I turned my gaze to my tumbler of whiskey before I glanced up again. Nope, it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me. He still stared at me with an intense stare that made me tingle.

While I’m not the type to wallow in my low self-esteem, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that a guy like that could be so enraptured with me.

His burnt-sienna colored hair was cut short in a businessman style. His hazel eyes stayed on my profile, and he made no effort to pretend to look elsewhere. His finely tailored dark suit complimented his lithe and toned frame to perfection.

I couldn’t bring myself to hold his gaze for longer than three seconds. My panties were already soaked through from just one glance at him.

This club, Hide-A-Way, was not my usual hangout. It just happened to be the only bar open when I finally left work, and I desperately needed to get good and sloshed before facing the rest of my long and empty weekend.

“All right, kitten, I’m going to have to cut you off,” the bartender whispered to me. Even though no one could hear him above the pounding techno, my face still heated with embarrassment. I pushed my glasses up my nose and glanced at my watch. Dang, I’d only been here for a couple of hours.

I preferred drinking in a bar to drinking at home. When I’m in a bar, technically, I’m not drinking alone. Therefore, I don’t have a problem.

“Look, I’m not driving,” I said honestly. “How about one more?” My little apartment was only two blocks away.

The bartender shook his head but refilled my tumbler anyway.

“Bing-o.” I smiled while lifting the glass to my lips.

“Kitten, I gotta be straight with you,” the bartender said as I gingerly sipped my jack and coke. “I don’t think you should be walking home drunk with that killer still on the loose.”

I doubted he’d give me another refill, so I had to savor this one. “I’m not too worried about it,” I muttered, knowing he couldn’t hear me. “Death would be too much of an upgrade.”

I honestly didn’t like to be reminded of the outside world and its happenings. I was much more content in the cocoon of isolation I built around myself.

Maybe if I were more social I’d remember this bartender’s name and ask him for details about the gorgeous guy staring me down. Nah, even I had to admit I was going to just go home, lie down on the couch, and watch the black-and-white movie playing on Dr. Destruction’s Crimson Theater this evening.

“Why don’t you let me pay for this?”

I turned to see my beautiful admirer sitting right beside me. I straightened my posture and extended my hand.

He smiled at my obvious attempt to appear sober.

“Jas-Jasmine. Hello,” I stammered, looking into his unflinching eyes. It was almost unnatural how good looking he was.

“I’m Victor. Go on, finish your drink.” His voice was heavy with an accent I couldn’t identify.

“Oh, no. I was just leaving.” I stumbled to my feet, and he placed his hand on my elbow to steady me.

I turned to look up into his face. His half-lidded eyes caught mine, and my knees went weak. His heady, intoxicating scent filled my nostrils. He smelled spicy, strong, and so safe. I wanted him to wrap me in his arms. I wanted to feel his chest pressed against mine while his tongue explored my mouth.

“I would like to see you home,” he stated in an oddly formal way.

“See me home, huh? Yea, let’s go.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been intimate with a man. My job at the library made my days run together, and I spent most of my weekends drunk on the couch reading trashy paperback novels. This pattern had never bothered me before.

Not until I realized I had every intention of sleeping with this man. A desire that had lain dormant inside me suddenly flared to the surface as he held my hand and carefully walked me out into the humid night.

God, I was so drunk, so close to blacking out, but I desperately wanted to remember him, this beautiful stranger who lead me toward my apartment above the corner store. I giggled as he followed me up the narrow stairs to the cramped hallway where my door stood across from two others.

“We have to be quiet so we don’t wake my neighbors,” I shouted while looking for my keys.

Victor smiled, reached out, and turned the knob. The door opened, and I admonished myself for leaving it unlocked all day. I could have sworn that I locked it.

I took another look at him and decided the locks didn’t matter.

He stepped closer to me. My breathing became slow and labored as he bent his head to whisper in my ear in that formal way of his, “Jasmine, would you like for me to stay for a little while?”

“Yes, of course.” As soon as the words left my lips, he was upon me, his arms around my waist and his lips on mine. While I eagerly returned his kisses, he pulled the ivory combs from my hair. Victor kept his hands twined in my tresses while I drank in the feel of him pressed up against me. I could hear my heart beating in time with his.

He ran his tongue down the veins of my neck before I felt them. His fangs.

I jumped. When I pulled back, staring at him in shock, his eyes dilated while he watched the trail of warm liquid trail between my breasts.

Thoroughly embarrassed and not quite grasping the situation in my inebriated state, I brushed my hand across the wound and brought my fingertips to my lips. “Oh, I’m bleeding, how awful,” I said once I recognized the coppery liquid.

“Oh god,” Victor panted before crushing me against his chest. He buried his face into the crook of my neck and brutally bit down.

Then intense pain yanked me into awareness, and I dug my nails into his back as he drank from me.

I didn’t think he would stop, and soon I didn’t want him to. My whole body tingled with pleasure bordering on pain. I cried out when my toes began to curl as a numbing orgasm rocked me.

He sheathed his fangs and crushed his lips against mine. His hands trialed to the band of my soaked panties, and his fingers brushed across my swollen and throbbing clit.

“Don’t tease me. Don’t,” I cried before blacking out.