Dark Deception (Vampire Royals of New York #1) - Sarah Piper Page 0,51

details of the fundraiser: the cover story she’d have to embellish, the risks she’d have to anticipate, the contingency plans, the backup contingency plans. With Travis as her driver, she couldn’t leave anything to chance.

After an hour of tossing and turning, she finally got out of bed, clicking the remote to open the blinds. Thirty stories below her windows, the streets of Park Avenue pulsed with nightlife, the car horns a muted symphony through the glass.

She wondered if Dorian was awake. He’d said he had a house upstate as well as a penthouse in Tribeca, a Manhattan neighborhood she couldn’t see from her place on Park Avenue. As the cabs raced by below, she imagined one of them ferrying her downtown to his apartment, straight into the blissful heat of his touch.

Her cell phone taunted her from the nightstand, silent and black, nothing but pure, untarnished potential. Before she could talk herself out of it, she grabbed it and pulled up his number.

You awake? she texted.

Yes, he replied immediately. Thinking of you, actually. What are you doing Friday night?

Hmm. That sounds suspiciously like a lead-up to a date.

So?

We said no dating!

When she’d finally agreed to exchange numbers at the museum, she did so on one condition: that they’d keep it casual. Flirty texts were risky enough, but under no circumstances could they actually date. She thought she’d made that clear.

So why was he asking her out?

It’s not a date, he replied. It’s a party. A terribly boring party. Please come.

Why would I come to a terribly boring party?

Not come TO. Come AT.

Charley cracked up. Assumptions, assumptions!

We’ll have access to at least a dozen closets.

Hmm… this party is sounding less boring by the minute.

So… it’s a non-date?

Disappointment settled into her stomach. Can’t, she replied. Work thing.

Cancel.

I wish. Rain check?

Charley froze, her fingers hot over the screen. Why did she ask for a rain check? She was the one who’d made the no-dating rule in the first place, and now she was encouraging him.

God, what is it about this guy?

Her phone buzzed with his reply. I’ll hold you to it. The hot dog cart isn’t the same without you.

I’ll bet. Charley smiled, but as much as she was enjoying their texts, she knew they couldn’t lead anywhere. Eventually, she and her Mr. Redthorne would hit a dead-end, and he’d become nothing more than a memory.

With a soft sigh, she texted her response. Ok, gotta go. Time for bed.

Alone?

Wouldn’t you like to know?

Seconds later her phone vibrated with a call. DORIAN REDTHORNE flashed on her screen, and the angel on her shoulder shouted a firm warning.

Don’t fucking answer it. Hit ignore, delete his number, block him, erase him from your mind…

But in the end, the devil won out, and Charley hit the answer button, a grin spreading on her face. “Good evening, Mr. Redthorne.”

“Yes,” the man said firmly.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I would like to know. I would very much like to know if you’re in bed alone.”

“I am,” she admitted. “Unfortunately. And before you get your hopes up about what I’m wearing, it’s just boxer shorts and an old T-shirt from—”

“Take them off. Now.”

The command, so firm and delicious after all their earlier jokes, made her instantly hot. She set the phone on the bed and stripped off every last scrap of fabric. She thought about closing the blinds, but decided against it, her body basking in the glow from the neighboring towers. With her bedroom lights turned off, no one could see inside, but the thought that someone might be watching anyway sent a forbidding thrill to her core.

Charley grabbed the phone. “Okay. I’m here.”

“Are you naked?”

She lay back on her bed, stretched out over the top of her soft down comforter, grateful that Sasha’s room was on the other side of the penthouse. “Naked and alone on this huge king bed, and I’m very, very wet.”

“Bloody hell,” Dorian said. “Do you have any idea what I’d do to you if I were there right now?”

“I’m a little hazy on the details.” Charley was playing with serious fire, but she couldn’t stop. It wasn’t just the museum run-in; she hadn’t stopped thinking about Dorian for more than five minutes since she’d first seen him in the Salvatore lobby. After that, he’d rescued her from that Duchanes dickweed, bought her drinks, made her laugh, touched her in ways that no other man had ever dared, and saved her from a mugging in Central Park.

Just seeing his name light up her phone made Charley ache