"Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 03 - Club Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Charlaine)

Bill was hunched over the computer when I let myself in his house. This was an all-too-familiar
scenario in the past month or two. He'd torn himself away from his work when I came home, until the
past couple of weeks. Now it was the keyboard that attracted him.

"Hello, sweetheart," he said absently, his gaze riveted to the screen. An empty bottle of type O
TrueBlood was on the desk beside the keyboard. At least he'd remembered to eat.

Bill, not a jeans-and-tee kind of guy, was wearing khakis and a plaid shirt in muted blue and
green. His skin was glowing, and his thick dark hair smelled like Herbal Essence. He was enough to give
any woman a hormonal surge. I kissed his neck, and he didn't react. I licked his ear. Nothing.
I'd been on my feet for six hours straight at Merlotte's Bar, and every time some customer had
under-tipped, or some fool had patted my fanny, I'd reminded myself that in a short while I'd be with my
boyfriend, having incredible sex and basking in his attention.

That didn't appear to be happening.
I inhaled slowly and steadily and glared at Bill's back. It was a wonderful back, with broad
shoulders, and I had planned on seeing it bare with my nails dug into it. I had counted on that very
strongly. I exhaled, slowly and steadily.
"Be with you in a minute," Bill said. On the screen, there was a snapshot of a distinguished man
with silver hair and a dark tan. He looked sort of Anthony Quinn-type sexy, and he looked powerful.
Under the picture was a name, and under that was some text. "Born 1756 in Sicily," it began. Just as I
opened my mouth to comment that vampires did appear in photographs despite the legend, Bill twisted
around and realized I was reading.
He hit a button and the screen went blank.

I stared at him, not quite believing what had just happened.
"Sookie," he said, attempting a smile. His fangs were retracted, so he was totally not in the mood
in which I'd hoped to find him; he wasn't thinking of me carnally. Like all vampires, his fangs are only fully
extended when he's in the mood for the sexy kind of lust, or the feeding-and-killing kind of lust.
(Sometimes, those lusts all get kind of snarled up, and you get your dead fang-bangers. But that element
of danger is what attracts most fang-bangers, if you ask me.) Though I've been accused of being one of
those pathetic creatures that hang around vampires in the hope of attracting their attention, there's only
one vampire I'm involved with (at least voluntarily) and it was the one sitting right in front of me. The one
who was keeping secrets from me. The one who wasn't nearly glad enough to see me.
 "Bill," I said coldly. Something was Up, with a capital U. And it wasn't Bill's libido. (Libido had
just been on my Word-A-Day calendar.)

"You didn't see what you just saw," he said steadily. His dark brown eyes regarded me without
blinking.
"Uh-huh," I said, maybe sounding just a little sarcastic. "What are you up to?"

"I have a secret assignment."

I didn't know whether to laugh or stalk away in a snit. So I just raised my eyebrows and waited
for more. Bill was the investigator for Area 5, a vampire division of Louisiana. Eric, the head of Area 5,
had never given Bill an "assignment" that was secret from me before. In fact, I was usually an integral part
of the investigation team, however unwilling I might be.

"Eric must not know. None of the Area 5 vampires can know."
My heart sank. "SoтАФif you're not doing a job for Eric, who are you working for?" I knelt