Page 29 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

I opened the pump-house door and found the pump and filtration system humming inside. The Briars were on a well, like a lot of properties this far out, and Florida well water came up hard as nails. So the pump house pulled double duty. Pool gear on one side—chlorine granules and the like—and on the other a hulking water softener fed by forty-pound bags of salt stacked along the wall, half of them split open and spilling onto the concrete. Standard stuff. You softened the water before it went anywhere that mattered.

A row of switches glowed. I flicked the pump off, stopping water from flowing through the system, and cracked the lid of the huge bucket-like filter itself. Inside, I hoped to find something lodged in the filter, like I had at the Witherborne house, but the Briars’ was all clean. Too clean.

A shove slammed me forward, into the tiny gap between the filter and pump. I yelped, hands going out to stop myself from falling face first into the hoses. Then Theo was everywhere very suddenly, dark eyes inches from mine, warm hand over my mouth. He pulled the pump-house door closed on us, shutting out the ambient light, and squeezing both of us into the tiny space.

I breathed hard through my nose. This was it. This was the moment I got eaten by a vampire. He’d brought me here to kill me, just like the last pool guy. I was done for.

“Shh,” Theo whispered, his whole body pushed against mine. “People.”

People.

Right.

Not murder number two.

I heard the voices then, getting closer. The maintenance guys from earlier.

They were talking about some groundworks and needing heavy equipment. Theo turned his head, listening, which meant I got a fine view of his face’s bone structure up close and in profile. Light from the patio filtered through the shed’s wooden slats, landing in little lines across his cheekbones. His jaw could cut glass. His hair, in the filtered light, had me aching to run my fingers through it.

These thoughts came fast, racing alongside the fear that we were about to be discovered and my fragile little life would disappear as fast as a click of the fingers.

Why am I here?

Then Theo faced me again, and under the weight of his serious gaze, my thoughts got muffled behind the pounding of my heart. He slowly removed his hand and lowered it to my hip, as though to steady me. Or maybe that’s the only place it would fit.

He couldn’t read my mind, could he? He didn’t know how I’d been gazing at his face. Maybe he didn’t need to read my mind. My expression was probably revealing everything in my head.

My heart pounded harder. Theo’s sudden proximity had my body sparking alive. Firm, male, warm. All up against me. The tingling from his hand on mine earlier ramped up to level eleven, and my skin buzzed. It had been a long time since I’d been this close to someone, even with clothes on. His thigh had worked its way between mine, his hip nudged my waist, and all the things I’d been trying very hard not to imagine while alone in bed at night came roaring into my head. My dry spell had me lusting after Theo like he was the sunshine after a long winter of rain.

In the midst of our locked gaze, a sore burn sizzled against my arm. I looked down. Blood darkened my shirt sleeve around a small tear.

When he’d shoved me inside, I must have cut myself on one of the hose clamps.

Theo hissed through his teeth.

I looked up.

His eyes rolled. His head lolled. His body pitched backward, through the shed doors, and Theo Winterborne flopped out of the pump house, sprawling on his back on the grass, arms akimbo, out cold. Again. Right in front of the two maintenance guys.

They stopped chatting and stared.

Yeah, okay, this was definitely a problem.

“Hello.” I smiled, and stepped out of the shed, brushing my clothes down. “Wow, would you look at that. Vampire in a pump house. That’s a first for me.”

The two men frowned at me. The guy on the right, bigger than his friend, looked as though he’d throw punches before asking questions. “Who the fuck are you?”

This was going to take some creative explaining.

CHAPTER 8

I thrust out my hand. “I’m Owen, Jeremy’s new pool guy. Didn’t he tell you?”

The pair of them looked at each other. “He didn’t say anything about a new pool guy,” the big guy grumbled.

“I only started today. Right now, in fact.” I turned to face the pump house and the sprawled-out Theo. “I was just checking the hardness levels, and I found this guy in there. What are the chances?”

“That’s the Witherborne heir.”