Regardless, Harlan doubted he was being watched at that very moment, but he wasn’t about to take any chances on an attack. A nondescript SUV of men followed them at a discreet distance, armed and ready, just in case.
“Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “You will ask anything you want to.”
A small bubble of laughter filled the car. “You make everything sound like an order. Do you do that on purpose?”
Flicking his finger against the control panel, Harlan turned the heat up to a comfortable level and answered, “It’s a habit. Someone in my position isn’t supposed toaskfor anything. Asking for something in a vampiric family is equivalent to begging. Making demands shows… status, I suppose. Power.” He paused, looking at her again. “Does it bother you?”
He felt Zia’s gaze on his profile as he steered the car onto the smooth road. “No, not really. It’s just something I noticed. As long as you don’t mind me pushing back when you get overbearing, it doesn’t upset me. Sounds like it’s sorta of a… crime family cultural thing.”
“You can push back as much as you like.” There was a dry note to his tone. The irony of the fact that Zia, sweet-faced and harmless, was perhaps the only being on the planet whocouldpush back without consequence, was not lost on him.
Fabric rustled as she oriented her body toward him. The beat of her heart was loud in his ears, faster than normal, and her scent flowed with the currents of warm air blowing from the vents.
It was torture. He loved every second of it.
“So where are we going?”
“There’s a small restaurant in Grass Valley I like,” he answered, resisting the urge to rest his hand on the skin of her supple thigh, as well as the compulsion to add that he knew she had probably never been there. She so rarely left her little house on the weekends that he wondered if she even knew Grass Valley existed. This would hopefully be a low-key treat, which was just the sort of middle ground Atticus urged him to find when he initially suggested a five star restaurant in San Francisco with a side trip to a jewelry store.
Peeking at her, he added, “It’s called The Gold Vein.”
“Sounds vampirey. Do they serve fancy synthblood there or something?” Zia made a soft sound in the back of her throat. When she spoke again, her words were rushed. “Ah, sorry if that’s offensive. I’m just curious.”
Harlan couldn’t resist any longer.
His right hand moved off of the wheel to rest lightly on her knee. The material of her tights was smooth and her heat blazed through the thin barrier to sear his palm.
Catching her eye, he said, “You can ask meanything,pet. You don’t need to be afraid of offending me.”
Certainly, he’d kept far worse company over the years. He struggled to imagine his Zia saying anything that could truly shock him.
Feeling the fine muscles under his hand flex, he continued, “To answer your question: no. I agree it would be a good name for a vampire establishment, but unfortunately I believe it is a reference to the mining done in this area before the war.”
“So if it’s not a vampire bar, then why do you like it?”
He shrugged. The movement pushed his hand a few centimeters higher up her thigh. The sound of her breath hitching made him want to close his eyes andrevelin her.
Voice lowering, he answered, “They have good wine and their diverse menu makes it easy for me to have meetings with business partners when I need to. I also like the way it looks.”
“You can drink wine?”
He tilted his head toward her in a sideways nod. “A small amount. It’s bad for me, but I like the taste.”
He felt the fluttering brush of fingertips against his scarred knuckles — there and gone again in an instant. “Why not just take me to The Shack? We’re not business partners, and I don’t need to be wined and dined. I’m not very fancy.”
Harlan inwardly balked. “I would never take you there,” he answered, vehement. “They sell cheap food, t-shirts, and hunting gear. I’ll pull out my own fangs before I take you out to The Shack.”
Her laughter bubbled up again, the sound so light and pleasant it was almost foreign to him. The laughter he was used to was cold, cruel. It wasn’t this full-throated sound of delight that shook him to the core. “Mr. Bounds, I happen to like their milkshakes. Besides, it’s the only restaurant in Pineridge. It makes sense to go there.”
Seeing as Pineridge was the closest town to the estate, he understood that many of his staff chose to go there in their free time. That didn’t mean he would tolerate taking Zia to a place that thought decor should come in the form of stuffed animal heads and talking mechanical fish.
He didn’t mind that it was a place where the average person could get cheap food. Harlan had simply spent way too much time creeping through the backs of establishments like that — usually fronts for more illegal fare, but decent escape routes after a quick, public hit — to ever willingly take his anchor toThe Shack.
Rats were theleastof the horrors he witnessed in the kitchens of seedy restaurants, after all.
“If you want a milkshake, I’ll have it delivered to you,” he allowed, casting her a look that told her how great a sacrifice that would be. “Otherwise, I only ever want to see you eating in a place where I can be certain they atleastclean their counters regularly, pet.”
