HOLIDAY KISSES:
WHAT TO BUY FOR THE
VAMP WHO HAS
EVERYTHING
A. M. Riley
www.loose-id.com
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This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id® e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
What to Buy For the Vamp Who Has Everything
A. M. Riley
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by
Loose Id LLC
870 Market St, Suite 1201
San Francisco CA 94102-2907
www.loose-id.com
Copyright © December 2008 by A. M. Riley
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.
ISBN 978-1-59632-853-2
Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader
Printed in the United States of America
Editor: Irene D. Williams
Cover Artist: April Martinez
What to Buy for the Vamp Who Has Everything
The Christmas decorations hang from the streetlights lining Sunset where the Christmas Parade passed a few days ago. Up in North Dakota, where I’m from, the tinsel and candy cane and lights look really pretty lining Main Street, with the cold gray sky and the lumps of snow all over everything. There’s the little party downtown the first night they turn the lights on and the sight of them makes you feel warm and hopeful.
Down here, it just looks like more cheap glitz. At the corner of Vine and Sunset, some bozo went and threw his girlfriend’s bra up there and it’s hanging down, too, along with the glitter. They’ll clean it up soon, don’t worry. Hollywood’s put a lot of effort into cleaning up its image. Maybe the streets are as dangerous as always, but the tourists, they don’t see any signs of it.
I’m sitting in the twenty-four-hour Dunkin’ Donuts on Vine, directly across from the Mary Pickford Motion Picture and Cinema Archives. It’s around three a.m. and all you got here in the shop are junkies filling up on sugar to quiet the jones.
This is a typical cops’ hangout. And I’m your typical cop, I guess. ’Cept I’m off duty right now. So I’m just a guy with a bag of frosted doughnuts. It’s two for one on the green 2 A. M. Riley
and red ones and so I’ve got two dozen. They were warm when I bought them, but now they’re not so much ’cause I’ve been sitting here for an hour now.
Well, there’s nothing for it. I can’t walk away and truth is I’m dying to cross the street, go around the corner on Fountain to the Archive’s service entrance where I’ve left my car. I bring the big shopping bag out of my trunk, and jog down the three steps to the loading docks.
The door’s ajar there, and the alarm has been disabled. Now normally I’d be a little worried about that. Normally I’d be calling this in and waiting for backup. But in this case I know who left the door open and I know why he’s pulled the wires out of the alarm. These film people won’t have to worry about getting burgled. If he’s here.
If he’s here. And, see, that’s the reason I was sitting in the Dunkin’ Donuts for an hour watching some poor kid, who looked like sixteen going on eighty, try to steady his hand enough to down a cup of coffee. It’s not that I’m dreading seeing what’s down in that basement. God, it’s all I can think about some days. It’s that I’m dreading the day I go down there, and he’s absent.
Especially
Noire
Athena Dorsey
Kathi S. Barton
Neeny Boucher
Elizabeth Hunter
Dan Gutman
Linda Cajio
Georgeanne Brennan
Penelope Wilson
Jeffery Deaver