Page 12 of The Midnight Frequency

Vampires didn’t need to breathe. But I inhaled through my nose just to exhale it hard. Some human traits still clung to me, even after all these years.

Then I lowered myself, helping her gather the scattered papers and stacking them into a messy pile.

Once the task was done, I glanced around, trying to figure out what had thumped and bounced. The only thing on the carpet, though, was what appeared to be a handheld-sized crystal ball.

I reached for it, finding it as cool and heavy as actual crystal.

But it was unbroken.

It must have been one of those spelled novelty items.

I glanced up, not realizing that as I’d been reaching for it, the woman had regained her feet once again. Which meant my head was level with her pelvis.

The position was undeniably suggestive.

Unbidden, my mind flashed with the idea of dropping the ball, then sliding my hand up what had to be silky-smooth skin from her ankle to the hem of her skirt. Then gathering the material and fisting it to her waist so I could slip under, pausing only to breathe in the sweet scent of her, then pulling the thin material of her panties to the side, and—

“Well, well, well, what am I interrupting?” another female voice asked, this one a little more sultry, a voice meant for radio.

My gaze was still on the office assistant, though, so I got to watch the way her tense body suddenly loosened. Those honey-brown eyes of hers rolled. Her breath huffed out from between her lips.

“Aren’t you supposed to be recording?” she asked.

“Luckily for me, I don’t have to worry about dead air. Which let me witness this,” the other woman said with a flick of her wrist, “interesting little scene. Were you looking to feed from her femoral artery?”

“Tess!” the woman in the yellow dress hissed.

“What? It’s a thing. We had someone write in the other day about how she let an ex do it to her and now she’s addicted to having someone feed from her there. Apparently, it releases all sorts of endorphins and makes you kind of high.”

“That can’t be true.”

Tess’s gaze slid to me.

A second later, the other woman’s followed.

Both of them were looking at me as if I had the answers they were seeking.

“I don’t feed on humans.”

“Wow. You somehow managed to make that sound so smug and—” Tess started. “Wait! You’re the new late-night vamp, aren’t you? I would recognize that voice anywhere. I’m Tess. Demon, host of Hell & High Notes, terrible influence. Oh, and Maggie here’s best friend.” She nodded her head toward the woman in the yellow dress. Whose feet I was still kneeling at.

I got to my own feet, ignoring the strange sloshing sensation in my gut that felt something akin to embarrassment.

“Silas Ashford,” I offered. “Your novelty sphere,” I said, holding the ball out toward Maggie. Who, at this angle, looked rather flushed. Pink bloomed across the apples of her cheeks, down her neck, and across the exposed skin of her chest. Some part of me wanted to reach out, to pull down her bodice, to see how far that blush crept.

I shook my head, hoping to dislodge those thoughts.

“It’s a crystal ball,” Maggie said. She reached for it, careful to avoid touching my fingers.

“It bounced.”

“Well, it’s spelled. I think. I don’t know. I found it in the break room.”

“Did it show you anything?” Tess asked.

Maggie shot her friend a look that seemed to convey a million words, none of which I could decipher.

“Is that my crystal ball?” another voice asked, moving out of a studio.