Jennifer Rardin - [Jaz Parks 1] - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Uh… He laughed softly, a purely male sound that recognized how much I appreciated his form and loved that I was embarrassed he knew.

'Do not worry, I am dressed.'

I peeked over my shoulder. 'Well that hardly counts,' I said, my heart fluttering like a marker flag as I watched him. He'd covered his bottom half with a white towel, but most of his muscular thigh showed as he went to the room fridge and opened the door. As he leaned over I winced to see scars criss-crossing his broad shoulders and back. When he stood I noticed a chain swung from his neck. On it he wore a gold ring.

He'd pulled a plastic bag full of blood from the fridge. As he tore it open and poured the contents into a glass, I thought I should maybe be grossed out. But I wasn't. Vayl did what he needed to survive, and he managed that without treading the path walked by the majority of vampires on earth. I had to respect that.

'Tell me what you did today,' Vayl said as he went to the dresser.

'O-kay.' I started at the end and worked my way backwards, watching him pull a pair of faded jeans and a dark red button-down shirt out of a dresser drawer. As I gave my report I learned that my boss also wore black silk boxers. The knowledge left me a little breathless and a lot perturbed. What I felt was wrong on so many levels you could package it into an entire training video called What NOT to Do While on the Job.

Vayl went into the bathroom and I finished my review as he showered. Just like any guy, he was getting ready for work. But Vayl was not any guy, far from it. And therein lay my dilemma. I could only deny reality for so long, and then only if Vayl cooperated. It didn't look like he intended to for much longer. Whatever had made us work so well as a team from the start had changed, had grown. I guess I'd known that, at some level, something had been stirring between us for awhile. But hey, I'm so good at denying reality I could give lessons. I just had no idea how you tell an immortal creature whose powers routinely cause abject cringing and/or death that you want him, but he's not what you need. My guess—very carefully.

I fell silent, and since he seemed to have nothing to say either, I left him to finish his shower. I'd curled up on one of the couches in the conversation area I'd created when he came out of his room. Apparently the new furniture arrangement was less conducive to talk than I'd anticipated, because speech suddenly failed me.

Unless he'd switched to camouflage mode, Vayl rarely entered a room without everyone feeling his presence. His personality could be like mist, drifting gently into your lungs until every breath sent him sliding through your veins. Or, like a violent change in air pressure, it could reach out and slam you against a wall. At the moment, looking at him through eyes that I hoped hadn't glazed over, I wouldn't have noticed if a ninja had dropped through the ceiling and started breaking chairs.

He moved with the total body awareness of a professional athlete, and now that I knew what that body looked like, I could not take my eyes off it. If a scientist gave a lecture on the Alpha male, she'd definitely throw in a few slides of Vayl. But until last night, until he'd looked at me like I'd sashayed right out of his deepest, darkest fantasy, I hadn't thought about where our relationship might lead us, or how exciting that trip could be. What a helluva time for my hormones to kick into overdrive.

'Vayl, I… we…' I caught his eyes and stopped speaking. They were the gray-blue of storm-swept waves, snapping dangerously over lips compressed so tightly I could see the outline of fangs beneath them. 'What's wrong?' I asked, some instinct making me touch the gun now resting in my shoulder holster.

Vayl descended into the pit and dropped onto the couch I'd positioned on a diagonal with mine. For a minute he just sat there with his elbows on his knees, staring off into space.

'Vayl?'

'Something is wrong with my blood supply.'

'What do you mean?'

Vayl jumped up and started pacing. 'The blood I brought to sustain me. It is tainted.' I felt the familiar bewilderment that used to fog my brain when my math teacher handed me a word problem. How was I supposed to know which train would reach Dallas first?

'How could you tell?' I asked.

Vayl grabbed one of the decorative pillows off the couch and began picking at one corner of it. I'd never seen him so shaken, and it was starting to scare me.

'Look, Vayl, just tell me what you know.'

Vayl sat down again, avoiding my gaze, watching his fingers worry at the pillow instead. 'When I went to get a drink I realized something was wrong. That is, once the blood had warmed, I could smell something in it that should not have been there. Something my nose tells me will make me ill.'

'Did you check all the bags?'

'Yes. They are all tainted.'

'Did you keep some? We should get it tested.'

'Yes.'

This is bad, bad, bad—'Vayl, are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

'Of course. After last night how could I think otherwise? But polluted blood would not kill me, it would only make me sick.'

'Sick, like out of commission? Sick as in vulnerable?'

'Very possibly.'

'Then maybe this is just a prelude to another attack.' I waited for Vayl to agree, but he just shrugged. The pillow in his hands began to come apart. I was beginning to identify with it, big-time. Okay, Jaz, keep it together. You are a trained pro. Eventually you will find the ass that needs kicking and that's exactly what you'll do. As long as you keep it together.

'So let's figure out who's doing this,' I said, more to myself than Vayl. 'I don't think it could've been Pete. He was too ready to agree with our suggestions.'