Inside Junior's it was peaceful. I can change that, I thought dryly.

My blood rose, mixing with my lingering fear of the unknown to drive her to a fever pitch. Her lips touched my lower neck and vertigo spun the room, burning tracings of desire to settle deep and low in me. I exhaled into the promise of more to come, calling it to me. I breathed it in like smoke, the rising passion starting a feeling of abandonment inside. I didn’t care anymore if it was right or wrong. It just was.

Rachel, Rachel, Rachel,” he said, very still and unmoving. “Always jumping to the wrong conclusion. You’re like a frog, you know.

I won’t snatch, harm, or scare to death people with you or use checking up on you as an excuse to cause trouble. You’re worse than my mother, Rachel.” “Mine, too,” Jenks muttered.

Death and blood didn’t turn on a vampire. Fear and the chance to take blood did. There was a difference.

She smiled with the warmth of a penguin.

See, this was why I liked coffee. You couldn’t screw up making coffee. Even the bad stuff was good.