“I acquiesce to your demands,” he said solemnly. He nodded at my bovine sleepwear. “Now, I think you should take this off.”
I snorted. “Not going to happen, my friend.”
And it didn’t. Instead of hot Valentine’s Day sex, I made Gabriel paint my toes lavender (he has incredibly steady hands) while we watched the most dreaded of all chick flicks, Sleepless in Seattle. I would say he learned his lesson, but I caught him wiping at his eyes toward the end.
“Are you crying?” I asked.
“No!” he exclaimed. I snickered and patted his shoulder. “It’s just, it was so unlikely, the two of them showing up at the Empire State Building at the same time after missing each other so often. And—”
“Do you want to sleep over?” I asked suddenly.
“Will I have to sleep on the couch?”
“No, you can sleep in the guest room,” I said sweetly as I secured the blackout curtains.
“I’d rather make a run for my house,” he muttered.
I pulled back the comforter for him. “Fine.”
He grinned and stripped down to his slacks. As a habit, Gabriel didn’t wear underwear. I guess he wasn’t feeling secure enough in my good humor to sleep in the nude. He fluffed the pillows on both sides of the bed and flopped down in giddy anticipation.
“What’s with you?”
“I’m just excited,” he said, grinning.
I rolled my eyes as I reached for the bedside lamp. “Just for the record, this is my first coed sleepover since Zeb and I were in fifth grade. And even then, Mama made Zeb sleep on a different floor of the house. I am the spoonee, by the way. You are the spooner.”
“I don’t spoon,” Gabriel said.
“Well, you do now,” I told him, wrapping his arms around my waist. “You don’t snore, do you?”
“I don’t breathe.”
“Good point.”
It was nice to know that our bodies still fit together perfectly outside the sexual arena. Gabriel rested his head on my shoulder, drawing my back against his chest and his knees under my knees. We lay in silence, and I burst out laughing.
“What?” Gabriel asked. “Am I not doing the spooning right?”
“No, it’s great.” I giggled. “But sunrise is not for another four hours. We’re basically going to bed at the equivalent of two P.M. We’ve officially become the least interesting people we know. And considering that we drink blood and burst into flame when we tan, that’s sort of sad.”
“You’re saying the magic’s gone,” Gabriel said.
“Yep.”
“Well, it was nice while it lasted.” Gabriel released me and started climbing out of bed. “I’ll be going now.”
“OK, well, keep in touch.” I clasped his hand. “It was nice knowing you.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
I yanked his hand, forcing him back into the bed and rolling over me. He kissed me to show me exactly how boring we were.
“I’m sorry I ruined your Valentine’s Day,” he murmured against my neck, his voice soft on my skin. “I didn’t know it was so important to you.”
“Well, you do now. You’ve been put on notice.”
“I’m glad we’re sleeping together,” he said.
“Of course you are,” I snorted. “You have a Y chromosome.”
“I mean sleeping, as in resting,” he said, pulling me flush against him. “It’s very intimate.”
“I never should have let you watch Sleepless in Seattle,” I moaned. “I’ve ruined you.”
Gabriel did not snore. Nor did he squirm around or steal covers, which made him a far more considerate bedmate than Fitz. At dusk, I could feel the sun fading as I rolled against the contours of his side. It was sweet to wake up next to him, to see his face relaxed and his mouth hanging open. Everything was still, quiet.
I slipped my hand around his back and snuggled my face into his neck. It was oddly cool. I inhaled deeply, trying to memorize the scent of sleep on his skin, soft and clean and sweet.
I closed my eyes and swallowed against the rising sensation in my chest, a mixture of happiness that I’d finally arrived at this place in my life and fear that it would be over soon. I was even less experienced at long-term relationships than I was at decent sex. And what did I really know about either? Pledging your eternal love took on a whole new meaning when you actually lived forever.
What if Gabriel got bored with me? What if he woke up in both senses of the word and realized that I was really the same boring librarian under the fancy new fangs? What if Jeanine was the last vampire girl he’d cast off? Or worse yet, the vampire girl he was planning to be with once he’d cast me off?
These were heavy thoughts to have at vampire dawn. The noise of the gears turning in my head must have jarred Gabriel awake, because he stirred next to me, pulling on the front of my cow pajamas until I was flush against his chest.
“Morning,” he rumbled.
“Morning,” I whispered into his neck. “You sleep with your mouth open.”
“I learn something new from you every day,” he murmured, kissing my temple and stroking my back. He pulled me under him. I felt boneless, liquid, more relaxed than I’d been in weeks. I belonged here. I was wanted. I didn’t even worry about morning breath when Gabriel pressed his lips to mine, because, technically, neither of us had breath at any time of day.
The remnants of my unhappy thoughts still haunting me, I took the time to run my fingertips along his long, sinewy limbs, his smooth, pale skin. I cupped my palms around his cheeks, lazily tracing the line of his bottom lip with my thumb. I was almost beyond caring when Gabriel peeled my pajama top over my head.
“I hate these pajamas,” he muttered, tossing them over the edge of the bed. “The pajamas must go.”
“The pajamas stay,” I told him. He arched his eyebrows, making me giggle. “Well, not at the moment, obviously.”
He snickered, pushing the bottoms down to my ankles with his feet. He tucked his fingers between my hips and the waistband of my panties and tugged. The cotton buckled and tore, landing in a frayed heap next to my pajamas.
“What do you have against my panties?” I moaned, mourning the loss of yet another pair.
He smirked, casting a glance to where he was brushing against my wet, willing flesh. “Well, I think that should have been fairly obvious.”
I was still laughing when he slipped inside me. I stretched my arms above my head, gripping the headboard as he trailed kisses down my chest, increasing his pace. The deeper he drove, the tighter I held on, until I ripped the wood spokes out of the frame. I gasped, horrified at what I’d done to a family heirloom. And then I just gasped, lost in the waves of sensation that threatened to drag me under.
When I came to, I still had the hunks of wood clutched in my hands. Gabriel looked vaguely guilty.
“We made it to a bed,” he offered meekly.
“And then we destroyed it,” I moaned. “But it was worth it.”
He pulled me onto his chest, pushing my hair out of my face before pulling me close.
“It’s kind of weird to see Mr. Big Bad Vampire being all cuddly.” I chuckled. “It kind of destroys your mystique.”
“I haven’t had a lot of good, soft things in my life,” he said against my forehead. “Not since my family sent me away. Apart from being your sire and feeling that pull to you, it’s that goodness, that softness and warmth, along with the resolve and strength in you, that I love. Being turned hasn’t taken that from you. If someone were going to design the perfect mate for me, it would be you. Even when you infuriate me with your pigheaded stubbornness and your temper and incredible lack of anything resembling self-preservation—”
“Stop describing me, please.”
“You’re the most fascinating, maddening, adorable creature I’ve ever met,” he said, sighing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. “So, when I seem possessive or I’m raving like a lunatic, it’s just that part of me is still very afraid that I’ll lose that—that I’ll lose you. I love you.”
“That’s such a normal boyfriend thing to say. I’m so proud and yet a little freaked out.”
“Stop joking and listen to me,” he said. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” I objected. “That was a very normal thing for a boyfriend to say.”
He grinned down at me. “Does that mean I’m your boyfriend?”
“Oh, my Lord, this is such a juvenile conversation to have with a hundred-and-fifty-year-old man,” I groaned. “Yes, Gabriel, I would like you to be my boyfriend. I think we should go steady. I don’t want to be with any other vampire but you. I love you. Idiot.”
“We need new nicknames for each other,” he said. When I shoved at his shoulders, he grinned. “I haven’t loved anyone in a long time. And I’m glad it’s you. I’m glad I met you on the worst day of your life.”
“Well, you certainly made it more memorable.”
12
Bachelorette parties are less about celebrating the bride’s acquisition of a husband and more about making the female relatives feel vindication after the wedding planning process.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
When we were kids, Zeb and I used to spend post-sleepover mornings eating Cap’n Crunch and watching the Smurfs. Somehow, I didn’t think Gabriel would appreciate the same routine.
I padded into the kitchen, still clad in flannel cows, and warmed up a healthy breakfast of donated Type A. Gabriel let Fitz out to snag the evening edition of the Half-Moon Herald from the end of the driveway. Unfortunately, Gabriel overestimated Fitz’s capabilities and had to get the paper himself. We climbed onto the porch swing to sip blood and read the happenings in the Herald while Fitz gamboled around the yard chasing his own tail.
It was strangely domestic, with the exception of finding another package on my doorstep. We were both relieved that it was just the genealogical information Daddy had found on Mr. Wainwright’s family. Despite my library background, my strength tends toward database research, whereas Daddy excels with the dusty-old-book route. After Mr. Wainwright lamented his lack of family history, I’d asked Daddy to use his mojo.
Gabriel left for some council meeting, and I ripped into the research without bothering to change out of my pajamas. Daddy had done an impressive job. He found copies of Mr. Wainwright’s old school pictures from Half-Moon Hollow Public School archives and an old newspaper clipping announcing Gilbert Wainwright’s engagement to Brigid Brannagan, a girl he met while traveling in County Cork. Daddy found Mr. Wainwright’s parents’ marriage certificate and both of their obituaries. Searching through old records kept in the courthouse basement—records Daddy accessed through a school chum named Deeter who worked there as a night janitor—Daddy found the origins of the Wainwright family. Gilbert Wainwright’s father, Gordon Wainwright, was the son of Albert Wainwright, son of Eugenia Wainwright, a laundry woman who had worked on the Cheney family farm. She had Albert in 1879 but drowned a short time later during the town’s inaugural Fourth of July picnic down at the riverfront.
Eugenia was unmarried, and there was no father listed on the birth certificate for young Albert. Albert was sent to an orphanage and raised there until he ran away at age ten. According to a book Daddy found in the library’s special collections, called The Hollow Frontier, Albert worked at the railway station and eventually took a job on a barge traveling the Ohio River, before returning home to the Hollow in the 1920s. He was known for opening one of the first successful saloons in the Hollow, the one my great-grandmother burned. While water-stained and crumbling, the book contained a copy of a tintype of Albert.
“Oh, man,” I breathed, startled by Albert’s face. I flipped to Daddy’s research on Eugenia, whom one of the groundskeepers at the Cheney farm described as a “big buxom piece of woman.”
I flipped back to the picture of Albert, who bore a striking resemblance to Dick. The same light, laughing eyes, the same devilish smile, the same long, patrician nose. But Albert looked to be at least fifteen years older than Dick had been when he was turned. I checked the date on the photo and did some quick math in my head, then groaned. “Dang it.”
I sat at Specialty Books’ counter, drumming my fingers compulsively against the glass. Mr. Wainwright was puttering in the back, tossing his way through the reference section I’d just spent the better part of two days cataloguing. Knowing that my nephew Andrew had a birthday coming up, he insisted that a tome entitled A Pop-Up Dictionary of Demons would be a perfect gift. I was inclined to agree with him, because it might make Jenny swallow her tongue.
In a rare show of discretion, I didn’t mention my discovery to Mr. Wainwright. I wanted to surprise him somehow, and I didn’t think blurting it out as soon as I opened the door would fit the occasion.
The front doorbell tinkled, and I turned to find Mr. Wainwright’s long-lost great-granddaddy standing at the counter with a scowl on his face.
“Well, Jane, you crook your little finger, and I come running,” Dick said, clearly in a very grumpy mood. “Seems I’m always running after women who aren’t interested.”
“Andrea turned you down again, huh?”
He made a sour face. The more I stared at him, the more I saw a resemblance to Albert—and, for that matter, to Mr. Wainwright. My employer had a smaller build and more delicate features but the same tilting smile, the same green, twinkling eyes. I was a little ashamed that I had missed it.