Tempt Me When the Sun Goes Down (34 page)
Read Tempt Me When the Sun Goes Down Online
Authors: Lisa Olsen
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Occult, #Romance, #New Adult & College, #Paranormal, #Vampires
Bishop shook his head. “Frost is lucky he’s not facing a tribunal with the way he’s been handling things. He’s being rotated to another post in Florida.”
He was moving back to San Francisco for good. I wasn’t sure whether I should whoop for joy or sit down before I passed out. Then again, besides bringing me the flowers, he hadn’t said a thing about picking things up where we left off.
“Mason will be glad to see you’re back,” I ventured, and Bishop leaned against the doorjamb, getting as close to me as he could with the protective barrier between us.
“I hope he’s not the only one.”
“No, he’s not,” I agreed, stepping closer until there was barely an inch of space between us. “I’m sure Laveda will be glad too.”
“Oh, funny. You’re gonna get it for that,” he threatened, but his fingers, poised for tickling, couldn’t get past the barrier. We both laughed, and it felt good, until I remembered the main reason why we’d stayed apart for so long.
“Is that such a good idea, you relocating out here? Won’t Carys expect you to come when she calls?”
“No, that’s all in the past now.” He sounded so sincere, but how could I trust her to stay away?
“I don’t know if I can believe that.”
“She released me, I’m free.”
It sounded too good to be true. And even if it was, I couldn’t help but ask, “But for how long?”
“I didn’t torture her with hot pokers and demand that she release me. She did it of her own free will.”
She had? It didn’t sound like anything she’d do unless she had an ulterior motive. “Why?”
Bishop paused, choosing his words carefully before he replied. “Because in her own way, I think Carys does love me and she wanted me to be happy.”
I cocked a disbelieving brow. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Carys?”
“I’m serious, Anja. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think we stood a chance. It’s no trick. Carys released her claim on me. The last I heard she was terrorizing some young noble from Faust’s party, barely old enough to shave.”
I hadn’t heard anything about it from Aubrey, but it didn’t surprise me. It did sound upsetting through. “Terrorizing? And you thought it was okay to leave him there to her…”
“I didn’t mean literally, Anja,” he interrupted me with a shake of the head. Bishop looked at me like a man who’d returned to a childhood home he’d never though to visit again, his gaze rediscovering, lingering, loving. “I know I said I’d give you some time, and I’m not asking you to pick things up right where we left off.”
“What are you asking for then?”
He drew a deep breath. “A date.”
“A date?” I blinked, the concept sounding wildly inadequate after how close we’d been.
“Yep. That’s what regular people do, don’t they? They date, get to know each other, see if they get along.”
“You want to date me now, after everything we’ve been through?”
“Well, we did sort of skip over that part. I thought this might be a good way to find our way back to each other. No demands, no expectations, see how well we fit into each other’s lives now.”
“A date,” I repeated, weighing it out in my mind. He might have the right idea there. My life had been so crazy since the first night he’d asked me for my license and registration. It might be nice to try and do something ordinary for once.
Sensing my hesitation, he was quick to add, “You don’t have to give me your answer right now. Just think it over. I know I said I’d let you sort things out, and if you want to tell me to back off, I will. I just thought it might be a good time to start at the beginning again.”
“You seem like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Yep,” he said, nudging the trim framing the door with the toe of his shoe.
“So, we’d… go out for drinks, and pretend like we don’t know each other?” It sounded like a weird amount of role-playing to me. Not that it might not be interesting, but was that really the right move for us?
“No, it wouldn’t be pretend at all,” he frowned, spending a few seconds searching for the right words to make me understand. “I want to do normal things with you, Anja. I want to take you out to the movies, not watch them separately and argue about them online later. I want to go for walks on the beach and kiss you under the Boardwalk. I want to try all thirty-one flavors with you. I want to… whatever it is regular people do when they date. I’ll even take you out to dinner and we can stare at each other over snails and fancy pastries we won’t eat if that’s what you want.”
My lips parted in surprise at the fervor in his voice. He
had
given this a lot of thought.
“So, what do you think?” he prompted, self consciously rubbing the back of his neck as he waited for my answer.
God, he was adorable.
* * *
Bishop’s skin was visibly paler when he climbed back into the passenger’s seat of Mason’s car. His hands had started to sweat, and he wiped them on his jeans, back and forth, without saying a word.
“What happened, buddy?” Mason prompted gently. “Did she say no?”
He gripped his knees, taking shallow breaths until the panic started to recede. “No, she said yes.”
Mason waited for him to clarify, his brows furrowing in confusion when nothing more came. “Then why do you look like someone just crushed your nuts and fed them to you on toast points?”
“She said
yes
,” Bishop repeated, shifting his legs when they wouldn’t stop bouncing nervously. “Now I have to take her on a date.”
“Ah… Wasn’t that the entire point of asking her out?”
“Yeah, but…” He didn’t understand at all. Bishop was over the moon that she’d said yes, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying. “Do you realize how long it’s been since I took a girl out on a date? And this isn’t just any girl, it’s Anja. There’s a lot riding on this.”
“Is that all?” Mason chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to make Bishop wince. “Sit back and relax, Cochise. The love doctor is in.”
Feedback is Love,
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review today!
To be notified of future book releases, sign up for Lisa’s mailing list at:
http://eepurl.com/vP9aT
Read on for a special preview of Lisa Olsen’s novel,
The Company of Shadows
, available now!
Books by Lisa Olsen:
The Company Series:
The Company of Death (Spring 2015)
The Fallen Series:
Forged Bloodlines Series:
Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down
Meet Me When the Sun Goes Down
Find Me When the Sun Goes Down
Miss Me When the Sun Goes Down
Follow Me When the Sun Goes Down
Hear Me When the Sun Goes Down
Release Me When the Sun Goes Down
Trust Me When the Sun Goes Down
Tempt Me When the Sun Goes Down
Kiss Me When the Sun Goes Down (early summer 2015)
The Vampire Diaries:
For more information, visit the author’s website at
http://www.lisaolsen.net
or her author page on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/author/lisaolsen
You can also visit her on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/lisaolsenrobotbrain
Chapter One
Need
.
Not wants or desires, but
need
drove Asherik to seek the company of shadows. The sunlight didn't pain him in a physical sense, but he preferred the darkness. All manner of interesting things grew bolder under the cover of night, all driven by need. Street toughs openly flashed makeshift weapons, demanding tribute of those stupid enough to look prosperous on the seamy streets of San Francisco. Junkies smashed car windows, searching for anything portable worth a few dollars, desperate to slide oblivion into their veins. Women sold their bodies, some to chase that same oblivion, some to feed a deeper need. Scuttling vermin and insects; night was the perfect time to feed, and Ash felt a hunger that couldn’t be satisfied by tender bits of veal sautéed in an excellent Marsala.
Though he enjoyed the comforts of excess (the elegant meal, black satin sheets, and panoramic views of the bay that stretched from every window of the modern house he’d appropriated), Ash preferred the seedy squalor of the Tenderloin district when it came time to satisfy his true hunger. There, among the dregs of human society, he felt a kinship. His sins were no worse than the sins of man. There were plenty who fed from terror, pain and lust. Tonight he was after something far more elusive – innocence.
He could pluck a victim from the streets at any time for the taste of fear; it was corruption Ash sought. Corruption of innocence above all else, a feat made all that much more elusive for the hunting ground he chose. It would be nothing to lay in wait outside of a church or a library and find all manner of easy prey, but he wanted more. Nothing so simple as virginity, though that was a keen pleasure to be had, but an innocence of spirit was all the more satisfying to consume. Far tastier than the gobbets of quivering flesh he fed upon when the mood struck.
Though he enjoyed the occasional grapple with men, Ash preferred the softness of women. There were women to be had on the streets, but their dead eyes offered him no joy. He wanted to hunt. He wanted the thrill of discovery.
And so he’d dressed himself in an elegant suit of virgin wool, soft against the skin and pleasing to the eye. Black on black, open at the throat, with a shock of scarlet peeping out of the breast coat pocket. Perhaps a bit warm, given the muggy night, but Ash didn’t mind the heat. He enjoyed a good sweat.
He pushed the silver coupe he’d appropriated through the squalid streets with a squeal of tires, daring a policeman to stop him. There were none in sight, having abandoned that part of the city for the night unless called. Parking a short distance away from his chosen destination, he didn’t bother to lock the car, preferring to make it easier on thieves. It made no difference to him if the car was there on his return, and after a brief consideration, left the keys in the car; a lucky find for a comrade.
The neon and pumping music called him to his purpose. Inferno – the club brought him everything his delicate palate could desire. Here, women were used in the dirty bathrooms and no one looked twice. One could obtain all manner of mood altering drugs through sale or trade. Sometimes Ash chose to indulge. Turn on, tune in, drop out… the concept hadn’t changed much since the sixties, and there was a draw to that kind of nothingness.
If he was in the mood for a quick fuck, there were women who required less than a crook of his finger to follow him wherever he led. The body he’d chosen was well formed and desired by women. Dark, smoldering eyes that promised a garden of delights, strong jaw covered in a rasp of stubble, designed to raise a flush of tender pink on delicate flesh. Lips full and constantly quirked in a half smile that implied he knew secrets. Secrets he might share with the right woman.
That was all that mattered, be the woman pretty or plain. Make a woman feel special and she became yours, body and soul. Sometimes Ash allowed himself to become lost in the pursuit of debauchery alone. To bury himself in soft, slick heat, chasing pleasure until the dawn. He left those women with nothing more than a satisfied soreness and a love bite or two.
But always the need returned.
Need drove him to push past the crowd, plucking a full glass from an unguarded table (it mattered little what it held), settling on a white vinyl couch in the rear of the club to watch. Ash liked to watch. He liked it very much.
There was an air of indifference to the swaying throng; an almost tangible apathy, as though none of them expected to live to see the dawn. Peppered among them, like writhing tongues of flame burning brightly in the gloom, were those who were in over their heads. It was there that he hoped to find the flash of innocence he sought.
It was there that he spotted her. Long, raven hair spilling down her back, beckoning to him, begging him to wrap its length around his fist and pull her close. But he would watch and wait. The night was still young and he enjoyed the pleasure of allowing the need to build.
For now.