Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter, page 28
part #2 of Midnight Liaisons Series
“Very well. Go ahead.”
“I might know how to bait the hook, but I also know how to reel in my catch. If I’m throwing back what I’m getting, it’s because I’m after a different sort of fish.”
“The one that got away?” I said dryly.
He laughed, and the tension of the moment was gone. “Something like that.”
I chewed on my lower lip, feeling suddenly confused. How had this turned from Josh flirting with me to Josh talking about other women? And worse, how had he made his endless string of dates sound so . . . practical? He was fishing and he just threw them back because they weren’t what he was looking for. Why did that sound so incredibly reasonable? Was I crazy? Or just falling under his spell? I sighed. “All right, you win this round.” Before he could say something smug I quickly added, “But I don’t need to know how to catch a woman. I need to know how to catch a man.”
“No, you need to be caught by a vampire. There’s a difference. Both in the vampire and the fact that you’re going to be the one that’s caught. That’s where I come in. I’ll help you bag a vampire, but you have to take my advice seriously if this is going to work.”
I continued to stare at him across the table, uneasy. He was offering to be my dating guide. It was a generous offer, and yet—“I don’t understand you. What are you getting out of this?”
“How about the knowledge that you’ll be safe?” His mouth tightened and I found my gaze going there, to a warm, curving mouth framed by a day’s growth of stubble. “You’re human and you’re pretty much approaching every vampire asking them to date you. That’s not the safest situation, Marie. Get mixed up with the wrong vampire, and you could be in trouble.”
Danger hadn’t been on my mind, it was true. I wanted someone to turn me; I didn’t care about the consequences. I hated that he was making me slow down and think about them. “So this is your knight in shining armor schtick? Like you do with her?” I thumbed a gesture at Carol, currently on the far side of the restaurant, taking an order from a trucker. “You feel the need to chaperone women? Patron saint of lost causes?”
“No,” he said bluntly. “This is about me giving you what you think you want. I don’t know why on earth you want a vampire, but you’re determined to get one. And since you are fixed on this course of action, I’m going to help you.” He picked up his coffee cup, realized it was empty, sighed, and put it back down on the table, reaching for mine instead. “I want you to see that you really don’t want a vampire. They’re not like in the movies.”
“I’m not that shallow,” I said quickly. As he placed his mouth directly over where I’d been drinking, a funny flush went through my body.
“All right. But I think that maybe, if I show you how vampires really are, you’ll change your mind.” Those gorgeous eyes focused on my face, making my mouth go dry. A slow, lazy grin began to spread over his face as he drained my coffee and put the cup down. “Maybe you’ll go cougar instead.”
Somehow, I didn’t think he was referring to dating younger men.
I frowned at him and adjusted my glasses. He had no clue why I wanted a vampire because I hadn’t offered any information. To him, it probably was a weird fetish.
I should have told him the truth. But the words caught in my throat as he continued to look at me expectantly. The way he was smiling at me, laughing with me, flirting with me . . .
He wouldn’t flirt with me if he knew I was dying. And call me crazy, but I liked being attractive to him.
“Why me?” I couldn’t help but ask. I wasn’t pretty, like Ryder, or flirty. I wasn’t soft and feminine like Bathsheba. I was all hard angles, dark hair, and glasses. I didn’t laugh and joke around like Sara. I was acerbic and cold. I wasn’t easy around him. What did he see in me that made him stay here? Made him flirt relentlessly? Made him more or less offer a one-night stand if I changed my mind about dating a vampire?
“Because,” he said slowly, spinning the small coffee cup with his big fingers, “I’ve never met anyone as alone as you, Marie. You hold everyone away from you with that icy frown. You need a thawing.”
He leaned forward, all devastating grin again. “And I’m pretty sure I could make you melt.”
JESSICA SIMS is also the author of Beauty Dates the Beast. She lives near Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband.
ALSO BY JESSICA SIMS
Beauty Dates the Beast
Fantasy.
Temptation.
Adventure.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-4516-6181-1
ISBN 978-1-4516-6184-2 (eBook)
Jessica Sims, Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter
