Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Oh, but you’d drug me and make me smile, greet your friends, and pretend I was having the time of my life all night long? I’d say he’d taken a big hot dump on my temple.
“Sleep well, Masie. When you wake, you will be free from my commands.” He kissed the top of my hand and left in a speedy blur. Dang it. He was probably going to live.
Exhausted both physically and mentally, I kicked my heels to the tile floor and crawled into bed, not bothering to remove my little black dress. I hadn’t realized it, but I was also wasted. Room spins, hot flashes, nausea.
Oh no. I sprang from bed and ran for the bathroom. After heaving champagne and moonshine, which I’d had both throughout the night, I finally felt better.
I rinsed my mouth and returned to bed, praying my new vampire genes would save me from another hangover to end all hangovers. So far, though, vampirism hadn’t given me squat. It had only taken—my trust in Stark, my love for him, my freedom, and a human life I’d adored.
This wasn’t living.
This was hell.
I was beginning to see why new vampires didn’t make it past the first month. Simply put, there was little motivation to even try.
I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of swimming at the beach Stark had showed me tonight. Only, it was daylight now, and the sand felt warm and soft between my toes. Above me was the most pristine blue sky I’d ever seen. In the distance, the sounds of squawking seagulls mingled with the gently breaking waves. Behind me, swaying palm trees lined the shore, giving way to lush foliage that ended at the base of an enormous jagged cliff. Beyond that, a snow-covered mountain.
I sighed, soaking in the impossible beauty of this moment, of this place. God, I’m going to miss this so much. Sunshine, green trees, and blue sky.
Suddenly, a man wearing a white guayabera shirt and black slacks came walking toward me, holding a pair of grabbers and a trash bag.
“Why are you out of uniform?” he asked. “The day-shift guards will fire you if they see you on the cameras. Then the night shift will use you for food.”
“Food?” I said. “I doubt I’m at risk for that. I’m a vampire.”
He gave me a strange look.
“What?” I said.
“Uh…if you were a vampire, you wouldn’t be standing in the sun.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I wish I were human. Do you know how lucky you have it? You get to wake up to this every day.” I swept my arms toward the shoreline. “But no… I had to get mixed up with Montgomery Stark, and now my life is fucked.” Sorry, Mamma. I’ll keep trying.
His expression turned bleak. “Did you say Stark? Are you…Masie Kicklighter?”
“I sure as hell hope so since this is my dream.”
The man looked like he was about to drop a brownie in his shorts.
He pulled a radio from his waistband under his shirt. “Ms. Tennison, this is Albert. We have a situation.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
As I sat in a fancy air-conditioned office with leather chairs, a mahogany desk, and a framed map of the island on the wall, my bullcake meter was blaring, Qwonk. Qwonk. Qwonk! Situation does not compute.
It reminded me of that time in high school when my boyfriend Thomas Rowland—now known as Sherrif Idiot of Leiper’s Fork—told me he wasn’t peeved after I’d ended a heated make-out session.
“Thomas,” I’d said as he put on his tennis shoes from the edge of my bed, trying to conceal his flagpole, “I meant what I said from day one. I’m savin’ myself.”
He’d grumbled something that had sounded like, “Fuckin’ tease.”
“Wud you say?”
“Nothin’. I gotta go.”
Oh boy, he had been madder than a wet hen. “I’m not a tease, Thomas. And I like you, but—”
He’d jumped to his feet, his face bright red. “Not a tease? You prance around like a springtime doe, teasing everyone with your big titties in your tight little T-shirts.”
I was pretty sure deer didn’t wear shirts or have big titties and were just running from sexually frustrated rutting bucks.
“Nature didn’t give me breasts to torture you,” I’d said. “And I am entitled to wear what I like.” Or what I could afford, which wasn’t much. We’d been pretty poor.
“See. You’re the very definition of a tease. I can’t take it anymore.”
His words had stung hard. I hadn’t been dishonest with him once about my stance on premarital relations, even if I’d developed a healthy appreciation of carnal delights through my extensive reading of trashy romance novels. Still, sex was a hard no, and that included shining his jeans, choking the turtle, or licking his doughnut holes.
“This mean we’re done?” I’d asked. He’d invited me to the senior prom the following week, and I’d worked extra hours bussing tables at the Rooster to pay for the dress.