Reluctant Partnerships Read Online Free Page A

employees. And yes, the taste of blood varies from person to person. I’m sure we can find someone who appeals. Male or female?”
    “Female,” Pascale replied immediately. “Well, as a rule, anyway.”
    “Female it is,” Angelique said without blinking an eye. “Your age, younger, older?”
    “How is this supposed to help?”
    “Because what you prefer in a person generally carries over to what you will prefer in their blood,” Angelique explained patiently. “Answer the question.”
    “Older,” Pascale whispered. “Not a lot, but a few years anyway.”
    “Femme or butch?”
    Pascale hesitated, not sure she was comfortable discussing such things with a woman she barely knew.
    Angelique laughed at her shyness. “I lived in a harem, dear,” she said, holding up her henna-covered hands. “There is nothing about sex and sexual preferences that I haven’t seen and probably lived. You don’t need to be embarrassed with me.”
    “Not butch,” Pascale said. “I don’t want someone masculine, but someone who can take charge and take care of me. I’m not the aggressor.”
    “That may change a little now that you’re a vampire,” Angelique said, “but for now, any preferences in coloring?”
    “Dark,” Pascale said. “Someone like you, if you weren’t a vampire.”
    Angelique laughed. “Oh, darling, they stopped making them like me centuries ago, but I’ll find someone who suits. Let me show you to a room.”
    “A room?”
    “Feeding is very personal, very intimate,” Angelique explained. “As a rule, vampires feed in private. Since this is your first time, I’ll be there to help you find your balance. Your maker should have done this, but since he… she?”
    “He.”
    “Since he didn’t do his duty, I will take his place gladly.”
    Angelique led Pascale to a finely appointed sitting room, furnished with two love seats and a chaise longue. “Make yourself comfortable. Take off your coat, your shoes, too, if you want. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
    Angelique left Pascale alone, shutting the door behind her. Pascale started toward the shuttered window, wondering what time it was, but the heat coming through the closed volets nearly burned her. She jerked her hand away, seeing the grey cast to her skin and feeling the painful tingling along her arm. “What nightmare have I walked into?”
    Angelique returned a few minutes later with a beautiful, busty woman in tow, exactly the kind of woman Pascale might have flirted with when she came to the city. Exactly the kind who never gave her the time of day. “Pascale, this is Isabelle. Isabelle, the vampire I told you about.”
    “Welcome to Sang Froid,” Isabelle said, holding out her hand. Pascale took it uncertainly, her eyes fixed on the pulse at the woman’s wrist. Her mouth watered. She could practically taste the blood flowing beneath the surface.
    “Gently now,” Angelique said. “You can’t simply dive in. Have a seat on one of the couches where you’ll be comfortable.”
    Pascale frowned. This was the part where her shyness always kicked in and she lost her nerve. She took a seat as Angelique instructed, wondering how she was supposed to make small talk while the urge to bite, anywhere she could, was nearly overwhelming.
    “Take her hand again,” Angelique instructed. “Lick the skin of her wrist. You should always prepare the place you intend to bite. Your saliva will numb the area a little so the bite hurts less, and afterward, you lick the whole area again to help her heal faster.”
    Pascale breathed a huge sigh of relief, lifting Isabelle’s wrist to her mouth and licking over the lightly perfumed skin. The smell went to her head, evoking an odd tingling in her mouth, then a sharp pain.
    “Look at me,” Angelique said.
    Pascale turned her head.
    “Show me your teeth.”
    Confused, Pascale smiled.
    “Good, your fangs dropped on their own. Sometimes new vampires have a problem with that, and then it gets