“N-nothing.”
He tucked his tongue into his cheek and herded her down the hallway, toward the back door. “As luck would have it, we do have a driver.”
“Who is it?”
Jonas hesitated with a hand on the doorknob. “One of my roommates, Tucker. Prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
He opened his mouth to answer, closed it and pushed open the door instead. She heard the low pump of bass before the black Impala slid into view at the curb, idling for a moment, before the passenger side window rolled down—and smoke billowed out into the night air. It cleared to reveal a Cheshire smile with a cigar clamped somewhere in its midst. The smile belonged to a man who was more like a mountain, a gold chain draped around his thick neck.
Brightly colored tattoos were the only thing covering him, as he was decidedly shirtless, his coloring reminding Ginny of a slightly sunburned Irishman she’d once worked on in the morgue who’d died while on vacation.
“Jonas,” called Tucker, taking the cigar out of his mouth slowly. “That’s a human girl.”
“I’m well aware of what she is. Put out the cigar.”
Tucker didn’t look happy about stubbing out the stogie in his ashtray. “Are we having her for dinner?” he drawled. “Or having her for dinner?”
Jonas left her wobbling in the wake of his swift departure. One second he was standing beside her, the next he was speaking to Tucker in a low, unintelligible tone through the driver’s side window.
After a moment of listening, Tucker threw back his head and laughed. “The prince himself is breaking the rules. Holy shit, man, this is going to be interesting.”
Ginny was in the backseat of the car before she could catch her breath, Jonas pressed in beside her. “What did you say to him?”
“Only that he’d be having stake for dinner if he comes within five feet of you.”
“Steak? I thought you don’t eat food.”
“S-t-a-k-e.”
“Oh.” Once she’d absorbed that violent implication, she leaned forward. “It’s lovely to meet you, Tucker. You’re the prankster, are you?”
“At your service.”
“I’m sorry Jonas has already threatened your life on my behalf, but you have to admit it’s well deserved after leaving him to be embalmed.”
Humor-filled eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “Threats to my life are all in a day’s work.”
“The day’s work of a vampire?”
“Nope.” He pointed to the circular sticker in his front window. “An Uber driver.”
Ginny chuckled. “I see.”
“Don’t judge me too harshly for the prank, sweetheart,” Tucker continued. “Playing the occasional trick keeps us human. As much as that’s possible, anyway. Think of it as me doing him a favor.”
“I’ll never understand how you get Elias to agree to these pranks,” Jonas muttered. “It’s not exactly his style.”
“I caught him with a picture of Roksana. I promised not to tell anyone if he’d help me execute the prank.” He gave an exaggerated wince. “Whoops.”
“Drive the car,” Jonas said mildly. “And don’t call Ginny ‘sweetheart.’”
Jonas was reaching up with the thin, black swath of material, preparing to tie it around Ginny’s eyes, when a thought occurred. “Jonas, how do I know you’re not the one dropping me into oceans and highways?”
His hands dropped like stones to the seat. Several seconds ticked by. “How can you ask me that?”
She waited.
“I’ve explained to you, it would take someone older and more powerful to transport you like that.”
“How do I know that’s true?” Without breaking the intensity of their stare, she reached down and fingered the material of the blindfold. “You’re asking for my absolute trust and giving me none in return, Dreamboat.”
“She called him Dreamboat!” More raucous laughter from Tucker. “Yes, indeed. This is going to be goddamn interesting.”
Jonas’s tortured expression was the last thing she saw before the blindfold turned her world black.
Ginny mentally counted the third right they’d taken since leaving P. Lynn Funeral Home, though she couldn’t be sure they hadn’t doubled back or taken a meandering route to throw her off. Every time they hit a straightaway, she counted the seconds until the next turn and committed the directions to memory, just in case she ever needed them. As a lifelong Coney Island resident, Ginny knew at least four ways to reach the boardwalk. If she wasn’t mistaken, they weren’t too far from the world-famous planks when Tucker pulled the parking brake.
“I’ll park and meet you inside,” Jonas’s roommate called. “Don’t say or do anything worth gossiping about until I get back.”
Jonas hummed distractedly. “She’ll need food and water. Can you pick up some groceries? Eggs, bread, milk…”
Tucker made a sound. “Gross.”
“Get a blanket for her, too.”
“Yes, almighty prince.”
The back door on Jonas’s side opened and then he was lacing their fingers together, sending stardust blustering up her arm. He helped her step out of the car, though Ginny sensed his hesitation before he put an arm around the small of her back, urging her forward. A door opened and cool air crept out, wrapping around Ginny until she was fully ensconced inside of it. That same door closed behind her, dropping them into a total lack of sound. The sounds of traffic, seagulls and car radios cut off abruptly and all she could hear were her and Jonas’s footsteps.
“We’re going into an elevator now,” he murmured near her ear, steering her to the left. “I’ll have the blindfold off soon.”
She folded her arms across her chest, feeling the metal box lurch downward, followed by the familiar mechanical whine of a moving elevator.
“Are you giving me the silent treatment?”
Ginny kept her lips pressed into a straight line, because yes, she was rather irritated and if she started talking, all manner of smart comments would probably tumble out of her mouth. Just this evening, she’d almost been run over by a semi truck. Now she was being shuffled around by a highhanded vampire who still had plans to apply white out to her memory bank and didn’t want Ginny knowing where he lived. He was hedging his bets about her when she didn’t have the option to do the same.
“I’m sorry you don’t agree with my methods, Ginny,” he said in a low voice. “I only want to keep you safe.”
Okay. She definitely wasn’t cut out to administer the silent treatment. Words were leapfrogging over one another to exit her throat. “Why do you care what happens to me?”
The vein in his temple ticked. “There’s a complicated answer to that question.”
She took off the blindfold, ignoring his censorious look. “Try.”
Jonas stared straight ahead into the metal doors of the elevator. When Ginny followed his gaze, the only face staring back in the reflective surface was her own. A tingle crawled up her spine. She glanced back to find Jonas studying her reaction closely. “If someone put a single scratch on your skin, I would go utterly mad, Ginny, and yet I burn to sink my teeth into your neck every second of the day. I don’t know how to uncomplicate that for you.” The elevator doors rolled open. “Welcome home.”
Her exhale emerged as shaky as her legs. “What would happen if you did?” she managed. “Drink my blood, that is.”
Green cinders whipped up in his eyes, his hand curling around the elevator’s handrail. “I may have trouble stopping.”
“You think you’ll kill me, don’t you? Break one rule, break them all.” She stepped forward. “But I know you wouldn’t.”
“You’re so sure, are you?” His attention strayed to her neck. “We’re finished speaking of this,” he bit off, reaching down and taking Ginny by the wrist, leading her out of the elevator, into a cement corridor with a single light bulb buzzing in front of yet another door. “I will keep you safe from me and whoever is trying to hurt you. That’s a promise.”
“Will your roommates…” She gestured to her neck. “Will they feel the way you do about the sinking of the teeth?”
He followed the action of her hand with rapt interest. “Me reacting this way to you is unusual enough. Two of us would be unheard of.” Jonas took out a set of keys from inside his jacket pocket. “Still, I’m taking no chances with you, so I considered it. If Tucker felt this level of…” He blew out a breath. “…hunger, we’d already know it, since you rode in the same car. If Elias feels even a tenth of my thirst for you, I’ll take you elsewhere. He’s younger and doesn’t have the same willpower to abstain,” he said, cutting her a sideways glance. “If mine is testing its limits, someone without the same strength wouldn’t be able to cope.”
“Oh.” She gulped. “Great.”
“Ginny,” he said, trailing his knuckles down her cheekbone. “You are safe. I would never have brought you here otherwise.”
She nodded.
He unlocked the door and she followed him into…what was this place?
They walked into blue. It felt like the bottom of the ocean.
“Sorry about the darkness. We see as well in the pitch black as we do in the light.” He walked to the closest sconce and twisted a knob, casting a faint glow. “I’ll make sure we keep them on while you’re here.”
Ginny nodded. “Thanks.”
The wide, low-ceilinged room was painted in an azure glow, courtesy of a backlit fish tank arranged against the far wall. To the right was a dining table surrounded by shelving and a counter that ran the length of the wall, to the left was a living space, complete with plush gray couches and a nine-thousand-inch television. A bachelor pad to the extreme, although it wasn’t shaped like a typical apartment. Something about the layout and lack of warmth suggested it had been used commercially.