Saved at Sunrise

room before morning and finding her gone.
    Since he came across as the type with manners, and morals and stuff, who wouldn’t
     come into a girl’s bedroom—at least not without an invitation—she’d kept her mouth
     shut.
    Face it, she’d take the odds of him finding her gone to the odds of those mattress
     germs finding her body, hands down.
    Steve cut his soft brown eyes to her and a knowing smile spread his lips. He ran a
     hand through his brown hair, which he wore a tad longer than most guys. The strands
     fell right back into place, looking instantly styled. She doubted he went to some
     professional salon to get that look, but it almost appeared like he did.
    His smile widened and he tucked one hand into his jeans pocket. The stance made the
     muscles in that arm bulge. “So what you’re saying is that the bed is worse than the
     sofa?”
    “I didn’t say that.” She tried not to laugh, but something close to it slipped out
     of her mouth. She tried not to stare at his crooked smile and what it did to his lips
     and eyes. Or how his muscled arms looked like a safe place to fall. She’d give anything,
     even half a bra size to make him … ugly. And unlike her two roommates at Shadow Falls,
     she didn’t have much bra size to offer.
    She continued to stare at him. She could have dealt with an ugly guy much better than
     one who looked like he’d just walked off of some men’s soap advertisement. And hell,
     she thought, breathing in his aroma, you’d think after spending the last two hours
     as a bird, he wouldn’t smell like he used some spicy-smelling men’s soap, but he did.
    He smelled … awesome, and that ticked her off, too.
    If she were a witch like her bigger-boobed roommate, Miranda, she’d change him into
     a repulsive fowl/foul-smelling guy. And she’d also make him less … nice. She didn’t
     like nice.
    The only nice person Della had grown fond of was Kylie. And she was so nice, even
     Della couldn’t hate her. Well, right now, Della did hate her. Hated her for leaving.
     And if she didn’t get her butt back to Shadow Falls soon, Della was going to drag
     her friend back kicking and screaming. Sure, Kylie had gone to meet her newly discovered
     grandfather and learn more about her species, but plain and simple, she belonged at
     Shadow Falls. Someone had to keep Della and Miranda from killing each other. And no
     one was better at that than Kylie.
    “We could both sleep on the sofa,” Steve said, and damn if he didn’t sound serious.
    “Not even in your dreams, bird boy!” she snapped.
    “Ouch,” he said and chuckled. “I only meant your head at one end and mine at the other.
     Only our feet would be touching.”
    “So you’ve got a foot fetish, do you?” she asked before she could stop herself.
    Humor brightened his eyes. With him positioned right in front of the bare window,
     and the last rays of the setting sun beaming in, she got a good look at those eyes.
     Were those flecks of amber and green in his brown pools?
    His gaze lowered to her Nike-covered size sixes. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen your
     naked feet.”
    Hearing him say the word naked with what sounded like a deep Southern accent, deeper than Texas, made her stomach
     flutter like she was twelve again and had never been kissed. Good Lord, what was wrong
     with her? Since when did she find a Southern accent seductive?
    She stuck one foot behind the other. “And you won’t see them naked,” she snapped,
     not liking that they’d been here less than five minutes and they were already … flirting.
     At least it felt like flirting.
    And Della Tsang didn’t flirt.
    Not anymore.
    His gaze rose from her feet. “We’ll see about that,” he said.
    They stood there staring at each other for a second. Then he spoke up. “You want to
     go grab a bite to eat?”
    She frowned. “I brought a couple pints of AB positive with me in my bag.” Which she
     needed to put in the fridge. While most vamps preferred their blood warm, Della liked
     it better cold. When your core temperature was 92 degrees, you appreciated things
     colder than yourself.
    “Yeah, but I need food. Something hot and greasy. Nutrients for whatever the hell
     is gonna go down tomorrow morning.”
    Steve had been set up to play as her shape-shifter boyfriend, a guy she’d met after
     running away from home. They didn’t allow anyone but vampires into the gang, but if
     she got accepted, and he could prove his worth to