Page 121 of My Vampire Plus-One

That shouldn’t have surprised me, knowing Reggie. “You do?”

He pulled out an eyebrow pencil and drew a line just above each of my eyebrows. “I do,” he confirmed. “Doing stage makeup was one of my favorite pastimes in the 1970s.” He set the pencil down on the counter and grinned at me. “There. Now look at yourself in the mirror and tell me that you don’t look fabulous.”

Fabulouswas not the word I would have used to describe my appearance. My hair was so teased and sprayed I would have looked more at home in an ’80s hair band than Gretchen’s wedding. And he’d used more black eyeliner on me than I’d worn cumulatively my entire life.

“I look like an electrocuted raccoon,” I mused. “Aunt Sue will lose her shit if I show up looking like this.”

Reggie put his thumb beneath my chin, tilting it up a little so he could examine my face. “Probably,” he admitted. “I’ll take it down a notch. Or possibly ten notches. By the way, I deserve an award for keeping my hands above your shoulders this entiretime. It’s unfair that kissing you right now will ruin my work.” He turned my chin again so that I had to look into his eyes. “Incidentally, do you have any idea how brilliant you are?”

It didn’t matter how often he’d said it to me by that point. My face warmed at the genuine affection in his voice as though it was the first time. I reached up and tangled my fingers through his hair because I knew he liked it when I messed it all up.

“Tell me again?” I asked.

It was the only incentive he seemed to need to lean in and brush his lips against mine. “So brilliant,” he said. “Themostbrilliant. There are no words.”

When he pulled back to run a washcloth beneath the faucet, I stilled his hand. “We still have a little time, don’t we?” I wanted to kiss him properly before we left for the wedding.

“A little,” he agreed. “But not enough for me to do what I want to do to you.”

He caught up my mouth in another kiss, this time with more heat behind it. “What do you want to do to me?” I asked, already breathing hard.

He sighed and rested his forehead against mine. “I want to skip the wedding and get you back to my apartment.”

“To do what?” I asked, innocently.

He gave me a wicked grin, then pushed me back until I was pinned between his body and the wall.

“We don’t have time for this,” I laughed. Reggie kissed up the column of my throat, undeterred, inching up the skirt of my sky-blue sheath dress until it bunched at my waist. I swatted playfully at his shoulder. “You’ll get my dress all wrinkled.”

“I don’t care. Let’s take it off.” He slipped a hand between us, pressing the heel of his palm against the sensitive place that in only a month’s time he’d already come to know so well. He’dbeen insatiable ever since we got word his pursuers had gone into hiding. So had I. I writhed against him, unable to help myself. “Do we really have to go to this thing?”

His fangs were out; I could feel their faint impression against my throat. I groaned with renewed desire. He’d bitten me a few times by that point, shocking me with how much I enjoyed it.

With how much I craved it.

But we didn’t have time for this now.

I pulled his hand away from my body, then laughed breathlessly at his forlorn sigh. “Yes, we have to go to the wedding. This wedding was why I asked you out in the first place.”

“You asked me out to show your family you weren’t single,” he said. “We’ve already done that.” He dipped his head again and began worrying at my clavicle with his tongue.

He’s right, I thought, as I gave in to sensation. Not only did my family know we were a couple, but my parentslikedhim.

But we couldn’t bail on Gretchen’s wedding. That would be wrong, even if in the moment I couldn’t remember why.

I pushed at Reggie’s shoulders until he relented and took a small step back. “I promise we can do this after the reception,” I managed. “We can even leave early.”

Reggie pouted like a child whose candy had just been taken away. God, he was adorable. “You promise?”

“I promise,” I said. I wanted this as badly as he did. “Now let’s get this makeup off my face, and then head to the ceremony before anyone wonders where we are.”

•••••••

“Ready?”

“I’m ready,” I said, smiling up at Reggie from where he stood just outside my car. “Let’s go in.”

When I’d gotten the invitation to this wedding six weeks ago, I’d initially rolled my eyes at Gretchen holding it at the same country club all our cousins had used. But Reggie couldn’t go inside any sort of Christian church without, apparently, bursting into flames. (Inconvenient, he’d said, when he told me.)

---