The Reluctant Vampire - Lynsay Sands [10]
The woman’s butt was snow-covered and bobbing about like an apple on a river’s surface as she worked at whatever she was doing. It was an interesting sight, he decided, and then gave his head a shake and continued forward, becoming aware of their conversation as he approached.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Stephanie was asking, half-amused and half-worried. “I could always just creep in and find the keys.”
“I have done this before,” Drina assured her from under the dashboard, her voice sounding annoyed. “I can do this. It is just that your cars seem to be wired differently than ours in Europe.”
Stephanie snorted at the claim. “I hardly think they wire them differently. How long ago did you last do this?”
“Twenty years or so,” Drina admitted in a mutter, and then cursed in Spanish, and added determinedly, “I can do this. We will go shopping.”
“Is there something I can help you ladies with?” Harper asked, pausing behind Drina’s bobbing derriere and just resisting the urge to brush the snow from it. Really, her butt must be cold, encased in snow like that.
Stephanie glanced to him wide-eyed, but Drina stiffened, her bobbing stopping altogether. She stayed frozen for a moment, jerked her head upward, cursed as it slammed into the steering wheel, and muttered under her breath as she backed out of the vehicle. Of course, he was right behind her and didn’t move out of the way quickly enough. Her rear end rammed into his groin, and she trod on his feet.
Gasping an apology, Drina immediately stumbled forward again to get off him, lost her footing, and started to go down. In his effort to save her from the fall, Harper managed to get his own feet tangled up with hers and found himself crashing to the icy pavement with her.
“Are you all right?”
Harper opened his eyes at that concerned query and turned his head to see that Drina had pushed herself to her hands and knees beside him and was eyeing him worriedly. Her coat was open despite the cold, revealing a low-cut silk shirt that gaped slightly thanks to her position. It left him an extra-ordinary view of full, round breasts encased in a lacy white bra that looked rather fetching against her olive skin.
Blinking, he tore his gaze from the delectable sight and glanced past her to Stephanie, who was nearly killing herself laughing in the SUV, and then he sighed and said dryly, “I’ll live.”
“Hmm.” Drina’s eyes drifted down to his bare chest, where his coat had fallen open, and he saw one of her eyebrows rise, but then she scrambled to her feet and offered him a hand.
“Sorry,” she muttered as she helped him up. “You startled me.”
“My fault,” he assured her, taking a moment to brush himself down. He then straightened and glanced to the open door of the SUV. “What were you doing?”
“Er . . .” Drina flushed guiltily and turned back to the vehicle. “I need boots and a heavier coat, and Stephanie needs a few things too, so we were just going to head out shopping.”
“Hmm.” His lips twitched, and then he said, “So you were going to hot-wire the SUV?”
Drina clucked with irritation at being caught, and then said with exasperation, “Anders has the keys, and I didn’t want to disturb him to get them.”
“Ah.” Harper glanced from her embarrassed and defiant face to the vehicle and back, and then he asked, “Do you have a license to drive here? Or even a Spanish driver’s license?”
“Bah!” Drina waved the question away. “We don’t need them. If a police officer tries to pull us over, we just control them.”
“Ah, yes.” Harper nodded. He’d expected as much and explained apologetically, “But you can’t do that in Port Henry. You can anywhere else, even London, but not here.”
“What?” She glanced to him with surprise.
“Lucian promised Teddy that his people would follow the laws while in Port Henry, and none of us would use mind