What Happens After Dark Read Online Free PDF Page A

for a few weeks. Then he began taking her to the clubs. He’d made her give hand jobs to other guys while he watched. It wasn’t so bad; she liked that it turned him on. Anything was okay as long as it turned him on. But things started to get out of control. He’d wanted her to give blow jobs, to fuck strangers, more than one. He even wanted to start charging for her services. That might all have been okay, except that he no longer made her feel special. The whole relationship became about making him look like a big man. She was just this thing he could order around and give away. He barely touched her; his eye was always wandering. When she balked, he’d said he’d have to beat her. Then suddenly, there was Luke. He took her away. He made her feel precious. For six months, he’d given her everything she needed. All she had to do was hit his speed dial on her phone.
    Bree threw the last few things into her suitcase and zipped it. It wasn’t as if she’d be so far away she couldn’t drop by to pick up stuff when she needed. Plus she’d have to come by to water her plants. Hauling the bag off the bed onto the carpet, she stood for a moment. She couldn’t leave it down in the front hall; Luke was bound to ask. She didn’t want to explain. That was the thing about Luke, she wanted everything she did with him to be separate. There was her real life, and there was what she did with him. God, if anyone ever knew about her secret life, about the men, about all the things she’d done.
    She rolled the suitcase over to the closet, shoved the remaining clothes aside and made space for it. Then she hung the carrier beside it. As an afterthought, she went to the bathroom, grabbed three condoms out of the package she kept under the sink, and shoved them into a pocket in her purse. She probably wouldn’t get a chance to see Luke after tonight, not for a while. But she’d still be prepared for anything.
    Okay, the room was neat. She straightened the blue comforter, then, glancing around one last time, she backed out. Her condo was two floors; two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, kitchen, dining area, living room, and half bath downstairs. In the kitchen, she’d opened a bottle of merlot to let it breathe. She preferred white, but Luke liked red.
    When the doorbell rang, her heart began racing again, half excitement, half fear that she’d revealed a big piece of her other life to him. Though the time she spent with him was more real to her than anything else. She didn’t think he truly understood that.
    He was dressed all in black, from a turtleneck to jeans to tennis shoes, a cat burglar like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief . His short hair was black, too, his dark raven looks in keeping with his last name. His eyes, though, were light brown, amber almost. She liked that he was only a couple of inches taller than her. He was powerfully built, with thick muscles uncommon to the usual executive type’s physique. If he’d been over six feet, his size would have been too overwhelming.
    “Nice place,” he said. Flowerpots ringed her tiny front porch. The rain had stopped, and her wind chimes tinkled gently in the night wind. Of course there were also the noisy neighbors on one side, and the pack of children shrieking as they played out in the parking lot.
    It had nowhere near the grandeur of his place in Atherton. But it was hers. And the bank’s. “Come in.” She held the door wide, thinking of the innocent giving the vampire permission to enter.
    Except that she’d lost her innocence long ago.

3
    THE FRONT DOOR OPENED STRAIGHT INTO THE LIVING ROOM, with the stairs up to the second floor along the wall adjoining the condo next door. Another wall separated the kitchen from the main room, and a small bathroom, just a toilet and sink, filled the space under the tall end of the stairs. She had no one above her, and being an end unit, Bree got noise only from the one side. Luke prowled the living room, looking at everything.