Page 4

I knew it started with a ‘t’!

“Flatterer,” he shot back, though it held no heat. “What can I get you? Your usual?”

“Yes, please.”

“Todd,” called the dishwater blonde vampire behind the counter he’d traded with. “The steamer isn’t working again. Can you help me?”

“You got it, let me just ring her up quick,” he called back to her, tapping away at the touchscreen. “One flat white for Vi. That’ll be four twenty-five.”

Todd turned the payment terminal toward me before moving to help the vampire with the machine. A man behind me shifted impatiently in his suit, huffing as he glanced at the sparkling platinum watch on his wrist, making me keenly aware of just how long I’d been taking as I continued to fish in my purse.

The bell hanging from the top of the door chimed, warning that someone else had entered the café just as my fingers came into contact with my bank card at the bottom of my bag, along with a thin layer of crumbs, a few receipts, and—score!—a few coins, and I pulled it out, brushing it off on my jacket before tapping it against the terminal.

“Hey, Ren! Usual will be up in five!” the female barista called as someone brushed past me to wait at the other side of the bar where they put finished drinks and mobile orders.

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Usually, I wasn’t the type of girl to full-on ogle somebody in a coffee shop, but forRen,I was keen to make an exception.

She was tall, most of a foot taller than my five-foot-four, with long, tattooed-covered fingers wrapped around the leather shoulder strap of her bag. Every scrap of skin I could see was tattooed, with art peeking from the collar of her shirt and the cuffs of her sleeves. Contrasted by the round, delicate features of her face, the effect was downright alluring.

The flattened bridge of her nose and dark, kohl-lined mono-lidded eyes reminded me a bit of the K-pop stars Kaylee liked to obsess over when we were younger, androgynous in a way that made it hard for me to decide if I thought she was beautiful or handsome. Either way,fucking gorgeousfit the bill.

When I finally managed to peel my eyes away from the tattoos on her fingers back to her face it was to find her already looking back at me, gaze dark and heavy where it touched my quickly pinking cheeks. Our eyes met, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards to reveal her lightly pointed fangs, sending my heart into a juddering sprint.

A vampire.

I was so distracted that when Dishwater Blonde cleared her throat to get my attention, it made me jump.

“Lady, the payment didn’t go through,” she said loudly, deflating my embarrassment for being caught staring and replacing it with something else entirely. “Do you have another card?”

Heat raced up the back of my neck as my eyes flicked between her and Ren, who ran a hand through her overgrownpixie cut in a way that made the jewellery dotting the shell of her ear catch in the lights, and back to the terminal.

Fuck.

I’d been pretty good at keeping an eye on what’d been left in my account, but maybe I’d miscalculated… My hand immediately went back into my bag, hunting for the change I’d felt earlier, the sound of my belongings rustling while I looked was quickly accompanied by an annoyed sigh behind me.

“Can you hurry it up a little, sugar?” a male voice jeered. “Some of us have places to be.”

How did I let things get this bad?

I pulled out the change, cringing as I realised what I’d hoped were quarters were three nickels and a lint-covered penny. My embarrassment tripling as Todd set my finished coffee on the pickup counter, my throat threatening to close around a humiliated sob.

Bank card declined.

No cards.

Cash in the sum of… six cents.

“Flat white for Vi!”

I’d just opened my mouth to ask if I could run upstairs to raid my pockets for change when Ren leaned over me, tapping her card against the reader. If she’d been human, she was so close I would’ve been able to feel her body heat. Instead, all I was left with was a lungful of her delicious musky perfume, leathery and salty and masculine as much as it was feminine.

She caught my eye as she pulled away, the heat from my embarrassment coiling between us like a living thing.

“Pretty girls like you shouldn’t have to pay for their coffee, anyway. It’s my treat.”

I swallowed the embarrassing girlish giggle trying to claw its way out of my chest, relief making me feel unsteady.