Immortals After Dark 06 - Dark Desires After Dusk

bed,” he said, plucking off her glasses, and setting them on the bedside table. Then he bent down to unfasten her heels.
    “I’m sure I can manage the rest.” She frowned at his sudden attentiveness. “I can do that,” she insisted, but he wasn’t listening.
    He studied her shoe, with his lips curling as if he found it adorable. “You’ve the smallest feet, poppet.” Once he’d removed her shoes, he said, “And now your top.”
    Before she could stop him, he pinched the bottom of her sweater and began tugging.
    “Are you crazy?” She slapped his hands away, ducking under his arm to flee to the other side of the room.
    “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
    With her arms crossed over her chest, she said, “Just call me about thirty minutes before you’re ready to leave tonight.”
    “I will be bunking here with you.”
    Holly tensed. Sharing a room with the husky-voiced demon she’d been dreaming about in the car? This wouldn’t work at all. “How exactly would I explain this to my boyfriend?”
    “How exactly are you going to explain any of this?”
    Indeed. “I’m not going to tell him. If I can get this reversed, he never has to know.”
    “Good answer. It’s against the rules of the Lore to tell humans about our world.”
    “But why do we have to share a room?”
    “Because we’re still too close to your last known whereabouts. There could be more vampires.”
    “I can take care of myself.”
    “That you can,” he said easily. She was alternately discomfited and pleased by his ready confidence in her abilities. “But you’ll have a hard time defending yourself when you’re asleep. So that’s where I come in.”
    Her stomach chose that moment of silence to growl loudly.
    He grinned. “If you’re going to be up for about twenty minutes more, I could go for some food. It’s too early for room service, but there’s a breakfast place across the street.”
    She nodded. “Can you just get me a bottle of orange juice? I don’t like food prepared by others.” Or by myself.
    “We’ll see. If you want to grab a shower, now’s the time.” At the door, he said, “And, Holly, do not take those pearls off. Or we’ll be in deep shite.”

    She was still in the shower when he returned, which meant she was fair game. He grasped the bathroom door handle, gave a heft to easily break the lock, then swung the door open wide.
    “The male’s back from the hunt,” he called, grinning at her outraged screech.
    “Get out! Shut the door!”
    Since he could only distinguish a vague shape behind the clouded-glass shower stall, he decided to comply with her requests.
    Crossing to the dining table, he set down the plastic bag of food. Finding her something to eat actually had turned into a hunt—because she had such strict criteria. He’d watched her enough to learn about her eccentric eating habits.
    Cade had wondered why she hadn’t hurried into the shower and been dressed by the time he returned, but now as his gaze swept the room, he realized she hadn’t been able to drag herself away from rearranging everything not nailed down.
    Three of the four chairs were neatly pushed in. With the fourth, she’d propped the chair’s back against the table, leaning it forward on two legs. She’d clearly remade the bed and adjusted the pillows on the room’s small sofa, which she’d also moved a few feet over.
    The alarm clock on the bedside table was flush against the wall with no wire to be seen, and the remote control sat at a right angle to the center of the clock. The trash can was pressed directly against one end of the dresser, her suitcase against the other end. Her wireless laptop and cell phone sat perfectly parallel on the desk, charging.
    Cade needed to check his e-mail and sports scores and map out their route for the day, so he opened her computer, and signed in as a guest. After routine Web stuff, he Googled a couple of things, unsurprised to find that she had the safe content filter on.
    He leaned back in his chair, trying to imagine a life filtered of anything sexual.
    Not worth living.
    Hell, he was one to talk. He hadn’t been with another woman since the day he’d met Holly, the longest stretch of celibacy since he’d first had sex. A few months ago, when he’d finally become convinced he could never have Holly, Cade had given a halfhearted try for a witch, but she’d wanted another.
    Now he was glad of it.
    He set the laptop back on the table, his attention