, I imagine,” he said. “You’re marrying into a family that’s not exactly the most fun to get along with. And I hear it’s quite painful for the victim if the turning doesn’t take—or it kills them.”

That wasn’t a deterrent for me. I was dying anyhow, so I’d take my chances. I rubbed my eyes, feeling suddenly a bit tired. The more I found out about vampires, the less I wanted to become one, but I was low on choices. Very low. “So vampires are skittish and think everyone is out to get them. Is that why my date didn’t show up?”

“That’s my guess. Either that, or he didn’t like the way you looked and had second thoughts.”

I scowled. “I look perfectly acceptable.”

“You’re beautiful,” he agreed.

I was momentarily flabbergasted. “I . . . thank you.”

“To me,” he amended. “Vampires like different things.”

Oh, I remembered. Badonkadonk. Still, I felt warm under Josh’s flattery and didn’t even mind the reminder. “So what is it about me you’d change?”

He studied me for a long moment, the intense scrutiny making my cheeks flush. His gaze swept over my face, then my chest, then back over my face again. A smile curved his sexy mouth. “I wouldn’t change anything.”

My cheeks felt as if they’d been on fire.

“But we’re not talking about me. You’re talking about hooking a vampire . . . unless you changed your mind and decided you want me instead?”

Figured that he’d bring the conversation back around to how sexy he was. I kicked him under the table. “I didn’t change my mind. Tell me about what I need to do to get a vampire.”

“You girls and your weird vampire fetishes,” he said with a shake of his head. “You know dating a vampire’s not like it is on TV, right?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re not, but I am questioning your taste in men.” At my glare, he raised a placating hand. “Fine, then. Let’s start with the basics. You went through the agency?”

I said nothing, suddenly nervous. Josh was the brother-in-law of my boss. If she knew that I was using the database for my own personal needs, I’d be fired in a red-hot minute. That was a big no-no, especially since I was only a marginal member of the Alliance.

Of course, Bathsheba had dated through the agency herself, once upon a time. Anytime it came up, however, she was quick to explain that it hadn’t been her choice—she’d been blackmailed into it to hide the fact that Sara was a werewolf. She didn’t want Ryder and me dating through the agency because the fact that a human had used the service had stirred up a real hornet’s nest among the shifter clans. Some wanted to date humans, but more of them didn’t want us contaminating the works. I could understand it, even if it was cross with all of my own plans.

Josh sighed at my reluctance. “I’m not going to rat on you, Marie. If I was, would we be here?”

I had no idea. But I supposed I had to trust someone—I was getting nowhere fast on my own, and I didn’t have a ton of vampires in the database to experiment with. “I’m in the database. As Minnie Michigo. Were-otter.”

The nod of approval came slowly. “Michigo was a good choice. Lots of them in the area.”

Strange, how flustered I felt when I had his approval. “That’s why I picked them. Plus, they’re not a bigger predator that could be intimidating.”

He nodded again, his expression thoughtful. “Your no-show could have run a background check and found out that Minnie didn’t exist.” He pulled out his phone and began to flip through screens.

“What are you doing?” I asked warily.

“Looking up Minnie’s profile.” Then he frowned, looking back up at me. “No picture?”

“I send it if they ask for it,” I said defensively. “Why should looks matter?”

“Because you’re dealing with men,” he said bluntly. “Did you send a picture to this last guy? Send it to me.”

I sent the photo to Josh’s profile.

His eyes widened. “What the hell is this?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling defensive. “Just a picture I pulled off the internet. I thought it might convey fun and lightheartedness.” You know, all those things I wasn’t good at myself. “It’s kind of a silly pose, but I thought it might look natural.”

Josh continued to stare at the picture, and then back at me. “That’s not you, right?”

I snorted. “No, that’s not me. She’s putting her fist in her mouth, and I can’t do that.”

“Marie,” he said slowly. “That’s not her fist. That’s not even her body part.”

I snatched the phone away from him and studied it for a minute . . . good God. “I . . . oh.” A hot flush crept over my face, and I quickly handed the phone back to him. “I thought it was just a silly picture,” I said defensively.

He threw back his head and laughed. “Well, I think I’m beginning to see why date number three was afraid to meet you.”

“Shut up.”

Josh only grinned at me. He glanced back down at the picture, shook his head, then clicked his phone off and tossed it on the table. He slouched in the booth, his gaze moving over me.

I internally squirmed. “What?”

“I see three main problems.”

“Well, what are they?”

“You sure you want to know?”

Now he was just torturing me. “Of course I want to know,” I said, feeling exasperated. “Would I be sitting here in the middle of the night with you if I didn’t?”

He winced and clutched a hand to his chest, as if shot through the heart. Those long-lashed eyes closed dramatically. “Marie, that hurts me. Deeply.” His tone was playful, but I got the impression that I had actually hurt his feelings.

“You knew why I was coming here,” I said. “Either help me, or leave me alone.”

“I’ll help you, but I have conditions.”

“What kind of conditions?”

“If you want to find a vampire, you have to let me help you.”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

“No,” he said. “I mean really help you. You work at a dating agency, right? You help clients make a match.” He tapped his chest with a finger, and my gaze went to that tight shirt straining over his big shoulders. “I’m an expert on women.”

“I’ll just bet you are,” I said dryly.

Josh tilted his head, as if studying me. “Don’t believe me? I think my track record speaks for itself.”

“Oh, it says something, all right. It says that you know how to bait the hook, but—”

“Bait a hook?” he sputtered, laughing.

“—but I haven’t seen anything that tells me that you know how to have a relationship,” I continued, ignoring his laugh. “You never stick around long enough to find out. You like the chase, Joshua Russell. You get a girl, date her, and then you dump her.”

“If we’re going to compare fishing to women,” he said softly, his eyes gleaming dangerously, “I not only know how to bait the hook but I also know how to reel in my catch. If I’m throwing back what I’m catching, it’s because I’m after a different sort of fish.”

“The one that got away?” I teased.

He laughed, and the tension was gone. “Something like that.”

He made his endless string of dates sound so . . . practical. He stopped dating them because they weren’t what he was looking for. That sounded very reasonable. Or was I just falling under his spell? I sighed. “All right. So how can I catch a vampire?”

“You need to be caught by a vampire. There’s a difference, and that’s where I come in. I’ll help you bag a vampire, but you have to take my advice seriously if this is going to work.”

I watched him uneasily. It was a generous offer, and yet . . . “I don’t understand. What are you getting out of this?”

“How about the knowledge that you’ll be safe?” His lips tightened, and I found my gaze going to his warm, curving mouth, framed by a day’s stubble. “You’re human, and you’re pretty much approaching every vampire asking them to date you. That’s not the safest situation, Marie. Get mixed up with the wrong vampire, and you could be in trouble.”

Danger hadn’t been on my mind, it was true. I didn’t care about the consequences. I hated that he was making me slow down and think about them. “So this is your knight in shining armor thing? Like you do with her?” I thumbed a gesture at Carol, on the far side of the restaurant, taking an order from a trucker. “Patron saint of lost causes?”

“No,” he said bluntly. “This is about me giving you what you think you want. I don’t know why on earth you want a vampire, but you’re determined to get one. And since you’re fixed on this course of action, I’m going to help you.” He picked up his coffee cup, realized it was empty, and reached for mine. “I want you to see that you really don’t want a vampire. They’re not like in the movies.”

“I’m not that shallow,” I said quickly. When he brought my cup to his lips and placed his mouth directly over where I’d been drinking, a funny flush went through my body.

“All right, then, maybe I’m the shallow one. Because I see your desire to get it on with a vampire and think that maybe, if I show you how vampires really are, you’ll change your mind.” Those gorgeous eyes focused on my face, making my mouth go dry. A slow, lazy grin began to spread over his face as he drained my coffee and put the cup down. “Maybe you’ll go cougar instead.”

Somehow I didn’t think he was referring to me dating younger men.

Maybe I should have told him the truth. But the words caught in my throat as he continued to grin at me expectantly. The way he was laughing with me, flirting with me . . .

He was treating me like one of the girls he dated.

And call me crazy, but I liked being attractive to him.

“Why me?” I couldn’t help but ask.

I wasn’t pretty like Ryder, or flirty. I wasn’t soft and feminine like Bathsheba. I was all hard angles, dark hair and glasses. I didn’t laugh and joke around like Sara. I was acerbic and distant. What did he see in me that made him stay here? Made him more or less offer a one-night stand if I changed my mind about dating a vampire?

“Because,” he said slowly, spinning the small coffee cup with his big fingers, “I’ve never met anyone as alone as you, Marie. You hold everyone away from you with that icy frown. You need a thawing.”

He leaned forward, all devastating grin again. “And I’m pretty sure I could make you melt.”

• • •

We left the restaurant after that, with me feeling incredibly flustered and unable to converse with Josh. Despite his talk, he’d paid for my dinner and escorted me back to the agency, then left—probably to give Carol a ride home.

I worked for a few more hours, pretending everything was normal, when Ryder eventually slunk back to her desk, every blond hair in place, her clothes neat. She said nothing about her transformation. I said nothing about it, either. If she wanted to talk, I was here.

Ryder never wanted to talk about it, and I understood.

When dawn crept over the horizon, Bath and Beau came into the office. They both looked alert and happy, whereas Ryder and I were dragging, as always, at the end of our shift. They greeted us, then headed on to Bath’s office, their heads together as they talked. As soon as they got to the office, the door shut and Bathsheba’s laughter trilled out.

Ryder smiled, even as it turned into a yawn. “It’s nice to see people in love, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “If you’re a hopeless romantic, I guess.”

She made a face at me. “We work at a dating agency. We should be hopeless romantics.”

She had a point.

Ten minutes after eight—as usual—Sara came into the office, an enormous cup of Starbucks in her hand and her mouth looking like she’d just been making out in the car. Which she probably had. “Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “You two look fresh as daisies.”

“Don’t make me growl at you,” Ryder teased with another yawn.

“She probably likes that,” I said slyly and began to shut down my computer.

Sara only grinned, running a hand through her chin-length, shaggy red hair. “Did you guys get far on Bath’s project?”

“Not too far,” I admitted. “I’ll give it more of a go tonight.”

She just made a noise of assent and flopped down at her desk, texting on her phone with her free hand. A few minutes later, Beau left Bathsheba’s office and strolled out. Bath immediately headed for the coffee, and I noticed her mouth looked recently kissed, too.

I felt an envious pang. Maybe there was a hopeless romantic inside me, after all.

With the day shift now in the office, Ryder and I left. I drove home to my small apartment and tossed my keys and purse on the table by the door. I took a shower, changed into my pajamas, put on soothing music, and drank a cup of chamomile tea. I was utterly exhausted.

Yet when I got into bed and tried to sleep, it wouldn’t come. My mind kept racing, thinking about Josh. His hand at the small of my back. That lazy, flirty grin he tossed my way as if it hadn’t been a dangerous thing. His concern and affection for Carol, who didn’t have anyone to look out for her.

I’ve never met anyone as alone as you, Marie.

If I was, it was because it would hurt everyone less when I died.

I tossed and turned for a few hours, wanting to weep in frustration. I glanced at the Virgin Mary figure on my nightstand. It had been my mother’s before she’d passed on, and her mother’s before her. I touched the figure. Please. Let me sleep. Let this all be a bad case of anxiety.

But I couldn’t sleep. It was like my body no longer knew how.

Eventually, I got up and grabbed a jigsaw puzzle box. It was either that, or cry. I turned the TV on in the background and shook the pieces out on the table. My mother had loved puzzles and had done them when she’d been unable to sleep at night. Now I was following the same patterns she had followed.

The thought made me want to weep even more.

• • •

I twisted my hands in my lap, my feet swinging nervously under the examination table, the paper runner crinkling with every swing of my foot.

When the doctor entered the room, he wore a puzzled look. “Back so soon, Marie? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” I lied. “I just wanted to talk about my medication.”

The doctor flipped open my chart. “You’ve lost six pounds since you last came in.”

I shrugged. “Just watching my weight.”

He eyed me. “You were here last Tuesday.”

“Stomach bug. I’m better now. That’s not why I’m here, anyhow. I wanted to talk to you about the sleeping pills you prescribed.”

“Are they upsetting your stomach?” he asked, folding his hands around the clipboard and studying me.

“Actually, I wanted to see if you had something stronger. Or if it’s okay to double the medication from time to time.”

Like every night.

The puzzled frown grew. “I already have you on the strongest dose, Marie.”

“Oh, okay. I just thought I’d check.”

He put down the clipboard and moved to my side, bringing out his scope to check my pupils. “You look tired. Are the pills not working?”

“Not really,” I confessed. “Maybe a different pill? Something I haven’t tried yet?”

“In the last few months, you’ve tried everything I can recommend. If it’s not helping, there might be other factors we need to look at.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” I didn’t want to become his science project or guinea pig once he found out exactly what I had. That was why I switched doctors constantly. “I’ve just been under a lot of stress lately, and I’m working nights, so I’m sure that’s not helping things.”

He ignored my excuses, checking my pupils and continuing to examine me. When he was done prodding, checking my ears, nose, throat, and my pulse, he stroked his chin, frowning. “Marie, I’d like to send you for more tests.”

My heart sank. “All I really want are some stronger pills.”

“If the pills aren’t working now, a stronger dose isn’t going to do anything for you. I think there’s a larger problem at hand, and I’d like to run some blood work. There are some rare illnesses that can cause insomnia, and I’d like to rule them out.”

Yeah, I was familiar with those diseases. I gave him a tight nod. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

“We can schedule for you to run down to the blood center today, if you like, and once the results are in, we can discuss where to go with this. Again, it may be nothing, but I want to rule out every possible scenario so we can get down to a cure.”

He patted my knee. “Just see Betty at the front desk on the way out and tell her that I’m sending you to the lab for more tests. I’ll update your chart.”

I grabbed my purse, thanked the doctor, and slid out of the room. He paused to talk to a nurse, then headed down the hall to see another patient. I glanced at the front desk, then turned and walked out the front door.

I wasn’t going to go for more blood tests. I already knew what was wrong, and I didn’t want a doctor poking and prodding me for the next six months in an attempt to find a cure, when the only one that I knew of involved fangs and neck-biting.

Still . . . My stomach knotted, I pulled out the card of the Alliance doctor and dialed.

“Little Paradise Family Clinic,” a woman announced. “How can I help you?”

“I need to see the doctor. Today, if possible,” I told her. “I’m having trouble sleeping and wanted to see if he could recommend something.”

She typed for a moment, then paused. “The doctor has an opening at four today.”

“Four sounds great. Thanks.”