I don’t own or travel with much makeup. I brushed on a bit of blusher, lined my eyes in black, and added a swish of mascara. Buffed my nails, all twenty of them. Put on three shades of red lipstick before I settled on one. I’d never be beautiful. But I was . . . interesting.
I wondered if any of the vamps would know what I was by my scent. And if I should wear a vamp-killer strapped to my thigh. Just in case. Reluctantly, I decided against a weapon, though I hid a small silver cross in a minuscule bag that also held keys, ID, one credit card, a twenty-dollar bill, and the lipstick. It went on a narrow strap over my head and a shoulder.
I almost left my hair down—it was a nearly four-foot-long veil that hung below the hem of the dress—but at the last minute, as headlights lit my front door, car engine idling, I braided it halfway and clipped a clasp in. I opened the door before he knocked.
Bruiser stood there, dressed in a classic tuxedo, a simple crimson cummerbund, his hair slicked back to reveal a widow’s peak and sexy little mole next to his hairline. “Wow,” I said before I could stop myself.
He chuckled, pleased, and looked me over, not hiding his perusal of my legs. “Wow yourself. You clean up nice for a vampire-hunting motorcycle mama.”
“Thanks,” I said, shutting and locking the door behind me. A chauffeur stood beside the open door of a black, slightly stretched Lincoln limo. It could hold six passengers on two bench seats, but there were only the two of us. A privacy partition was up between the driver and the back. Bruiser indicated I should slide in first, and he waited, watching my legs—Bruiser was a leg man, for sure. He slid in beside me and the door closed. The car pulled from the curb and into the night. The suspension was so good the car felt like it floated, and the leather seats were so soft they could have been glove leather, cradling me like a baby. A girl could get used to this.
“I’m guessing you aren’t wearing weapons,” Bruiser said dryly, still looking me over. “I was supposed to search you, but I see no place for stakes, knives, or guns.”
I couldn’t help it; I had to toy with him. It was something I had picked up from Beast—a desire to play with my prey. I slanted him a look from the corner of my eye and said, “I own vamp-killer sheaths I can strap to my inner thighs.”
“Yeah?” he said, his eyes on my legs and the little skirt. Bruiser was looking at me the way a woman liked a man to look at her. Appreciation without condescension or objectifying. It was nice. It had been a long time for me, and never by a man who looked so good in a tux, slender, lithe, and elegant. A mental image popped up, of Rick LaFleur in a tux, and nearly made me salivate. I pushed the vision away. “Are you wearing them now?” he asked.
I just smiled, figuring when we arrived I’d either have to lift my skirt or be frisked. And I wondered how I’d react to either.
Bruiser settled back and offered me champagne. I refused. With my metabolism, alcohol filtered out of my system quickly, but I was also unused to it and didn’t want to show up at the party sloshed. As we rode, Bruiser pointed out hotels and businesses that catered to vamps, and private homes of the rich and fangy. I nodded a lot and said little, keeping pace with landmarks and street signs as we headed out of the French Quarter, in case I needed to get back alone.
Bruiser asked what drew me to my line of work. I mumbled something about the security business leading to other things. He asked about my dress. I answered with where I bought it—Ross Dress for Less. He chuckled so I didn’t volunteer what it cost, which was twenty bucks on sale. I wanted to squirm. It was the kind of small talk I hated. Eventually I fired the same questions back to him, except the one about the dress, of course. “Where is this party?” I asked during an extended conversational lull.
“The Pellissier clan home. Its purpose is to welcome Leo’s two newest blood-family members into public life. It should be interesting for you.”
“New vamps?” My curiosity went up a couple of notches, and so did my interest. “New as in, ‘This is the first time they’ve been unchained from the basement’ ?”
Bruiser raised a brow, amused at my deliberate gaucherie, and I suddenly felt better about the conversational footing. “You would do well not to refer to them as ‘vamps,’ and Leo is not the kind of sire who keeps his scions chained. But yes, this is the first time they will move among humans in a social situation. You’ve had a chance to study the folder Katie gave you, with photos of the clan blood-masters?”