Marissa blinked awake in a dark room, but didn’t move. The pillow beneath her head was soft, the sheet across her body, also soft. Not sandpaper, she thought, with a silent ‘thank you’ for a moment of normalcy. It was all a dream, a nightmare. She inhaled, and the spicy scent of Evan flared in her nostrils, and she realized no it wasn’t a nightmare. She thought of their long hours of passion, of lying with him and talking through her fears over what was happening to her. Of him telling her about his brothers, about his world, and how just hearing his voice, listening to him explain it all, had calmed her. She felt something for him, beyond the obvious incredible attraction, that she’d never felt for a man. Not even Kevin—the attorney she’d had a brief engagement to. She didn’t want to believe it was the blood, or some hero syndrome. She needed something real in her life right now. With Evan, she didn’t feel alone. When the truth was that she was alone. She had no one to even miss her if this all ended badly.
Emotion started to tighten her chest and she shoved it away, afraid of inviting another visit from the inner wolf she wanted to deny existed, having no idea how long it had been since she’d fed from Evan.
The sound of male voices, one of them Evan’s touched her ears, but she couldn’t make out the words. She rolled to her back, noting the darkness outside the windows to match that in the room. No wonder she was starving. She threw off the cover, and as dire as she felt a shower was, the clawing hunger in her stomach was quickly deepening, and not in a nice way.
She pushed to a sitting position, flipped on a light because she didn’t even want to think about how well she could see in the dark. Denial might not be an answer to her problems, but it was her friend right now. So was the fact that today had been her day off of work. That was, if she’d only slept one day. Oh God. Please let her have only slept one day. If she’d simply not shown up to work, she’d lose her job.
She rushed to the closet and shoved her arms into a long pink terry robe, and headed down the hall, towards the voices. She made it all of a few steps when the conversation stopped. Marissa continued forward, only to draw up short at the sight of the two men consuming the tiny space of her small kitchen, both staring at her.
Evan leaned against her outdated, yellow fridge, his hair tied neatly at his neck, so big and broad, and delicious that her knees threatened to go weak. And beside him, she was remotely aware of the man next to him, who leaned on her equally outdated and yellow stove, and looked remarkably like him, his dark hair also tied at the nape.
But it was Evan she was drawn to, Evan whose intense inspection, dark and hot, she focused on. Evan who seemed like her friend, who’d become her lover, who was looking at her with a glint in his eye that said ‘mine’. Who was also a vampire. She swallowed hard at that word, at that reality, and willed herself to be afraid, to have caution. Her body didn’t agree though. Just looking at Evan set her heart pulsing, and her nipples tightening. He might be a vampire, but he was one heck of a gorgeous vampire, and man oh man, the way the snug black tee hugged his chest, was sinful.
“You heard me coming, I take it?” she asked
, trying to ignore the tingling sensation in her skin she was pretty sure was the damnable wolf in her shouting for notice.
“Why do you say that?” Evan asked arching one dark brow.
“You stopped talking when I approached.”
“We’re vampires,” the man she assumed to be one of his brothers said. “We see all and hear all.”
So she was right. Whatever they’d been saying, they didn’t want her to hear. Evan motioned to the other man. “This is Aiden. The second oldest in the Brook’s brothers family tree, and therefore, second in charge to me.”
Aiden snorted. “In his dreams and it’s nice to meet you Marissa. I’m the smart one.”
Marissa laughed, and it surprised her. How could she laugh when she was turning into a rabid werewolf?
“More like the egomaniac,” Evan said, pulling out one of her steel and vinyl chairs from the table in the center of the room. “Come sit with me. How are you?”
Her eyes met his, and the look on his face told her what he was asking. He wanted to know if her wolf was under control. Considering she wanted to shove him on top of the table and just let Aiden watch while she had her way with his brother, she was pretty sure the answer wasn’t what he was looking for. She settled for, “More hungry than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“We have left over pizza,” Aiden offered, grabbing a box from the fridge as Marissa sat down. “You want it heated.”
She shook her head. “I’m too hungry. Just let me have it cold.” Evan sat down next to her and Aiden in front of her. She snatched a piece of pizza, suddenly aware of just how intensely Evan was watching her, and how much she wanted to inhale the slice of pizza in one bite. She stood up and grabbed the box. “I can’t eat this while two vampires watch me.”
Evan captured her wrist. “Then we’ll eat with you.”
Aiden nodded. “I can always do a pizza justice.”
“I don’t think I can share. I’m exceptionally hungry.”
Aiden chuckled. Evan didn’t. “It’s the wolf.”
She nodded. “I know. I can…feel it.” Emotion welled in her chest, and she knew now that wasn’t a good thing. “Please just let me go eat.”
He stared at her a moment and then let her go. She headed to the living room, afraid now – and not of him, not of the other vampire either. Of her, of what she was becoming.
Male voices sounded in the kitchen and she didn’t want to hear them. She couldn’t deal with anything else right now, didn’t want to hear something that would make her have to. She grabbed the remote and turned up the volume on her decade old television she’d gotten on Craigslist that someone had muted. Then she sat down on her faded brown couch, and started eating her pizza while she was still human enough to enjoy it.
***
“I’m going to help you save her,” Aiden said, the instant she was out of the room.
“You already told me that.”
“Well I mean it this time,” Aiden said.