Danger Calls. Caridad Pineiro

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СКАЧАТЬ that night, only sex. Which, with Sebastian, had been…She wouldn’t call it a mistake, but it had certainly been unplanned. Spontaneous. Well, at least the first time. The second and third…Being a modern, mature, Sex and the City kind of girl, she knew that one night with a man did not a romance make. But in the very few and very infrequent free moments since then, she’d wondered whether a second or third or fourth date with Sebastian might change things.

      After the craziness of such thoughts, logic would return and she would acknowledge that what had happened that night had been simple transference. Or at least that’s what one of her psychiatrist friends would call it. She’d taken the caring shown by Sebastian toward his sister and toward Ryder and transferred it to herself. With her parents’ recent deaths and Ryder seriously injured, she’d been vulnerable, starved for affection. It had resulted in a very pleasant interlude.

      But that was all it had been or ever could be. In addition to the constraints of being both a doctor and Ryder’s companion, she wasn’t ready to trust her heart to anyone. She might not ever be ready.

      It’s not as if she’d learned how to trust—how to love—from her parents. They had been emotionally distant, at best. Her mother had been a physically frail creature, needing most of her husband’s attention and having little patience for the inquisitive and energetic child Melissa had been. Her father’s time had been taken up by his medical practice. And, of course, as she had learned at his death, by Ryder and his demands.

      Later, medical school and her residency had curbed what was left of her personal life. Her few encounters during that time had intentionally lacked emotional investment. Since becoming Ryder’s companion, her social life had become nonexistent.

      Except, of course, for Sebastian.

      But if she was ever to have any life at all, Melissa had to take control of things. To have control, she needed more information than what was currently at her disposal.

      She wrapped her arms around herself, more than a little uneasy about the path she was about to embark upon. She wasn’t someone who normally challenged the status quo, but maybe a year with a vampire—and that one night with Sebastian—had left her feeling a little rebellious. For too long, she had followed without question. Guarded her heart to avoid being rejected. In spite of her protests against seeking help to safeguard the journals, she had no doubt the possibility of a normal life was worth the risk. Even if that help—that risk—came from Sebastian.

      When she spoke, the strength of her conviction was clear. “I’ll go to Sebastian tomorrow, but for the other…I’m not asking permission, Ryder. I plan on scouring those journals for any hint of a cure. With or without your help.”

      “And nothing—”

      “Nothing, not even getting toothy, is going to stop me.”

      Chapter 2

      Sebastian Reyes had a problem. Or rather, his new client had one. They had gotten the SQL Slammer virus because someone in their IT department forgot to shut down Port 1434. He entered the user name and password he had been provided, cleared his client’s firewall and remotely accessed their network. With a few keystrokes, he had a patch going to fix the issue.

      He grabbed three squeeze stress balls and pushed away from his desk, where his computer was monitoring the progress. He tossed the first stress ball high into the air, followed it with the others, juggling them to pass the time while his computer ground away. As he walked around, stress squeezies flying through the air, Sebastian occasionally shot a look at the monitor where a large dialogue box announced how much of the patch was finished.

      Not much longer, he realized, pleased his new computer and server setup were working so well. Even though the dotcom bust had finally reached the company for which he had been working, resulting in its bankruptcy, he’d recently sold one of his computer games. And he’d turned the frequent requests from former clients—such as the frantic call regarding the virus—into a consulting business for those who needed their networks operating, and the private things on their systems remaining private. So instead of doing the nine-to-five office routine, he worked out of the apartment he shared with his FBI agent sister, Diana, writing new games and monitoring for performance and security issues. Plus he got to do other fun things, like hacking into the systems of clients and other consultants to make sure everything was in working order. Nonconformist that he was, he loved the hacking best.

      All in all, he couldn’t complain. At twenty-eight, he was making a decent living with less stress, and he was his own boss. He smiled, tossed the balls around, then stopped his juggling as he noticed the patch was complete.

      Sebastian laid the squeeze balls on the desktop and ended the remote session just as the doorbell rang.

      He opened the door and stopped short.

      Melissa Danvers.

      Dr. Melissa Danvers, vampire keeper, still looking as stunning today as she had nearly three months ago when she’d first dropped that bombshell on him. He’d thought it a shame someone so very beautiful was a crackpot, until his sister confirmed that Ryder Latimer was a vampire.

      “Hi. You’re the last thing I expected to see,” he said, wondering what she was doing on his doorstep, but pleased nonetheless.

      She held her Coach purse before her and nervously fingered the straps, looking decidedly prim, proper and uneasy. But that uneasiness couldn’t dim her beauty. For months, he’d tried to convince himself his recollections of her had been suspect, colored by the tension and danger of the night they had shared.

      They hadn’t. Wheat-blond hair framed an oval-shaped face that was classically beautiful. From the straight, slightly pug nose to a heart-shape mouth with lips…

      Don’t think about those lips, he warned himself. Just keep it simple. Meet her gaze directly and firmly and…

      Only the blue of her changeling eyes was a stormy gray tonight—the color of trouble. So he shouldn’t have been surprised when she said, “I have a problem.”

      “A problem?” Panic raced through him. There was only one problem he could think of that would bring her to his door. They’d taken precautions when they’d made love that night, but of course, nothing was foolproof. His gut tightened with concern. He was barely capable of taking care of himself, much less a child or a wife. His father would have…

      He refused to think about the chastisement that would have been sure to come from his father, if he’d still been alive. Sebastian was no longer the hesitant little boy always striving for his Papi’s acceptance. He was a grown man, and he knew what he had to do.

      He motioned Melissa into the apartment, then closed the door behind her and strove for a totally-in-control kind of voice. “Wrong. No problema. Whatever you need, Melissa. Are you Catholic?”

      A shocked expression crossed her patrician features. “Forthright, aren’t you? And no, I’m Episcopalian.”

      He squared his shoulders and, with what he hoped seemed like bravado, nodded. “I’m a responsible kind of guy. And you’re smart. Attractive. And—”

      “Healthy. See. I have all my teeth,” Melissa said with some bite and forced her mouth wide open to display her perfectly white and straight teeth.

      Sebastian narrowed his eyes as he considered her carefully. “Do you always hide behind a joke?”

      She СКАЧАТЬ