Naughty Temptations

Chapter One

Chapter One

“I know you’re a vampire.”

Caden Chase blinked. It was rare for anyone or anything to surprise him, but the slim woman in the yellow blouse and tailored slacks sitting in the chair on the other side of his office desk had managed to do just that. If nothing else, the past three months should have taught him to expect the unexpected where Serena Bliss was concerned.

“Do you mind repeating that?” Caden drawled his words, playing for time to assess the seriousness of this sudden crisis. He kept his tone low and controlled, striving for a cross between puzzlement and amusement, neither of which he felt at the moment.

His gaze ran over Serena’s form, searching the telltale pulse points at her throat and wrists with his heightened senses, trying to detect whether or not she was telling the truth or merely making a wild guess. As usual his attraction for this human female was distracting him. His jaw clenched. Damn, she looked good. Like a joyful drop of sunlight splashed on the coarse fabric of his dark world too full of midnight blacks and blood reds. But she was the last human he should be thinking of for a casual fling. And the more he got to know her, the more he wanted her for more than that.

Serena arched an eyebrow in blatant challenge. The action showed admirable bravado for one who believed she was at that moment in the presence of a bloodthirsty monster. One who could drain her in less time than it took for her next heartbeat to sound.

“I’m pretty sure you heard me, Mr. Chase. I understand that a vampire’s hearing is quite keen.”

It was true. Her throaty, melodic voice, for example, could arrest his attention from three floors away even in the middle of a busy workday.

“I think you’ve been reading too much Twilight, Ms. Bliss.” He didn’t like this new formality she was imposing like a barrier between them. Last week they had called one another by their first names, sometimes even with flirty smiles that made him look forward to each workday with her all the more. He was determined to find out the cause of her distinctly guarded shift in tone with him.

She tossed her caramel colored hair over her shoulders in clear impatience. Hellfire. She had sexy hair. Thick, shiny, and long enough to wrap around his knuckles while he held her still for his kiss…or his penetration. Or a love bite on her elegant neck. Hey, a vampire could dream, right?

“Don’t patronize me, Mr. Chase.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Ms. Bliss. So tell me. ‘Team Edward’ or ‘Team Jacob’?”

She bit the corner of her soft lower lip in chagrin. Damnation. Don’t get him started on her pink, bow-shaped mouth that always looked as though it had just been thoroughly kissed. Ever since she’d started working for him, he couldn’t stop fantasizing that he was the lucky male who made her lips look so tender and lush.

Until she had called him out as a vampire just now he’d hoped finally to get the opportunity to taste those lips. At some point, anyway, after inviting her out to dinner on her last day of her independent contract with Chase Industries, Inc. Which was today, in fact. So much for that brilliant plan. She’d probably run screaming from the building if he suggested the two of them go out for a bite now. He would have to find another way to get close enough to sample that mouth.

“I don’t enjoy being toyed with, Mr. Chase.” She frowned at him severely.

He bit back a smile. Bambi trying to stare down Godzilla. Adorable.

He yanked his thoughts back to the more pressing matter at hand. What did she know, and when did she know it?

“Sorry. I can be a real pain in the neck sometimes, I know,” he quipped with a grin, deliberately showing far too many teeth. She shot him a wary glance. He felt her pulse throb in the air between them a bit harder in mild alarm. Good. She should be a little worried at this point. That showed at least a modicum of common sense. But he didn’t want to scare her away completely.

“I should warn you that if anything happens to me, I’ve taken steps that will automatically release the information I have about you to the proper authorities.”

“If you believe you’re threatening a vampire, I should certainly hope you took some common sense precautions,” he muttered. “But under the new Vampire Immersion Act, a citizen can’t go around accusing another of being a vampire without evidence of some kind. It would be like yelling ‘vampire!’ in a crowded blood blank. You could start a serious public panic. So tell me, why would you imagine I’m one?”

“Not just you. Your whole staff is chock full of vampires. As you well know.” She lifted her chin, daring him to contradict her.

“Oh, really? What tipped you off? Our black capes, red eyes, penchant for bats, and widow’s peaks?” He kept a scoffing tone but the utter certainty in her assertion gave him pause for real concern. He hoped she hadn’t voiced her accusations to anyone else. It would be a lot safer for Serena Bliss if she didn’t mention her suspicions to anyone but him.

In answer to his questions, she gestured to the glass wall partition that separated his office from the room beyond, where various Chase Industry, Inc. employees worked in cubicles.

“Gee. I wonder,” she mused in a mocking tone he didn’t like one bit. “For one thing, Henrick types about a thousand words per minute more than he claims on his resume.” Caden’s gaze followed the direction of her strawberry-polished fingernail and saw Henrick, one of his administrative assistants, typing on his computer with preternatural speed. His long fingers were a blur on the keyboard.

Serena didn’t wait for Caden to think of a rational explanation. Not that there was one.

“And by the way, have you ever noticed that Bryan always seems to have something other than java in his coffee mug?” She pointed at another pale man sitting at a cube desk. He took a sip from his mug that read, “Accountants Do It By The Numbers” and lowered it to reveal a thick, blood mustache on his upper lip.

“And then there is Vanessa.”

Caden wearily glanced over to where an impossibly beautiful brunette in a figure-hugging black tank top, pencil skirt, and stilettos was standing by the office water cooler. She applied deep red lipstick while looking into a compact mirror.

He gave a silent sigh of relief. “She’s looking into a mirror. Hardly something a vampire could do, right?”

Serena smiled sweetly in a way that was decidedly not. “Wait for it.”

They watched as Vanessa smacked her ruby lips together and then grinned into the compact to check her teeth. There was a smudge of red gloss on one of her incisors. Suddenly, the tooth elongated, pointy and sharp. She used her thumb to wipe off the excess lipstick from her fang.

Caden winced. His team had gotten sloppy with a nice, sweet human like Serena around the office for the past three months. They had grown to like and trust her enough so as to accept her into their midst. But they had clearly gotten too comfortable in her presence, letting their guard down to a dangerous degree. He’d have to have a serious talk with them about that.

He eyed Serena, reaching out with his extrasensory awareness to assess her feelings about what she had just shown him. She wasn’t as calm as she tried to appear according to her raised pulse rate, but she didn’t seem terrified. Yet. He stole what small comfort he could from that.

“And me? What makes you think I’m a vampire?” He sounded more nonchalant than he felt.

“You’re kidding, right?” She waved airily at the floor to ceiling window of his office.

Caden glanced out the window where dusk was falling on a panoramic view of the Los Angeles skyline. In the glow of his desk lamp he saw everything in his office reflected in the glass, including Serena’s lovely body in the chair across from him. Where his reflection ought to have been, however, there was only an empty chair.

“Kind of an undead giveaway right there. Wouldn’t you say so, Vlad?”

Hellfire. He’d forgotten.

Instinctively, albeit belatedly, he threw some mental kinetic energy at the window. It vibrated subtly and an instant later his reflection materialized in the glass right where it should be.

It was Serena’s turn to blink. “Impressive. But I’m afraid the jig is up, Mr. Chase.”

He shrugged with resignation. His reflection glimmered out. “It appears so. Looks like you’ve got me undead to rights.”

He kept his tone light but inwardly he was disturbed by his mistake. This was the first time he could recall neglecting to cast his reflection or shadow in order to blend in and walk among humans without raising suspicion about what he was. His only excuse was that Serena’s delicious natural perfume had taunted him for weeks. The sweet distraction of her body was making him as careless as his staff.

Or maybe a part of him wanted her to know what he was, and to like him in spite of it.

“Your kind can withstand sunlight, then?” She gestured at the sunbeams of the dying day that flooded the office through the expansive window, her tone was curious, as if asking the answer to a riddle she had been trying to puzzle out for some time.

His lip curled a bit at her choice of phrase. “In point of fact, our ‘kind’ cannot. There’s a special UV tint on our windows here at Chase Industries that deflects harmful rays,” he admitted. “A building made of sunblock, as it were.”

“Created right here in your labs, no doubt. That technology alone probably made you a bazillionaire.” she murmured, eyes wide in sudden realization.

He shrugged modestly. “Give or take a few bazillion.”

Her eyes met his for a liquid moment. She looked so at a loss what to do next that his hand flexed on the desk, yearning to reach out and touch her soft skin.

Then she sat very straight up in her chair and took a deep breath. “You should know that I have spent the past week collecting evidence of your, er, true nature and I plan to report you to the proper government agencies who specialize in vampire control. Specifically the V.B.I. and the C.V.A. As you are no doubt aware, passing as human is against current state and federal law and carries with it severe penalties, including but not limited to up to five years incarceration in an off-shore government lab research facility.”

Her tone was rushed and stilted, as though she was reciting a litany from a well-rehearsed script. He sat as if turned to stone, his senses reached out again to assess her blood pressure and adrenal output. She was nervous, uncomfortable even, and she couldn’t meet his eyes directly, but she was not lying. She really would report him to the Vampire Bureau of Investigation and the Central Vampire Agency. Would surprises from this female never end?

“Furthermore, I checked the American Vampire Registry,” she continued in breathless voice, staring at some fixed point over his shoulder. “Neither you, Henrick, Bryan, nor Vanessa are listed. Therefore, of course, I—I’ll also have to implicate your, uh, colleagues here at Chase Industries in my report.”

He regarded her through suddenly narrowed lids. “Even knowing what your scientists would do to them during their… incarceration?”

“That’s not my problem,” she replied, looking anywhere but at her co-workers who were innocently going about their tasks in the next room. “According to the Vampire/Human Treaty of 2014 your, er, people agree to give up some of their basic freedoms if they are caught breaking the law and have to be detained.”

Caden was glad the clear partition wall of his office, created from his own design, was soundproof even to vampires.

“It would hurt their feelings to hear you say that. They trust you, you know.” His tone was quiet but resonant.

“I know! I can’t help that,” she shot back defensively. She avoided the disappointed look in his eyes. Her cheeks flushed a charming shade of pink and he felt her blood pressure rise in discomfort. She shifted in her chair, a small vein at the hollow of her throat beating rapidly. Temptingly.

Whatever her reason for making this singularly dangerous threat while face to face with a bona fide vampire in an office full of still more vampires, she was clearly suffering from a guilty conscience over it. Could it be that she was conflicted because she actually liked them, after all?

More importantly, did she like him?

As always, the scent of her—the scent of her blood, the rarest, most desirable type—beckoned him, made him want things he shouldn’t. AB negative was a vampire delicacy, an aphrodisiac like oysters were for humans. He had lectured his team endlessly about the need to control their thirst around all humans.

Yet at the moment, all he could think about was that only a couple of feet of air and thin layer of skin currently stood between him and a gourmet feast. Promptly followed by mind-blowing s*x with Serena Bliss. His member was rock hard at the thought. How had he managed to refrain this long from drinking her up before now?

Thankfully, the desk between them hid the full erection straining the crotch of his designer suit pants. He kept his lips closed over his elongating fangs, forcing them through sheer willpower back up into their sockets.

Whatever her game was he had to play it carefully, for both of their sakes. Caden abruptly leaned forward in his chair, knowing the movement would cause her to look up and meet his eyes. Her lovely eyes clashed with his in a silent battle of wills.

“May I remind you, Miss Bliss, that you signed an iron-clad nondisclosure agreement when I engaged your consulting services as this office’s efficiency expert? Under current state and federal law,” he coolly mimicked her earlier phrase, “you are no doubt aware of the financial liability you would incur should you violate this corporation’s confidentiality and…trust.”

“You can sue me from whatever government lab into which they toss you,” she stated tartly.

Then a look of guilt chased the defiance from her face. She blurted in a scolding tone, “Humans are not completely blind, you know! Why did you hire me for this job anyway?”

“Because you sat right there in that chair and told me you needed the job,” he responded gently, thinking back to their first meeting three months ago. She had been so cute and earnest, expounding on all the ways she could help raise efficiency in his office before admitting she was broke and had to find work to meet some unexpected expenses.

He had hired her on the spot. Not just because she came highly recommended and was clearly good at what she did. Truth be told, he’d taken the risk of hiring a human for a highly classified office because he’d wanted to see her again. He’d wanted somehow to get her into bed where he could plunge himself inside her exciting ninety-eight-point-six degree human warmth. Her natural, exuberant energy that she wore around her like an invisible, cheerful cloak was another nearly irresistible lure. He scowled. Protesting his explosive desire for her would not enhance his case.

She had the grace to look as though she wanted the ground to swallow her up. Good. Maybe he could use her innate sense of fair play to nip this mushrooming crisis in the bud.

She chose that moment to straighten her spine. “I mean what I say, Mr. Chase. I will report you all.”

So much for innate fair play. The stubborn set of her chin was no lie. The situation was getting desperate. If she followed through on her threat, she’d be the one in danger. He could use mind thrall on her, of course. Make her forget she ever walked into his office in the first place. But he found himself loath to risk it on Serena. Every human reacted differently to the effect of vampire hypnosis. The last thing he wanted was for her bright brain to turn into Swiss cheese, full of holes and unable to hold a coherent thought for long. And, if truth be told, he didn’t want her to forget all about him, either. What to do?

“Unless…” She added the belated word tantalizingly.

“Unless…?” He waited, not exactly holding his breath, but not bothering to breathe either. What surprise was she about to hit him with now?

“I have need of your…help.” She lowered her lashes. He could no longer see the thoughts reflected in her brilliant eyes.

“You want money.” Flat disappointment laced his voice. It was an educated guess based on her previous assertions that she was in financial need. If she was attempting to blackmail him and hurt his people merely to gain a bundle of dirty paper that humans prized so much, she was in for a shock. He’d mind thrall her into forgetfulness and then have security toss her onto the sidewalk without a second thought.

“What? No! What do you take me for?” She bolted up and looked him proudly in the eye, her appalled outrage plain to see. Her vehemence reassured him that she wasn’t so mercenarily shallow as to threaten the brave employees under his protection merely for monetary gain.

“Glad to hear it,” he replied dryly. She was wringing her hands in her lap, clearly conflicted over her attempt to blackmail him. “But if filthy lucre isn’t your aim, why don’t you tell me what you do want in exchange for your silence in this matter?”

Her honest eyes blazed at him. “I want you to stop a no good, low down, mean-tempered, bullying, son of a b***h vampire from marrying my cousin against her will. And I need you to do it tonight!”