Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1) (6 page)

“So, this Nicolas... Does he scare you?”

Anna considered it for a moment. Scare her? Scare was much too light of a word for what he made her feel. He terrified, horrified, petrified her. “Yes. He scares me.”

“Does he scare you like your father did?”

Anna was startled at the unexpected question. The main reason it was so startling was because of how easy it was to answer. There was no way Nicolas scared her like her father had. “No. He doesn’t scare me like that.”

The traitorous, treacherous woman then asked, “Do you think he scares you because you like him?”

She almost hated Abigail’s insight at that moment. Did she
like
him? Not really. However, her body seemed to absolutely adore him, and he seemed rather fond of hers as well. Who knew what would happen if they were together for any extended period of time? “Well, I don’t hate him.” Abigail smiled knowingly and Anna continued, “I won’t be in control of this situation.”

“Well then, you only have two choices. You can let go of this. You might not find Charles, but you’ll be ‘safe.’ The other option is you take control of the situation.”

“How can I take control?” She couldn’t imagine Nicolas ever letting her take the lead in looking for Aleksander.

“You’re scared about all of the ways this could end badly. You have to lower the number of possible outcomes.”

Anna was skeptical. “How do I do that?”

Abigail shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Anna laughed at the simple but wise advice. She needed to have a bit more control over the situation before she could agree to help Nicolas. It might hurt to refuse the opportunity to find Aleksander, but she couldn’t let herself be at the mercy of someone else again. They would need to come to an understanding.

Anna was very proud when she held back her scream at finding Nicolas waiting right next to the door to her apartment. He didn’t look too pleased with her either.

“Where were you?”

She raised her eyebrows at his angry tone. She was tired from the long day and night she had. Even though she’d been bracing herself for this confrontation during the two-hour trip from Abigail’s, she wasn’t prepared to see him at her door.

“I was wherever I want to be.” She tried to move past him to unlock her door, but he stood stubbornly in her way. At the moment, she really wished she had her gun. “I’ve only known you for one day, and yet I’m already very sick of you. Now move,” she ordered, trying to muster up as much authority in her tone as possible.

She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t budge. Instead of making some futile effort to move him, she wrangled her hand around his back and tried to locate the keyhole. This pressed her front directly into his, and the strangest sensation hit her torso.

In surprise, she lifted her free hand to his chest. Warm solid muscle pressed against her. There was also a steady heartbeat. “You’re not dead?”

He shot her a cocky grin. “You have no idea how alive I am.” His voice wrapped around her and echoed in her head. He gave a pointed look to an area low on his body.

Anna followed his gaze and found herself staring at his crotch. She pushed away from him. He bumped back against the door.

“Seriously?” she asked. He couldn’t seem to stop grinning at her shocked reaction.

This time she pushed him away from the door. He must have allowed himself to be moved, because she knew that there was no way he would’ve budged if he didn’t want to.

She crossed into her apartment and laid her bag on the loveseat. There was no room for a sofa, so the loveseat was the largest piece of seating. Nicolas remained in the doorway.

“What?” she asked when she noticed he was staring at her.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Anna couldn’t stop her smug smirk from forming. “Really? You need to be invited in?”

He just shrugged.

“Um, I don’t really know if I want you to have an open invitation,” she said honestly to him after her smirk faded.

He didn’t seem too offended. “Then come with me back to my place.” He said the words casually, but she doubted how casual they actually were. She didn’t want to be in a small enclosed space with him at all.

But that didn’t mean they were completely out of options. “Coffee! Let’s do coffee.”

His face filled with disgust. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

“No. In fact, it’s a great idea. It will be much harder for you to intimidate me when we are surrounded by people.”

“You think I’m trying to intimidate you?”

Anna walked closer to the doorway, feeling very happy there was at least one thing about him she could control. “I have no idea what you’re trying to do to me. But intimidation is definitely something I always seem to feel around you. So I’d really appreciate you agreeing to meet me somewhere public.”

He looked down at her. “Are you always this honest with men?”

She was surprised at the question. “I never liked lying.”

Charles’s whole life had been a lie. His smiles, his laughs, his friends had all been one big lie cultivated to make the world believe he was something other than a monster.

“I found the one honest woman in New York. No man has managed to spit you up and chew you out yet? I think you’ve managed to amaze me.”

She frowned at the statement. “Trust me. I’ve been chewed up and spit out enough times for plenty of lifetimes.” It had just been her father and not a boyfriend. But she wasn’t ready to tell him the whole truth about her past. She needed a few tricks up her sleeve when dealing with him.

Another awkward silence fell between them. Anna broke it by saying, “Let me grab some things, and I’ll be right back.”

She was still tired from her restless sleep and long day, but she needed to talk to Nicolas. She grabbed her bag and headed toward him.

On the way, she got a quick glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her jeans and t-shirt were casual and not especially flattering. Her ponytail had fallen flat, and tendrils had escaped to rest all around her face. Altogether with her glasses, it gave the effect of one very frazzled nerd.

Because her sweatshirt was now lost, she’d worn an old leather jacket today. That made her look a bit more like she belonged in the city and not back on a farm in Michigan.

She rushed past the mirror to the doorway. For all she knew, if Nicolas got very impatient, he could break down the invisible barrier that kept him out of her apartment.

As she walked through the doorway, he moved out of her way. After she had her door securely locked, they went out onto the street together.

He didn’t pull her along as he had the night before. They walked together as though they were friends, or coworkers. It was also a noticeably uninterrupted walk. People seemed to move out of his way, as though they knew they should keep their distance. When Anna walked to work, she ducked and weaved around people. Nicolas wasn’t the ducking and weaving type.

Anna noticed a few women’s eyes seemed to follow him as he walked by. Some were appreciative, while others were downright lustful. One very tall blonde with an exceptionally short skirt stopped for the sole purpose of watching his backside as he walked away.

Anna couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is it always like this for you?”

“Like what?”

She motioned to the street around them. “All the guys running out of your way and all the women wishing they could get in it?”

Nicolas looked around them at the spectacle he was making. “I guess I don’t pay attention.”

She shook her head. “You’re such a liar. I happen to know you enjoy making people feel uncomfortable.”

“Is that how I make you feel? Uncomfortable?” he asked.

“Don’t play innocent. You do it on purpose.”

He didn’t deny it. “Do we really have to get
coffee
?” He said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“I guess we don’t have to. Do you have any better ideas of where we can talk?”

“There are a lot of bars I go to, and any one of them would be better than getting
coffee
.”

“Stop saying it like that. Obviously, because of the whole vampire thing, you have never had a seven a.m. class. On those days, coffee is my salvation. I think I might actually die without my coffee some mornings.”

“You’re a student? That’s so darn cute,” he said with a sardonic smirk.

“As a matter of fact, I’m also a teacher,” she said.
Cute my ass
.

“Teach? Who do you teach?”

“I teach intro English classes,” Anna said proudly.

“You teach college freshman? You’re no older than a college freshman.”

She let out an annoyed sigh. She’d been confused with a student on more than one occasion. “No matter what I look like, I know a lot more about writing and literature than most centuries-old vam—” She cut off before she said the word in the middle of the populated street.

Nicolas steered her toward a dark and ominous-looking door. “Where are we?” she asked.

“Somewhere we can get my kind of drink.” He led her into what turned out to be a bar. And not a very nice-looking one. Nicolas wasn’t the biggest man in the room, and everyone seemed to stare right at her.

As with most bars, the lighting was bad, but there was no loud blaring music as there normally was at the places Anna would go to with friends on the few occasions she actually went out.

The place wasn’t very busy, but a few booths and barstools were occupied and some patrons played a game of pool.

Nicolas walked in front of Anna and led her to an empty booth. The one next to it had two men sitting together and talking. When Nicolas sat down, the two men immediately got up and walked to another booth.

Anna’s eyes followed them as they left. “That was rude. What did you do to piss them off? As infuriating as you can be, I didn’t think that even you could provoke someone that quickly.”

“They are loyal to the one we both seek,” he said.

“The one we both—oh. The one whose name shall apparently not be spoken?” she asked.

“Yep. That’s the one.”

“But what does that have to do with them walking away from you?”

“Well, you remember that he wanted me dead, right?” Anna nodded. “Well, anyone who housed or helped me would be executed. The kill order has been rescinded, but some of these cowards still can’t even abide to be in the same room as me.”

“Are you sure that’s why they ran?” asked Anna.

“What do you mean?”

“I never got any order to stay away from you and yet I can barely stand to be in the same room as you.” She gave him a playful smile.

He stood. “That, Annabelle, is a lie.”

She didn’t fight him on that one.

“Would you like something to drink?”

Anna shook her head and watched him walk up to the bar. He ordered his drink, but she couldn’t hear what he ordered.

Her eyes were once again drawn to the men who had moved away when she and Nicolas had sat down. She thought about Aleksander ordering no one to shelter or help Nicolas. How long ago had he said that was? Sixty years ago.

These men appeared to be in their thirties. She’d spent most of her life looking for vampires, and here she was in a room with at least three. She scanned the rest of the room, trying to tell whether anyone in the room looked supernatural.

No one stood out to her. Then again, even the men she knew to be supernatural looked like two perfectly normal, if not a bit scary, men. No wonder the Stakes never found any. How often had a vampire passed her on the streets with her being none the wiser?

Nicolas walked back to her. As she watched him, she felt another unwelcome burst of attraction spread through her.

Despite the chill, he wasn’t wearing a jacket tonight. Instead, he wore a dark blue v-neck sweater that he filled out beautifully. His shoulders stretched out the fabric, and the rest fell and hit all the right places. Just a bit of his neck was revealed, showing the end of his collarbones and cords of his neck.

When she looked at his neck, she almost felt like a vampire. All she could currently think about was running her tongue along it and taking a gentle bite. Her dream of him came back to her. She remembered she’d tried to see his chest, but couldn’t seem to focus. That had been right before he bit her.

As Nicolas sat down in the booth, Anna shook away her dirty thoughts and tried to appear as innocent as possible. She stared at the tall black glass he brought back with him from the bar. When she worked up the nerve to look at his face, he didn’t appear to suspect anything.

“So,” he said. “We should get down to business.”

“Probably,” Anna agreed, though she wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.

“Have you heard from this Mr. X today?”

Anna frowned. “I haven’t gotten any calls from him. He contacted someone else I know before he told me about you. I’ll have to write Dennis an email to see if he heard anything else.”

“Try to do that. See if you can arrange a meeting at night. I would like to know who is running around and giving amateur vampire hunters my address.”

“He knew I was running by your building. He called me right as I was passing by. So he must have been watching me from somewhere, but I didn’t see him anywhere on the street.” She shivered just thinking about it. “Speaking of strange men watching me, did you follow me home last night?”

He smiled an all too innocent smile. “Why would you think that?”

“The wonderful surprise of finding you waiting for me at my door this evening was a big clue. You either followed me last night, or you knew where I lived before.”

“It only seemed fair that I know where you live. You have already violated my private space.”

She did feel a bit guilty about that. “I didn’t
violate—
”

“You were in my room. On my bed.”

“It’s impossible to get anywhere in that room without getting on the bed. It takes up the whole space.”

While she was on the defensive, he changed the subject. “Where were you today?”

Anna wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him about Abigail. If he really wanted to know about her, it wouldn’t be too hard to find out who raised her and who the majority of her outgoing calls were directed to. “As you might know, I’ve had a few stressful nights. I took a day trip to see a friend,” she said.

“Did that help you?” he asked.

“She helped me to realize a few rather important things.”

“What did she help you to realize?”

“You scare me,” she admitted, without working up the nerves to meet his eyes. Instead, she stared down at the table. “On a massive scale, you terrify me. You scare me multiple different ways. Do you realize that?”