Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,80
Annie in all her dancer’s body splendor, but she had a feeling she’d wind up with actual boot prints on her scalp from all the men trying to climb over her to get to Meara.
She was already having self-esteem issue about her ordinary looks compared to the supermodel’s brother.
Who had locked her in his room. Get back to the point here.
“Bane locked me in his room,” she said. Again. “My father used to do that to my mom and me ‘for our own good.’ Not only am I claustrophobic, in a big way, but I am furious that your brother did that to me when I’m a grown-ass woman, and if he thinks—”
“He’s gone,” Meara said, looking bored by the conversation. “You look fine. The red dress looks good with your hair. But we’re not going out clubbing. We’re going shopping. I have a ball to go to tomorrow night, and I need a gown.”
“You have a ball to go to,” Ryan said slowly, wondering when she’d gone from Alice in Wonderland to Cinderella and whether it would be a good choice for vampire movie night. Since she was going to kill Bane for locking her in, maybe he’d like a chance to watch Prince Charming chase all over the country for a foot that fit a glass slipper first.
“Yes. It’s a charity thing for the clinics. And since we’ve discovered that you work for me, you have to do what I say, because I’m your boss,” Meara concluded, her eyes sparkling and her lips still swollen from whatever had been going on with the silver-eyed hunk of broodiness in the ballroom.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Now she was doing it. Hanging out in ballrooms.
Still… “I don’t think that’s how that works,” she told Meara. “I actually volunteer my time. You—the clinic—don’t pay me, so I don’t work for you, so I don’t have to do what you say.”
Meara whirled around, in one of the spooky vampire superfast moves Ryan supposed she’d now have to get used to, and bared her…fangs. “Then do what I say because I’m a vampire, and I’m hungry, and you’re starting to look like dessert.”
She did look hungry. Ryan swallowed whatever she’d been about to say and changed tactics. “Did I mention how much I’d love to go shopping for your ball gown with you?”
Meara smiled, her fangs retracted now. “Perfect. We’ll get you one, too, and you can be my plus-one.”
“I can’t go to a ball. I’m supposed to be off work for a family emergency. Plus, I’m not really the ball type. Don’t you want to take, ah…” The guy whose tongue was down your throat didn’t seem polite. “Edge. The sexy guy with the white hair?”
“No. That was a momentary lapse of judgment. Come on. We’ll take my car.”
Meara’s car turned out to be a sleek BMW convertible that she immediately jacked up to maybe a hundred miles per hour past Ryan’s comfort level.
“You know, I don’t heal like you, so when we crash and burn, please tell Bane that my last words were you shouldn’t have locked me in your room,” she shouted over the wind rushing past.
Meara rolled her eyes, which seemed to be her signature move, and took a turn on two wheels. Or maybe only one.
Ryan wondered what horrible way she’d be murdered if she threw up in a vampire’s luxury car. Then she figured maybe she’d just close her eyes until they arrived at whatever store in Savannah sold ball gowns at nearly midnight.
When the car squealed to a stop, she cautiously opened one eye.
“We’re here. Hop out.” Meara leapt out, and Ryan unclenched her death grip on her seat belt and followed her onto the sidewalk.
“Whitaker Street? What will be open here this time of night?”
“Nothing is open to the public,” Meara said, saying public in the tone of voice that Ryan used when saying infectious diseases. “But she’ll open for me, and she’ll even give me a little snack.”
Ryan perked up. “Pecan pie?”
“Not exactly.”
By the time Ryan followed Meara into the unmarked door at the top of the short flight of steps, the vampire was already fangs deep in her snack—who turned out to be the owner of the boutique.
Ryan wandered around the small shop, not wanting to stand there and stare like a voyeur, but not knowing what else she should do, either. From the sounds the woman at the door was making, she was very happy to let Meara “snack” on her, so Ryan