Page 44 of Fangbanger

I whirl left, then right.

No enemy.

I blink, then shake my head to clear it. Nope, I’m awake.

The vampire is swearing at the stove, like any human man. Well, except that his swears are in Latin and I’ve never seen a human man bend the handle of a frying pan in half.

He also has the best back I’ve ever seen.

Goddess.

He’s bare to the waist, and he’s wearing what I consider to be a delicious outfit on a man—a ball cap and athletic shorts. His ass is fantastic. The dimples at the base of his spine make me long to press my fingers to them.

I watch, eyes wide, dagger hanging from my hand as he roughly turns off the gas and snarls at the nonstick pan he’s ruined. A puck of something sits in the center. Is that meat? I squint at the blob, then sniff. It was once meat. I can smell the char.

The smoke alarm is still blaring, and Marcus snarls again before he plants one arm on the counter and vaults twelve feet in the air. He yanks the alarm from the ceiling of the living area mid-leap.

The muscles of his stomach and arms ripple as he squeezes the alarm. Plastic falls like rain onto the rug. The vampire might be destroying my house, but he looks good doing it.

I clear my throat.

Marcus catches sight of me and goes vampire-still. His eyes are black. His fangs are out.

Not so human after all.

“Good evening. Nice outfit.”

“The box came up with this—unassisted.” He sounds like he doesn’t approve of the box’s fashion choices.

“The box has a mind of its own.” And it’s clearly helping a girl out.

He hasn’t blinked since he started staring, and I can practically feel his hunger from here.

I smirk. I feel like a million dollars this evening. It might be the fact that I’m wearing a tank top that I know makes my boobs look amazing, but it’s probably the vampire blood.

I roll my shoulders. I could run eight miles and eat enough pancakes to kill a regular human. Yeah, it’s definitely the vampire blood.

Silver crackles across his gaze as he stares at me. His eyes are the only part of him that move. I’ve seen this look before. Vampires are no different from cats. They wait, they pounce. He’s planning to pounce.

I narrow my eyes. Something changed in him last night. He is all predator now. Or perhaps he was before, and now he is letting me see it. I stroll to the counter. His gaze tracks me.

I’m not going to let myself be pounced on without a fight.

My gaze lands on the hole in my ceiling, then the smoking pan of meat. “What are you doing?”

“Cooking.”

“You say that like vampires stroll into my kitchen all the time.”

A rumble rises from his chest. I give him a flat stare.

His lip is curled. “No other vampires will be strolling into your kitchen.”

Okay, then. I lean over to poke at the meat. Marcus makes a small noise, and I feel his gaze on my ass.

“You cooked it from frozen.”

He snarls. “How else should it be cooked? It loses its structural integrity when it melts.”