and what her fingers would feel like touching him in return.
He dropped his hand from her cheek. Just moments before, he’d been seriously considering this woman might be the one who’d placed the anonymous calls. Now, he was thinking about….
No, he wasn’t going there again.
Instead he focused on his drink-splattered clothes. The pink liquid had turned the front of his blue shirt an unappealing puce-y color.
“Well, I’ve only known you for two days, and twice I’ve ended up soaking wet.”
Her gaze moved from his face to his shirt. Then drifted slowly downward to the wet splotch darkening his trousers.
He felt himself react as her gaze lingered. He shifted, and her eyes snapped back up to his, the fear flaring again around them. But there was something else, barely perceptible under the sharp emotion.
“You aren’t soaked,” she said, her voice a little breathy.
His body reacted to the sexy sound, but he told himself to ignore it. “True, I’m not as soaked as I was with the sprinkler, but now I’m sticky.”
Again her gaze dropped to his crotch. Damn. If she couldn’t sense he was aroused, she could sure as hell see it. He shifted again, and her eyes returned to her wrist, her fingers touching that same spot.
Despite his better judgment, he reached for her again. She went rigid under his touch, but she didn’t pull away. Neither did he. His fingers traced the curve of her jawline, his thumb brushing the corner of her red mouth. He tested the soft curve of her full bottom lip, wondered how her lips would feel against his. Would they be sweet like ripe berries?
More emotions crackled around them, but he couldn’t read them. She didn’t pull away, but she remained absolutely still, and he couldn’t tell if she was enjoying his touch or not. Her emotions were too complicated, too jumbled to read. She wasn’t attempting to block them, but there were simply too many of them for any one to be clear. That bothered him. He wanted to know what she was thinking, feeling.
“I—” she said, her eyes meeting his, and he hoped she’d just tell him what was going on behind her inscrutable midnight eyes. Instead, she stepped back, moving out of his reach.
“I have to get back to work,” she said, her voice cool, distant as if she didn’t feel any of the desire he was experiencing. That really bothered him. Nearly as much as the fact that he was feeling desire. Very intense desire.
“Unless I’m fired,” she said after a few moments, when he still hadn’t said anything.
Sebastian considered her. She’d given him an out. A way to be rid of her. If she was involved in the calls about the club, that would be taken care of. And even if she wasn’t involved in the anonymous calls, she was a pretty bad waitress. He’d fired employees who were actually better. And, and at the moment this was the thought that was really troubling him, she would be out of his sight and no longer getting under his skin. Which she was, even though he couldn’t figure out why.
If she weren’t here, many of his problems would be gone. Just like that.
He opened his mouth to tell her that leaving might be for the best. Then his eyes met her dark blue ones, and he was struck by the pain he saw there. Then the emotion swirled away, disappearing into bottomless depths.
Instead of the “yes” his mind had been telling him to say, his mouth said, “No. No, Wi…Mina.” Again his mouth seemed to function without consulting his brain. Somehow, she did remind him of Mina in Dracula. Dark hair, fair skin, innocent, yet determined. Lost yet searching.
“You’re not fired.”
But the idea of keeping this Mina in Carfax Abbey didn’t make him feel particularly relieved.
Chapter 6
Wilhelmina unlocked her apartment door, stepping into the small living room. A lamp glowed dimly on the end table by the sofa, but the place was quiet. She paused, not sensing Lizzie.
She walked down the hallway, which branched off the far end of the living room, passing Lizzie’s room. The door was open, the room dark. Lizzie was out. Wilhelmina knew she was likely at Dr. Fowler’s Institute, where she was setting up her new lab.
A combination of relief and disappointment made her sigh. She didn’t want to explain to a very perceptive wolf why she was so shaken. But she didn’t relish being alone with her thoughts.
She entered her room. The tiny square space was pitch black. Without turning on the light, she stripped off the tight waitress uniform and pulled on her robe. She secured the belt around her waist as she walked back down the hall to the kitchen.
“Calm down,” she muttered to herself as she walked toward the kitchen. She took in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, but the action did nothing to calm her. In truth, she had no idea how she’d managed to make it through the remainder of her shift at the club. Now that she was home, she felt more shaken than back there—where he was.
She walked directly to the refrigerator. On the top shelf, among two half-gallons of juice, two gallons of milk, and several liters of soda, she reached for her blue plastic pitcher. She took a tumbler down from the cupboard and poured herself a drink. A bit of the red, viscous liquid sloshed over the side of her cup, but she didn’t reach for a paper towel to clean it up. Instead she took another deep breath and continued chanting to herself, “Calm down. Calm down.”
She walked back into the living room and collapsed onto the sofa, pulling her legs up tight to her chest. Holding the glass with both hands, she brought it carefully to her lips.
As soon as the familiar tinny, salty, and bitter flavor filled her mouth, she felt herself relax just a little. She took another swallow and another until a calming warmth thawed the tension in her body, allowing her to relax, just a little. She rested her wrists on her knees, the glass still in her hand, and let her head fall back against the sofa cushions.
She didn’t feed enough; that was why she was so agitated. But even as she told herself that, she knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t the hunger that had her so overwrought that she couldn’t stop the tremors making her limbs quiver like leaves rustled by a night breeze.
It was Sebastian.
She moaned, closing her eyes and trying to block out the memories, the feelings. She didn’t want to think about what had happened tonight. But she could think of nothing else.
She’d believed she could handle this. When the Society had decided that Sebastian Young and Carfax Abbey should be placed among the top of their list of vampires who were dangerous to mortals, she’d volunteered to be the plant who would sabotage him. She felt strongly about the way he seduced and used mortals. And she knew she could handle his charms.
Now she wasn’t sure of anything. Nothing had gone as she’d imagined or planned. Her sabotage attempts had failed. She never factored in that she would grow to like the employees of the club. And she didn’t understand what had happened between her and Sebastian tonight, but she knew she wasn’t unaffected.
She took another sip of her drink, then set it on the end table, because her hands were still shaking. Dropping her head onto her knees, curling herself into a tight ball, she tried to force away the sensations still tingling
