Page 29 of Suck This

After the fourth bedtime story, I tucked her in and placed a kiss on her cheek.

“Good night, baby,” I whispered roughly.

Her return smile was blinding.

“I love you, Daddy.”

• • •

I couldn’t tell her any more.

“I got home to a burned down house,” I told her. “Or at least part of it. That’s why I have this fence now.” I gestured to the fence at my back.

“Oh,” she breathed. “I probably scared you tonight.”

I shook my head.

“I knew you were here before you even entered the boundary,” I informed her. “I can feel it the moment someone steps foot on it.”

“How?”

I wouldn’t be telling her that. One didn’t share their secrets with the enemy, even if the enemy was beautiful.

“Was there something you needed?” I asked.

Her back straightened as she realized I wasn’t going to tell her how I knew she was there, but she didn’t call me on it.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay after your business was bombed,” she explained. “And I needed to get away for a little bit, so I killed two birds with one stone.”

I grunted.

“Do you want to come in?” I asked.

I wanted to reach out and pull her into my arms so badly that it hurt, but I refrained.

I’d done a lot of thinking since the bombing of my office, and I came up with a few things.

One of which being that Acadia wasn’t a good idea.

Women were dangerous beings, and I’d learned my lesson a long, long time ago.

She shook her head.

I could feel her desire.

I scared her, though.

Good. That was the way it was supposed to be.

“No, thank you,” she whispered. “I’m supposed to meet Keisha for dinner.”

My fangs burst free of my gums at the mention of ‘dinner’ and I nearly groaned. I hadn’t been this uncontrolled in decades. Hell, it’d been over two hundred years since I’d popped a hard-on and had my fangs descend without me willing them to do so.

And I knew this was a very fine line I was walking. One I—and my race—wasn’t ready for.

Bring her car around,I called to Chen through mindspeak. And make sure nobody has followed her.

I could practically hear Chen’s snorted ‘yeah, okay’ in my head. He did have enough decency not to contradict me, however. Even if he had already checked for intruders other than the one currently standing in front of me.