Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,25
and Prejudice with Colin Firth,” Meara answered instantly. “I love the part where Elizabeth Bennet decides to fuck him after she sees the size of his house.”
Ryan’s mouth fell open. “What? You—that’s not—that’s not what happened. At all. She learned what a good guy he was, because of how he treated his servants—”
“He made them call him The Master. That’s messed up,” Meara said, striding over and tossing a pile of towels to the floor next to Ryan.
“And his sister—”
“He treated her like a helpless child. Plus he was too much of an asshole to stop Bingley’s sisters from talking shit about Lizzie.”
Ryan scowled at her. “You’re so completely wrong about all of that, I can’t believe it.”
With the insightful, calculating part of her brain, Ryan was measuring distances to exits, wondering just how fast these creatures were, and wondering how fast she could get the hell out of this place.
The rest of her brain was blathering on about movies and trying not to freak completely out at the high probability of her imminent, horrible death.
“I can’t believe we’re talking about movies when Hunter might wake up any minute and go full bloodlust on us,” the rude one Bane had knocked to the floor—Luke—snarled. He jumped up and made a point of straightening his clothes and then shoving his hair out of his face.
“Look. I’m sorry I insulted your human, Bane. My apologies, Doctor.” This, with a flourish in her direction. “But we need to figure out what’s wrong with Hunter and fix it, or do we even know if the Turn will take? If he goes through all this and dies anyway…”
He was right. She hated everything about him, but he was right. Plus, they clearly cared about the firefighter enough that she might use that for some kind of leverage.
She grabbed the towels and stood. “Good. Right. Show me to your bathroom, please, Meara? I’ll get cleaned up and take a look at Hunter. Do you also have any clothes that might fit me? Um, sweatpants or something?”
Meara’s perfect lips pulled back in a grimace. “As if I’d have sweatpants. And you’re a good five inches shorter than me—”
“I’m five-six,” Ryan told her, pointedly eyeing the woman’s heeled boots. “And without those boots, I bet you’re only five-eight. So…”
“Yes, but you’re rounder than I am,” Meara said, but not in a bitchy way, just matter-of-factly. “I’d kill for that cleavage, to be honest. Come on, we’ll find you something.”
She turned and strode out of the room, leaving Ryan rooted to the floor, heat flooding her body and undoubtedly turning her face hot pink, because she could already see the flush on her chest. But not so much with shame as with…pleasure? The most beautiful woman she’d ever seen envied mouse-like, boring Ryan for her cleavage?
Something that felt a bit like confidence tingled its way into her mind. She’d always been confident about her work, but her looks? Well, no. She was forgettable, and she knew it. Except for the wrong kind of attention, when she was a teenager growing into D cups before most of her friends even got training bras.
She’d never been the smartest, the fastest, the prettiest, the most charming.
She’d been Boring Ryan.
Ryan St. Grindstone.
She’d always been the person who could be completely and utterly counted on to work harder than anybody else. To be reliable and sensible and level-headed.
To definitely not be standing in a room filled with hot, supermodel-like vampires—in her skimpy pajamas—being complimented on her cleavage.
Although what the hell was she doing thinking about any of this under the current circumstances? She must still be drunk.
“Doctor? Are you coming or not?” Meara’s impatient voice called out from down the hall, and Ryan suddenly realized that she was going on a mental flight of fancy in a room that was still filled with vampires.
She looked up and caught Bane’s gaze and came to another realization: she wasn’t the only one who’d been standing there thinking about her cleavage.
His eyes burned hot blue fire, and his body almost imperceptibly strained toward her, even as he stood perfectly still, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“You should go,” he growled, his gaze dropping to her breasts—tangible as a caress—and then back to her face. “You should go, now.”
She clutched the towels to her chest and quickly walked out of the room, forcing herself not to run. When she took the left turn in the hallway to follow Meara, she heard the rude one’s laugh again.