Just One Bite (32 page)
“Just greet everyone and take invitations. No one gets inside without one.”
“What if he’s cute?”
“It doesn’t matter. No invitation, no party.”
“Well dressed?”
“Hand him a business card, talk us up, and send him on his way.”
“Rich?”
“Stick a nametag on him and send him in.” What can I say? This vamp had her priorities.
After leaving a few more instructions (pass out an extra pack of DED promotional mints to all weres, ask blood type preference for all vamps), I left Nina at the entrance and headed inside to see the end result of eight days of wicked stress and frantic planning.
The room was huge, with ornate frieze work and a marbled floor. A large dance area had been set up in the very center, the circular area surrounded by clusters of round tables covered in crisp white linens. Polished silver candelabras dominated the center of each table. Candlelight flickered, making the china and crystal place settings sparkle. Moonlight filtered through the wall of glass windows behind the small (I’m on a budget, all right?), but tasteful orchestra I’d booked for tonight. The place oozed romantic ambiance and for the first time since I’d started planning the event, I actually believed that it might work. Up to that point I’d been running on sheer desperation and crazy hope.
My gaze shifted to the huge silver fountain flowing with champagne that dominated the far corner of the room. Next to that sat a Bloody Mary bar. No, Mary herself wasn’t in attendance (not yet, anyway—my mother
had
sent her an invitation on my behalf), but there was plenty of AB-, vodka, and Tabasco sauce to keep the vamps happy. Next to that sat a meat lover’s buffet sporting everything from roast beef to lamb chops. The food was barely cooked (we’re talking
rare
) and plentiful for the weres. Add a dessert bar with everything from fudge overboard to raspberry cheesecake for the few humans who’d been invited, and there was a little something for everyone.
In fact, the entire room reminded me of one of those It’s a Small World rides at Disneyland. I had the sudden urge to sing “Kumbaya.”
Or, in this case, “The Monster Mash.”
Everything looked absolutely perfect.
Which should have been my first clue of the coming disaster. I mean, really. A roomful of vamps and weres and humans? Talk about a massacre just waiting to happen.
The first to draw blood? A hot-looking demon. At least, I thought he was a demon since I couldn’t smell him (nix vamp), nor could I read his thoughts (forget human), and he didn’t look ready to howl at the moon (so
not
a were).
His name was Jordan Barrett Finley and he was über hot. I wasn’t sure where he’d come from (he wasn’t on my guest list), but I wasn’t about to argue with the whopping cash retainer he presented to Nina or the fact that he was desperate to find a plus-sized made vampire. Not when I just so happened to have the perfect woman for him.
Esther Crutch was a nice, sweet, stylishly chic made vampire I’d met while getting a spray tan at my favorite salon. Unfortunately, the stylishly chic packaged a size-fourteen body and so Esther didn’t get as much nooky as the rest of her kind.
Made male vamps were so shallow.
Ahem
.
Okay, so were born male vamps, but enough with the details.
Esther and Jordan. Talk about a perfect match. I introduced them and stepped back to let Cupid do his thing.
One minute they were dancing and gazing into each other’s eyes and the next…I wasn’t sure what happened next. I just knew judging by the bloodstained sofa that it wasn’t good.
“I knew someone was going to spill a drink,” Nina said as she came up behind me. “Daddy’s going to take it out of my allowance for sure.”
“Nobody spilled a drink,” I said, picking at a torn piece of Esther’s dress that had caught on the edge of a mirrored coffee table. The fabric was soaked with blood, the edges jagged where it had ripped on the table. Or where someone had ripped it.
An image flashed and I remembered Esther, a strange expression on her face as Jordan had led her out of the ballroom. I’d been five steps behind them because I’d wanted a pic to add to my wall of success back at the office. I’d stopped to calm down an overly excited were who’d been upset because we’d run out of au jus for the roast beef. By the time I’d reached the sitting area outside the ballroom, they were gone.
“Lil?” Nina asked. “If it’s not a spilled drink, what is it?”
“It’s Esther.” Goosebumps crawled up and down my arms and a strange sense of doom settled in the pit of my stomach. “I think she’s been kidnapped.” The ripe smell of fresh blood teased my nostrils. “Or worse.”
H
e wore a black leather bomber jacket, faded jeans, and a brown Henley. His black hair was cut short and cropped close to the head without a hint of product. Stubble darkened his jaw, circled his sensuous mouth, and crept down his throat. He had the blackest eyes I’d ever seen fringed with long, thick lashes. He was a demon (or so I’d guessed) and one of New York’s finest. He’d helped during Ty’s disappearance the previous month and I’d been lusting after him ever since.
Not willingly, of course. See, Ash wasn’t any old demon. He oozed sex appeal (rather than green slime) and women couldn’t seem to resist him. Nix your ordinary
Exorcist
variety. This guy was a bona fide incubus.
Which meant that said fantasies were totally NOT my fault. An incubus doesn’t just reek of S-E-X, he inspires it.
Still, let’s say for the sake of argument that I
had
been thinking about him, so what? It wasn’t like Ty and I had an actual relationship. I hadn’t seen or talked to him in a month. No phone calls. No e-mails. No text messages. Not even a measly comment on MySpace or Facebook. Nothing since our goodbye sex marathon.
Also by Kimberly Raye
published by Ballantine Books
DEAD END DATING
DEAD AND DATELESS
YOUR COFFIN OR MINE?
Just One Bite
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2008 by Kimberly Raye
Excerpt from
Sucker for Love
copyright © 2008 by Kimberly Raye
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
B
ALLANTINE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
Sucker for Love
by Kimberly Raye. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eISBN: 978-0-345-50757-0
v3.0
