Hilda is looking at me bleary-eyed with confusion and alcohol. “How did you—? What did you—? Where did you—?”

I pat her head and push her toward my own car. “Don’t try to figure it out, Hilda. You’ll hurt yourself.”

She stumbles forward. I’ve got one hand on the cuffs and one on the small of her back. We’re just about at the car when my cell phone rings.

I dig it out of my pocket and flip it open.

It’s my partner, David, on vacation in the Bahamas.

“Hey, Anna,” he says. “How’s it going?”

“Just peachy.” I open the rear car door and shove Hilda down onto the seat. “Are you having fun?”

He laughs. “I’m laying on a beach drinking mojitos out of coconut shells. How about you?”

Hilda looks up at me and spits. Only trouble is, she’s got the coordination of a drunk and the spittle dribbles down her own chin and settles somewhere in the vicinity of that five-dollar bill she’d shoved down her blouse.

I slam the door and take my place behind the wheel. “Actually, yes,” I tell David. “I am having fun.”

I DEPOSIT HILDA IN CITY LOCKUP AND HEAD TO the office David and I share on Pacific Coast Highway. It’s just past midnight on a Saturday night and the restaurants in Seaport Village, our a neighbor to the south, have already shuttered for the night. I take a beer out of the fridge, gather the day’s mail from the desktop and step out onto the wooden deck that spans the rear of the building.

It’s a cool, moonless, late April evening. Too cool for a human to enjoy sitting out on the deck the way I am now. For a vampire, temperature is irrelevant. Ninety degrees or fifty, makes no difference. However, the feel of a soft ocean breeze blowing off the water, the cool iciness of the beer bottle in my hand, the play of light on the water from Coronado across the bay, are human sensibilities I can still enjoy.

The beast is quiet within me. It’s nice.

I place the bottle on the deck and sort through the mail. A couple of bills, a couple of checks. A postcard.

From France. The Eiffel Tower.

I flip it over, smiling because I know it will be from my niece. Trish ’s precise, graceful script fills the back. Her friend Ryan and his parents are visiting for spring break. They’ve traveled from my family’s home in Avignon to Paris and her words sparkle with wonder and excitement. Her fourteenth birthday is next week and they plan to celebrate with fireworks at the chateau. Could I possibly fly over, too?

Oh, Trish, I wish I could.

She is having such a good time, learning so much. I can’t remember ever feeling as optimistic or hopeful about the future as she does. It’s a gift. I wish I could share it with her. If I were human, I might be able to.

As a vampire, I’m afraid that all I can bring to her life is the threat of danger. She and my parents are better off with distance between us.

It’s the reason they are now living on a winery in France and I’m chasing lowlifes like Hilda in San Diego.

I gather the mail and the now -empty beer bottle and go back inside. For the first time, I notice the message light blinking on the telephone. I lift the receiver and punch in the code for voice mail.

“Anna. It’s Williams. This is the fifth message I’ve left. I need to talk to you, damn it. It’s important.”

I delete this message just as I have the other four. He doesn’t seem to get it. I don’t want to talk to him.

I slip the checks into a drawer to be deposited tomorrow, place the bills on the desk blotter and prop the postcard against my computer monitor. I’ll call Trish on her birthday. I can do that. Talk to her. Let her know I love her.

And speaking of love . . .

I close the slider and grab my car keys. I have a date up the coast. It’ll take me a while to go home, shower and get to Malibu but I know what awaits me is worth it.

LANCE MEETS ME AT THE DOOR OF HIS BEACH HOUSE wearing a smile and an open terry robe. He ’s tall, handsome in an edgy, bad-boy way and has blond hair that falls to his shoulders. The look he’s giving me makes my blood heat and my heart pound. He’s as happy to see me as I am to be here.

“What took you?” he asks, grabbing my hand and pulling me inside. “I’ve missed you.”

“I can see that.”

He pulls me over to the couch and lets me plop down before reaching for the opened bottle of wine sitting beside two glasses on his coffee table. He pours, I take one, and in another second he’s beside me and I’m settling my head on his shoulder.

“This is nice,” I say.

And I mean it. I met Lance right around Christmastime last year when everything in my life was going to hell. He was the one bright spot—a willing, energetic and quite enthusiastic lover who helped me forget my problems.

Amazingly, we became friends and that led to our becoming real lovers. He’s an underwear model for Jockey. Do I need to say more about the body? He’s also a vampire, which means I don’t have to hide my nature or hold back in our lovemaking for fear I’ll hurt him. We can bite, suck and fuck each other’s brains out.

It’s liberating. It’s cathartic. It’s an arrangement I can live with.

I release a breath, run a hand over his chest, down lean muscled, rock-hard abs.

His human buddies have to diet and work out all the time to keep this kind of physique. The only diet Lance is on is the one we share—

the liquid protein kind.

He’s a female vamp’s wet dream.

And for now, he’s mine.

I let my hand roam farther, a feather touch, teasing.

He responds, staying my hand with his own, guiding my fingers so they encircle him, letting me feel him grow bigger, a pulse that ’s an invitation.

He shifts to take my glass out of my hand. He places the glasses on the table and stands up, drawing me with him. He lets his robe fall to the carpet.

In a heartbeat, I’m out of my clothes, too.

He lowers me to the floor, his mouth on mine, his own fingers exploring. Heat radiates from his touch, making me shiver with need.

Blood sings. I’m ready. More than ready.

Time to get down to business.

THE BEDSIDE CLOCK SAYS THREE A.M. LANCE IS ASLEEP beside me. So why can’t I fall asleep?

I kick off the covers and slide out of bed. His house is right on the beach, one of the perks of being a successful male model. The slider is open and the rhythm of the ocean draws me outside. I don’t bother to take a robe or wrap a towel around me, but stand naked on the deck. At this time of morning, who is around to see?

The water is black under a cloud-studded sky. The surf advances and retreats from a white, sandy beach with comforting regularity. The smell of sand and sea is rich, teeming with life. Before Malibu was an enclave of the rich and famous, before there was a Los Angeles, before there were people, there was the ocean.

The concept of time changes when you’re a vamp. Maybe that’s why the sea draws me the way it does. If I’m not staked or beheaded or burned to death, I may live to see Malibu reclaimed by the ocean.

I used to be afraid of the idea of immortality. Had difficulty accepting the notion of never-ending life. Something is shifting inside me. I’m not so afraid anymore.

Not for myself. But when I lose my family, when I watch generations come and go without being a part of what makes human life bearable, when I have to constantly build new relationships to replace those I’ve lost—I may rethink the price of immortality.

Lance awakens. I hear his sleepy voice in my head. Anna, what are you doing out there?

I half turn toward him. Contemplating eternity.

JUST AS HAVING A MALIBU BEACH HOUSE IS A PERK of being a successful model, early morning photo shoots are a drawback.