“It’s not like that,” Michael said. “I like being a vampire. The feeding’s tricky at times, but it’s opened up an entire new world that I didn’t know even existed. I have new abilities, and I’ve met fascinating people I would have never met otherwise. I don’t regret it.”
I regretted it for him, though. He should have been living in the suburbs by now, with 2.5 kids, a dog, and a cubicle job or something. “You didn’t stay with Gemma?”
He shook his head. “Not long. She didn’t want a partner, just a drinking buddy. We parted on good terms. After she left, I traveled through Europe and Asia, visiting some of the vampire havens along the way. After a couple of years of that, I got bored and decided I wanted to come back to the States. And since I’m new to the area, I joined the dating agency.” He shrugged. “It’s uneventful, I’m sorry to say.”
He’d traveled the world and been turned into a vampire. I’d been working at the local storage unit and wishing I’d had the guts to stand up to my parents back when I had the chance.
He smiled over at me. “What about you? Living it up since college? What did you get your degree in?”
I chewed on my lip. Tell him the truth? Lie? I sighed after a moment and decided to go for the totally unglamorous truth. “I dropped out a few days after you did. I was… struggling.”
“I see,” he said, but it didn’t sound judging. “You didn’t go back?”
I shook my head, regret washing through me. “No. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I decided to work instead.”
“Where do you work?”
“Cool Storage,” I said, and then snorted. “I’m a security guard. Funny, huh?”
“Why? I think you’d be amazing at whatever you put your mind to.”
His admiring tone bothered me. I gave him a bitter look and flicked my fingers, as if brushing off his compliments. “No, you don’t. You think I’m a loser because I’ve been stuck in a dead-end job in the same city since you last saw me. I didn’t get a degree, I don’t have a family, and I’m resorting to meeting men through a dating agency, even though I should be able to find someone easily since shifter women are rare. Yet here I am, on the lam with a vampire on a date that won’t quite end. A vampire who dumped me four years ago, I might add.” I tightened the blankets around my body and resisted the urge to turn my face to the wall. “Kind of a shitty date, if you ask me.”
Silence. He raked his hand through his hair again, then scratched his head. “I’m sorry, Ruby.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m the one who’s being unreasonable and ridiculous.”
“You’re not unreasonable. Or ridiculous,” he said vehemently.
“No?” My tone was bitter. “You, of all people, should find me so.”
“I would never think that about you,” he said, his eyes going black with emotion. “I loved you,” he said, and my heart stuttered for a moment. “. . . back when we were in college.”
My heart stopped stuttering.
“You’re just as warm and funny and strong now as you were back then, and I still want to be your friend. You are the furthest thing from unreasonable that I could imagine.”
My cheeks pinked a little. I was having mixed feelings about the way he kept tossing “friend” out there, as if he were trying to remind me that our relationship was now platonic. Well… maybe not so platonic. Friends with benefits.
Speaking of. “So, um, do you really need to drink three times a day?”
He shrugged, raking a hand through his spiky hair again. “We can skip meals, but, just like regular people, we start to feel light-headed and weak.”
“Huh. Any other stuff about vampires I should know?”
He gave me a thoughtful look, then leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. The casual pose was so utterly Michael that my heart gave that crazy little flip again. “Let’s see. The garlic thing works. Holy water, yes, crosses, yes. Can’t see reflection in mirrors. There’s an old tale about not being able to cross water, but that’s not true. Oh, and we can’t turn into bats. Sunlight will supposedly fry us to a crisp in about ten minutes, and I’ve never felt the urge to test it.”
I was distracted by his long hands and the tilt of his body as he shifted closer. When he leaned forward, he was almost touching my foot with his fingers. It wouldn’t take much for him to slide his hand under the blanket, where I was na**d and waiting for him. “And your heart?” I asked lightly. “Does it beat?”
“Nope,” he said, and a boyish grin crossed his face. “Want to hear?”
“Is it weird if I do?” I sat up straighter on the bed, clutching the blankets close.
“Nah. It was the first thing I wondered about, too. Well, that and the bat thing.” He got up from the chair and sat next to me on the bed. “Come listen.”
He lay back, and I crawled forward, hugging the blanket to my bare br**sts. He smiled at me, and I felt that same weird little surge. It felt as if time hadn’t passed and we hadn’t spent four years apart, wishing things had been different. I could almost imagine that we were together again.
I laid my ear against his chest and waited. And waited. And then I realized I would keep waiting, because I wasn’t hearing anything. It was like pressing my ear to a block of wood.
“Wow,” I said, a laugh surging from me. “That’s kind of freaky.”
“Not that freaky. If you can overlook the cool skin, you can overlook the heart thing, right?”
I felt his hand touch the strands of my hair that spilled over his chest. Desire flashed through me, and I sat up, looking down at him. His pupils had darkened again, the laughing smile gone from his beautiful face.
I let the sheet drop, exposing my br**sts to his gaze. “Thirsty?”
The Adam’s apple in his neck bobbed. “Always.”
The fangs sprouted from his mouth, and I watched them descend, so long that they practically scraped his chin. I touched one with my finger, curious, and enjoyed his shudder.
“Do my… changes… frighten you?” He gestured at himself, his voice thick as if it were difficult to speak around his fangs.
I shrugged. “You’re talking to a were-jaguar. You’re different but not frightening.” My smile curved, and I leaned in to run the tip of my tongue over one tooth. “Besides, I think my teeth are longer in my cat form.”
“Ruby,” he said with a groan, and his hand reached for the back of my neck, as if he wanted to pull me down against him. “You don’t have to do this. I know you don’t want to be here.”
“If I didn’t want to be here,” I said softly, “I’d have changed and left two days ago.”
When I leaned in to kiss him, his arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me against him. His fangs retracted when my mouth touched his, and his tongue darted to brush against my own. Immediately, I felt that wonderful blossom of pleasure from his mouth, the languid kiss of the aphrodisiac. I fell onto him, my br**sts pressing against his shirt.
He gave a low growl of frustration and, with supernatural speed, flipped me to my back on the mattress.
I laughed. “Now, that was a neat trick.”
He grinned back at me, tugging his clothes off. “I’m about to show you another.”
When he’d removed his shirt and jacket, I reached for him, running my hands over the cool pads of muscle. He’d always had a trim, muscular body, and I loved that it hadn’t changed. I sighed at the simple pleasure of being able to run my hands down his chest.
He leaned in and kissed me, the kiss increasing in intensity and longing. When it broke, I was panting for breath. His hand slid to my breast and cupped it, and then he moved lower, until his mouth hovered over my nipple, the other gently teased to a peak by his hand. I could feel his breath over the tip of my breast. “Ready?”
I writhed under him. “Ready for what?”
He didn’t respond, just leaned in and licked my nipple. I sucked in a breath at the feel of his mouth on the sensitive tip… and then the aphrodisiac kicked in. I moaned as intense pleasure spiraled through my body, the nipple growing hot and hard with desire. I surged up under him.
“Oh, my God.”
“I know,” he said smugly, and then licked my breast again. The second lick felt as if it were pulsing directly to my sex, so intense was the pleasure. My hands fisted in the pillow behind my head, and I groaned with pleasure, panting when he moved his mouth to the other breast and did the same. Moments later, my br**sts were twin beacons of exquisite, intense pleasure, and Michael wasn’t done with me yet. He slipped down my belly, pressed a brief kiss to my belly button, and then hovered at the apex of my thighs.
“Ready?” His low, sensual murmur rolled over my skin, increasing the intense pleasure. My ni**les were so hard they ached, and I felt as if I’d come off the bed if he didn’t put his mouth on me again. “Michael, please. Oh, please—”
When he put his mouth on my sex, the entire world upended itself, right then and there.
Everything began and ended with Michael.
—
A few hours later, after Michael had fed and we’d had sex again, we snuggled under the blankets. Neither of us had chatted much afterward, but we weren’t ready to sleep, either. The sun would be up soon enough, and we’d sleep then. Until he closed his eyes, I’d kiss and caress every inch of him.
His fingers brushed circles on my skin, and I traced the contours of his chest, feeling every ridge of his six-pack. “So why is Mariah obsessed with you?” I finally asked.
He sighed heavily. “I think it’s because I’m new to the community. She views me like an exotic toy, and I’m single and have no blood partner. She thinks that since she’s a female vampire, I should be grateful that she wants me for a blood partner.”