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“Worst possible time,” I said. “You’re on the rebound. I’m looking for my boyfriend; granted, he’s my unfaithful boyfriend, but still . . .”

“Bad timing,” he agreed, and his hands settled on my shoulders. Then he bent down and kissed me. It took about a half a second for my arms to go around his waist and his tongue to slide into my mouth. He kissed soft. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair and find out how broad his chest was and if his butt was really as high and round as it looked in his pants . . . oh, hell. I gently pushed back.

“Bad timing,” I said. I flushed, realizing that with my dress half unzipped, Alcide could see my bra and the tops of my bosom easily. Well, it was good I had a pretty bra on.

“Oh, God,” he said, having gotten an eyeful. He made a supreme effort and squeezed those green eyes shut. “Bad timing,” he agreed again. “Though I can hope that, real soon, it might seem like better timing.”

I smiled. “Who knows?” I said, and stepped back into my room while I could still make myself move in that direction. After shutting the door gently, I hung up the red dress, pleased it still looked good and unstained. The sleeves were a disaster, with greasy fingerprints and a little blood on them. I sighed regretfully.

I’d have to flit from door to door to use the bathroom. I didn’t want to be a tease, and my robe was definitely short, nylon, and pink. So I scooted, because I could hear Alcide rummaging around in the kitchen. What with one thing and another, I was in the little bathroom for a while. When I came out, all the lights in the apartment were off except the one in my bedroom. I closed the shades, feeling a little silly doing so since no other building on the block was five stories high. I put on my pink nightgown, and crawled in the bed to read a chapter of my romance by way of calming down. It was the one where the heroine finally beds the hero, so it didn’t work too well, but I did stop thinking about the biker’s skin burning from contact with the goblin, and about Debbie’s malicious narrow face. And about the idea of Bill being tortured.

The love scene (actually, the sex scene) steered my mind more toward Alcide’s warm mouth.

I switched off the bedside lamp after I’d put my book-mark in my book. I snuggled down in the bed and piled the covers high on top of me, and felt—finally—warm and safe.

Someone knocked at my window.

I let out a little shriek. Then, figuring who it must be, I yanked on my robe, belted it, and opened the shades.

Sure enough, Eric was floating just outside. I switched on the lamp again, and struggled with the unfamiliar window.

“What the hell do you want?” I was saying, as Alcide dashed into the room.

I barely spared him a glance over my shoulder. “You better leave me alone and let me get some sleep,” I told Eric, not caring if I sounded like an old scold, “and you better stop showing up outside places in the middle of the night and expecting me to let you in!”

“Sookie, let me in,” Eric said.

“No! Well, actually, this is Alcide’s place. Alcide, what you want to do?”

I turned to look at him for the first time, and tried not to let my mouth fall open. Alcide slept in those long drawstring pants, period. Whoa. If he’d been shirtless thirty minutes before, the timing might have seemed just perfect.

“What do you want, Eric?” Alcide asked, much more calmly than I had done.

“We need to talk,” Eric said, sounding impatient.

“If I let him in now, can I rescind it?” Alcide asked me.

“Sure.” I grinned at Eric. “Any moment, you can rescind it.”

“Okay. You can come in, Eric.” Alcide took the screen off the window, and Eric slid in feetfirst. I eased the window shut behind him. Now I was cold again. There was gooseflesh all over Alcide’s chest, too, and his nipples . . . I forced myself to keep an eye on Eric.

Eric gave both of us a sharp look, his blue eyes as brilliant as sapphires in the lamplight. “What have you found out, Sookie?”

“The vampires here do have him.”

Eric’s eyes may have widened a little, but that was his only reaction. He appeared to be thinking