Speaking was proving difficult, so she abandoned the effort in favor of scurrying out of the room as quickly as possible.
A muttered curse followed her out, alongside the tap of his expensive shoes on the shiny floor.
“Frankie.”
She stopped abruptly in the entryway.
He hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t even sound angry. In that split second, it was simply impossible to disobey him not because he terrified her on some level but because the urge to please him seemed to always win out against her common sense.
The heat of him warmed her spine, but he didn’t touch her. “Stay.”
Her throat spasmed, almost like her body fought against what she knew she had to do — say no.
“I can’t,” she rasped.
“Why?” He sounded truly confused now. All the bravado and flirtatiousness was gone, leaving a strange boyishness she’d only ever glimpsed before.
Forcing herself to turn, she looked into his baffled expression when she explained, “Look… I’m sorry. I wish we could really be friends. But I think we both know that’s not possible.”
The chemistry was too alive between them, snapping like an unanchored current, and they were just too different to make that work. Casanova was a wealthy vampire who she doubted wanted anything even close to serious, and she was just… Frankie.
Overworked. Tired. Tragically inclined toward monogamy.
And now there was a new complication: as of last night, she was contractually obligated to stay single.
She thought perhaps she might catch a bit of a reaction in his expression. Rejection, maybe, or resignation. Neither made an appearance. The only change she noted was an alarming sharpening of his features, as if he truly was the predator she fondly compared him to when she came in that day.
“You’re right,” he replied, surprising her. “We shouldn’t be friends.”
In what seemed like another studied movement, he tucked his hands into his pockets. His jaw worked beneath the dark shadow of his close-cropped beard, belying some of his tension, but if she hadn’t been looking for it, he would’ve appeared utterly unconcerned.
“I’m taking you out,” he declared, flashing that bright-white smile.
Francesca had never been so disappointed to be asked out by a crush in her life. Something in her withered under that glittering gaze. Even if she could’ve, she realized that she never would’ve taken him up on it. Not because he was a vampire, and not even because she suspected he was something of a womanizer.
It was because she saw nothing except heartbreak in that smile.
She scrutinized him for a moment, trying to see through the charmer, the outrageously handsome shell. Her chest ached. Casanova was kind to her. That was far more than she could say about most of her clients. She’d miss him, and that soft part of her wailed at having to refuse him when all she wanted to do was earn a glimpse of the real man behind the fanged smile.
Francesca set her bucket down.
Her shoes squeaked against the floor as she closed the small distance between them. He watched her, smile fixed in place but eyes narrowing, as she came to stand directly in front of him.
Tilting her head back, she tried to memorize the shape of his high cheekbones, that strange slash of white in his beard and hair, and the spiky fringe of his black lashes. The silence stretched. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears as she placed her hands on his broad shoulders.
His muscles hadn’t exactly been loose to begin with, but they seemed to snap into place under her tentative touch. The look in his eyes darkened as he waited for her to make the next move.
I probably look ridiculous to a man like him,she thought, biting her lip.Like a kitten strutting up to a lion.
She’d never been particularly bold to begin with, but her knees threatened to give out under that scorching stare. Curling her short fingernails into his button-down, she stretched onto her tiptoes to press a featherlight kiss to his lips.
A sharp intake of breath nearly startled her enough to release him, but heavy hands on her hips held her firmly in place. The prickles of his beard tickled her cheeks when he tilted his head and surged forward, deepening the kiss.
She’d expected the electricity. She even anticipated the rush of flame that consumed her being and melted just about every bone in her body. Kissing him was luscious and soft and demanding, with those hands pulling her tight to him and his tongue darting out to stroke hers like he’d done it a thousand times.
Francesca just didn’t expect it to knock her brain out of her ears.
Whatever misgivings she had and whatever she’d intended to do with what was supposed to be a small peck were wiped from her mind as soon as his fingers delved into her hair. Casanova plucked the hair tie from her bun and tossed it aside. His fingers, tipped in claws, raked through the wavy strands until he found the base of her skull.