Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,12

large room with a single sofa and a few chairs. The basement felt bigger than the basic size of the house, but she didn’t mention it. He pointed her into a room, and she turned in a circle once inside. She hadn’t expected much, and she was pleasantly surprised. The room was done up as a sitting room, with a sofa and loveseat, a desk, and a large screen television. A door led to a huge walk-in closet with shelves and drawers waiting to be filled, and another led to her own bathroom.

“The armoire is a murphy bed,” James told her. “If you want to change out the artwork, let us know so we can properly store the items in here already.”

She’d never heard the term murphy bed, but from looking at the armoire, she assumed it was a wall bed. She needed to remember to call it by the term they used.

Rather than mention any of that, she simply said, “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Three walls were painted a nice cream color, but the fourth wall was a deep wood paneling. James walked to it, put the toe of his boot on the baseboard, pressed down, and a hole opened in the wall, waist high, three feet tall and six feet wide.

“There’s a bolt inside that makes it impossible for anyone outside to open it, when locked. Everything is well labeled. The mechanism is old-school mechanical and doesn’t rely on electronics or battery.”

“This is perfect, James. I know you don’t want me to thank you anymore, but it feels I should.”

“You have about an hour until sunrise. We’ll leave you to yourself so you can get situated, unpack a few things, take a shower — whatever.”

“I had soap and shampoo delivered, along with some other toiletries.”

“The boxes that arrived addressed to you are in your closet. One of us can take you shopping tomorrow night if you discover things you need but don’t have.”

5

Fabio took Kelsey’s phone downstairs thirty minutes before sunset and knocked on her bedroom door. When she hadn’t answered after thirty seconds, he said, “It’s Fabio. If you’re up, I need you to open the door.”

Ten seconds later, he heard footsteps and the door opened.

She stood before him in a short, sexy little robe. Her gaze focused on his bare chest and then went lower. His dick throbbed in his jeans.

“Sorry, I wanted to get my eyeliner on. I showered before the sun took me, but...” She moved out of his way and motioned him in. “Please, come in. I haven’t tried to lower the bed yet. Do you know how?”

“I do. It isn’t hard. I’ll show you. First, here’s your cellphone. The sticker on the box has the phone number and pattern to get in. You can change the pattern, but you can’t do away with it. Also, you should know the Drake geeks can get into it no matter the pattern. There’s no expectation of privacy. Oh, and the print on the sticker will fade in forty-eight hours, so make sure you memorize everything on it. It was printed about eight hours ago, so you have around forty hours left.”

He put the box in her hands, walked to the murphy bed, and opened the chest doors. “The main thing to remember is to pull it down from the top, which is technically the foot, I guess. If you pull from the sides you run the risk of mashing your fingers. The sheets are clean, and there’s a set of fresh sheets in your bathroom closet. We don’t have a maid, so you’ll have to wash them and change them out as needed.”

“James and I talked about that. If you want to hire a human, I can go into his or her head and make certain they don’t notice things you’d rather they not see.”

He turned and gave her a level gaze. “Yeah, ’Losa told us, but for now, we don’t have a maid. Also, you’ll be able to look into my head all you want once you drink from me, but you’re liable to need therapy if you do, so I wouldn’t advise it. Drake employees get six free visits with a therapist per year. She knows all about supernaturals, so you can be honest with her. It’s possible she knows more about vampires than you. If you kill someone for the company and you want or need more than six visits, Aaron will make it happen. First kill, seeing her is mandatory. Otherwise, killing