A Venetian Vampire. Michele Hauf

back pocket, but they were pitifully wet. He stretched out a fifty and handed it over. “Call Signore Galleti. Give him my name and tell him I’ll need a complete suit and shoes. Quick as possible, per cortesia.”

      “Very good, signore. I’ll have someone bring it right up when it arrives.”

      “Grazie.” He turned and led the way to the elevator, feeling Kyler follow behind him. He was accustomed to having things go his way, but a niggle at the back of his neck wanted her to walk beside him, not behind.

      Once in the elevator, she said, “You have élan.”

      “I’ve had a good century and a half to practice.”

      “You were born with it,” she decided.

      “Furthest from the truth possible, that guess.”

      He wouldn’t elaborate on his odd childhood spent among the courtesans and johns. Who would believe he’d learned everything about women from tidying rooms in the morning while the courtesans slept off their nightly efforts in rumpled bliss?

      “Were you born, uh...vamp?” she asked.

      “I was not transformed until my twenties.” The doors opened, and this time he allowed her to walk out first, following her to her room. Once inside, he kicked off his soggy shoes.

      “So, how were you made?” she asked, toeing off her flats. They did nothing for her shapely gams. He’d prefer to see her in stilettos.

      Dante strolled into the small but tidy room and unbuttoned his shirt. It took some finesse to peel off the clinging fabric. He dropped it in a pile near his shoes. After pulling down his trousers and stepping out of those, he turned to stand in nothing but his boxer briefs, which were also soaked and clung to his cock, which quickly hardened when he noticed Kyler’s eyes alight there like heat-seeking missiles.

      “How was I made?” he posited, barely keeping amusement from his tone. “Same as you were. One long bite, the sharing of blood until my heart almost burst and voilà!”

      “Yes, but, that’s not exactly what I meant.” She ran a palm up her neck and glanced away from his crotch. “You can keep your undies on. Maybe I’ll hop in the shower while you...dry off. You can tell me the whole story when we’re both dressed and dry.”

      “You don’t like me wet?” he asked as innocently as he could manage. Anything to distract from her wanting to learn more about his transformation to vampire.

      Kyler shook her head and chuckled. “You try all you like. Those chiseled abs are not going to make me fall to my knees again. I’m over you, you sneaky bastard.”

      “I don’t think I like being called such a thing.”

      “Too bad. You earned it.” She began to pull up her shirt as she strode into the bathroom. “Don’t sit on my bed in those wet boxers. Here!”

      A towel flew out from the bathroom and landed on the floor two feet away from him. The bathroom door closed, and muffled sounds from the fan came from within.

      “A sneaky bastard, eh?” He peeled off his wet briefs and tossed them aside. He wrapped the towel about his hips. “I’ll show her sneaky.”

      Scanning the room, he sought her suitcase and personal items. There were a few things hanging in the open closet. A pair of black pumps sat on the closet floor. Nice.

      She had to keep a purse and passport somewhere. As the patter of the shower began, he eyed the safe inside the closet. A safe cracker he was not. Though if given the proper impetus he’d give anything a go.

      He bent before the square safe and rubbed his fingers expectantly before the dial. But, no. He wasn’t that convinced he’d find any damning information on Kyler Cole. She’d come to steal the Fabergé egg. For a friend? He could understand the monetary reward, but selling the thing would be a bitch. She didn’t seem the sort who had such connections as a fence.

      Yet he knew next to nothing about her. Save that when he suckled her nipples she arched her back and squirmed as if possessed by an exotic goddess. Mmm, he had to do that again.

      No.

      Yes?

      Most certainly he would not avoid the temptation if offered again.

      Pushing aside the sheer curtain, he looked out over Saint Mark’s square and focused on the campanile, the bell tower that stretched more than three hundred feet into the sky. The hotel room offered an excellent view of the entire square, which now bustled with a rainbow of tourists and a mad feeding frenzy of pigeons. He liked a crowd, getting lost among humanity. All those warm bodies rubbing against one another, most never aware that a man who survived by drinking their blood lurked close by.

      It had been a week since he’d had a drink of blood. He didn’t need it any more often than every other week, but he indulged whenever he desired. And much as he could use a long drink of human blood, he would starve himself of that treat for the pleasure of Kyler’s blood.

      And what was that about? It had been a long time since he’d been with a vampiress. More than a century. And he seriously wanted to taste her. To hold her close and feel her heart beat against his chest as her blood slid across his tongue, imbuing that pounding pulse into his taste buds.

      If only she were not vampire.

      Drinking from his own kind was intimate, and some vampires bonded in doing so. It wasn’t necessarily a rest-of-their-lives thing, but it did connect them deeply. And he was about as willing to make that connection with another vampire as he wanted to take another dip in the canal.

      Unless he found the right woman.

      Never going to happen. Dante D’Arcangelo give up all women to settle for merely one? He chuckled at the madness of that thought.

      Pulling the curtain across the window softened the light in the room. He eyed the television remote but shook his head. Instead he sat on the bed and closed his eyes. It took a while, but eventually he could move his hearing beyond the bathroom fan and pick out the individual water droplets that pearled on Kyler’s soft skin. They spattered from her head, dribbled down her glossy hair and then glided across her full and heavy breasts. He should be in there, licking them as if she were drenched with wine.

      But he’d given her reason to distrust him when she’d caught him going through the empty backpack. Now, to earn back that trust, or simply play with her naivety for as long as was necessary until he got what he wanted?