Love Bites by Adrienne Barbeau Page A

asked. That seemed safe enough after the way we’d said good night. I was seated at my desk, staring out the window at a hooker soliciting a guy in a Bentley.
    “Well, I don’t have any burn marks, if that’s what you mean.”
    “I’m sorry, Peter. What happened when I touched you was an accident. I never meant to hurt you. I just wasn’t concentrating.” The Bentley owner must have liked what he heard; he opened the car door and the girl got in.
    “On what? What do you have to concentrate on to keep from sending sparks out your body?” He sounded as if he were interrogating a suspect that he didn’t believe.
    “On not letting my attraction to you get out of hand.” I took a deep breath. Might as well get it all out in the open. “That’s what happens when I get aroused. I have to concentrate to control myself—to keep my vampyre self in check.”
    There was silence for a moment. I heard Peter take a breath and hold it before he spoke. “So I guess it’s safe to say there’s something going on here . . . right? Even with Maral in the picture? And it’s not just coming from me?”
    “No, it’s not.” I heard him exhale. I continued, “But what has to come from you is a decision about what happens next. I want you. You’re the first man I’ve wanted in years. But I don’t know what there is in this for you. I’m a vampyre, Peter. I’m not very good relationship material. My needs aren’t like yours. And I’m not above taking advantage of you to have them met.” The Bentley drove away, the girl’s head already below the dash. Talk about taking advantage.
    He was silent for so long, I thought the call had dropped.
    “Peter?” I asked.
    He was still on the line. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, and his voice had lightened considerably, “let me pick you up around seven or so. I saw the announcement about the merger in today’s Variety, and I think we should go out and celebrate.”
    It was my turn to be silent. Except for the blood pounding through my heart, which sounded to me like a kettledrum in an echo chamber.
    “Are you sure?” I finally asked.
    “Yes. I haven’t been taken advantage of in a long time. I’d like to see what it feels like.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

    I hate driving in L.A. Most of my clan does. It’s impossible to filter all the input. If I don’t keep my senses tempered, I end up listening to the gangbangers in the Escalade ahead of me, talking about their latest drive-by shooting. At least, I think that’s what they’re saying. The way they butcher the English language just pisses me off more. Then I want to follow them and do a little killing of my own, which will just make me late for whatever appointment I’ve got. The whole thing is one annoying distraction. I make Maral drive.
    But she’d just gotten home from LAX, and it was already six o’clock. I asked Sveta, one of our office receptionists, to drive me home. I sat in the backseat and thought about Peter and smiled. A real date with Detective Peter King, no family members involved. I wondered if he was putting his job in jeopardy. Was he allowed to date someone he’d met on a case? And what did he have in mind for the evening? He hadn’t said what he wanted to do. Not go to dinner, I hope. What the hell was I going to wear?
    “It looks like there’s something going on at your house, Ovsanna,” Sveta said from the front seat. “I can’t tell what it is from here.” She slowed the car.
    There are times when my heightened senses of smell and hearing intrude on my existence and I have to damp them down deliberately to concentrate on other things. Not so my vision. Being able to see the minutest details from hundreds of feet away, even in the dark, always comes in handy. I stared up the road at the shapes Sveta couldn’t decipher.
    It was the paparazzi again. The same seven who had been there Christmas Eve night, plus two more. They were milling around the middle of the road, cameras dangling from