The Fangover by Erin McCarthy, Kathy Love Page A

stranger in Cort’s bathtub.
    Or that he had seen her transformation.
    His eyes were huge, his breath coming in rapid little anxious bursts. His fingers inched up to his neck and when he pulled them back covered in blood from her feeding he said, “Holy shit.”
    That about summed it up.
    “It’s okay,” she said, in the most soothing voice she could muster. Every vampire had the ability to influence humans, but Stella’s had always been slight. She was a veritable weakling when it came to talents primarily because Johnny had turned her as a fledgling himself. It had never particularly bothered her because she had always wanted to live as normal a life as possible, but at the moment she could have used some memory wipe mojo.
    Maybe he hadn’t really seen what had just happened.
    “Oh, my God, you’re a vampire,” he said, gazing from the blood on his fingers to her and back again. “That is the shit.”
    Or maybe he did. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Stella pushed on his very muscular chest and sat back away from him.
    “You were a bat and you were biting me and OMG you just turned back into a beautiful woman vampire.”
    Well, that was nice to hear considering her hair was a wreck from the wind and the dunk in the river. But it was irrelevant. “I’m not a vampire.”
    “Yes, you are. Bite me, please, Dark Angel.”
    Oh, no. He was tenting that priest robe, his eyes rolled back in ecstasy, his hand reaching for hers. This was creepy. “I’m not going to bite you.”
    “You already did.”
    “No, I didn’t. There was a bat in here biting you and I came and swatted it away. It flew into the other room. I hope your rabies shot is up to date.” Stella hauled herself out of the tub and away from Boner Boy. “Who the hell are you and why are you dressed like a priest?”
    It was New Orleans. There was probably a festival of some kind going on. Maybe there had been a showing in the CBC of
The Exorcist
or something. So truthfully, the costume didn’t really matter. What mattered was that she was now realizing that she was at Cort’s with no purse and no cell phone and Wyatt was who knew where with both.
    “I’m a dancer at Bounce.”
    Ah, a stripper at the gay bar. That suddenly made so much more sense, though she had to question the political correctness of his outfit. “You strip as a priest?”
    “It was tarts and vicars night,” he said. “Tranny crowd. The tips aren’t as good, but hey, it’s a living. I’m Benny, and I’m straight. Who are you, besides my darkest desire?”
    Stella sighed. Curses on all the vampires in pop culture. It made being turned suddenly sexy.
    “I’m Stella. And you need to leave.”
    Benny struggled to sit up, his erection no longer on full display, which was an improvement. “What happened last night? My head is killing me and I don’t remember anything after I left work.”
    That made two of them. “I have no idea.”
    “Do you think we had sex?” he asked hopefully. “Did you imprint on me?”
    “No!” she snapped, losing patience with Benny, the vicar stripper. “Look, I need to go find my friend and I can’t just leave you here alone. No offense, but you need to go.”
    “Is my cross bothering you?” Benny fingered the cross hanging around his neck. “It’s not real. It’s a prop.”
    Was there such a thing as a fake cross? A cross was a cross. The shape never changed, no matter the material. “It doesn’t bother me. What’s bothering me is that I lost my purse and my cell phone and I want them back now.”
    Ignoring her denials, Benny still tucked the cross into his robes. He flung a leg over the side of the tub and heaved himself out. “Do you need me to help you? I could totally help you. What, do you need to, like, file a police report? Were you mugged? God, it’s too bad I wasn’t with you. I would have kicked the ass of anyone who messed with you, my goddess.” He slapped a fist into his opposite palm to give force