Page 81 of My Vampire Plus-One

“So,” I said, trying to make sense of everything he was telling me, “for the past hundred and fifty years or so, you were a jerk to keep people from getting close?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know if you can really describe my behavior in the past tense like that.”

“You haven’t been a jerk to me.”

He gave me a small smile. “I suppose that’s true.” His gaze softened. “I haven’t been tempted to be an asshole to you even once.”

I didn’t know what to do with the look he was giving me. It was too much, too warm. I couldn’t look away. “Does that mean that you don’t like me enough to worry about losing me?”

Even as I said the words, I knew it wasn’t true. An expression I didn’t recognize crossed his face. “No,” he said. He gathered me even closer to him. When I didn’t resist, or move away, he tipped my chin up with a finger so I had to look him in the eyes. “That isn’t what it means at all.”

His face was so close I could all but taste his breathing. Kissing him would have been the easiest thing in the world. Easier thannotkissing him, honestly. A slight tilt of my head would have our lips meeting and our worlds crashing together again. He was thinking the same thing I was—I could feel it in my bones, could see it in the dilation of his eyes—but I knew he wouldn’t make the first move again. My earlier admonition against future make-out sessions was clearly at the front of his mind, even as his eyes fell to my mouth.

“It’s pretty out here tonight, isn’t it?” I asked, desperate to break the tension simmering between us. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. Snuggling out here wasn’t kissing him, after all.Thiswasn’t going to make me lose sense and want to sleep with him the way kissing him would.Thiswas okay. “Let’s stay out here for a little while longer before heading back inside.”

He sighed. A moment later, his other arm came up to wrap around me, too.

“Of course,” he murmured against the top of my head. “As long as you like.”

Reginald

Amelia must have fallen asleep.

One moment she was commenting on how beautifully the moonlight glinted off the snow in the forest. The next, her breathing had gone all deep and even, her body still and warm in my arms.

I was so entranced by the feel of her, by the fact that she hadn’t so much as flinched when I told her my darkest secret, that it wasn’t until she began shivering that it sank in through my thick skull that it was freezing out there.

A fierce protective surge shot through me like adrenaline.

I needed to get Amelia inside.

I gathered her up, my frozen heart breaking at how light and fragile she was. I could hurt her so easily, I realized. I never would. I cradled her against my chest, wishing my body retained some semblance of a human’s warmth. It was well below freezing outside.

What if I wasn’t enough to protect her from the elements?

She stirred a little when we were halfway to the house. “Don’t,” she murmured, head lolling against my shoulder. Her sleepy breaths were warm puffs of air against my neck. She smelled like everything I had ever wanted.Hades, I wanted to kiss her fully awake. I quickened my pace, hoping she was too sleepy to realize that my earlier struggles with the snowshoes had all been an act to make me seem more human. “I can walk.”

Like I would really put her down before I’d gotten her back home. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to set her down even once we’d gotten back inside.Dangerous, an internal voice was screaming.This will only cause pain, later.

I ignored it.

“You’d been asleep for fifteen minutes before I worked up the courage to do this,” I said. And then, before I could stop my idiot mouth from saying anything else, “You’re so beautiful when you’re sleeping.”

And then, we were at the house.

Then, her bedroom.

I carried her inside without preamble and laid her gently down on her bed. I should have turned and left the room, but I didn’t. I stepped back to look at her, gorgeous and inviting, her beautiful dark blond hair curling in soft waves on her pillow.

If her eyes had been open, she’d have seen it written all over my face just how desperately I was falling for her.

There was another howling gust of wind from outside. It shook the entire house, rattling the windowpanes. The lights flickered but thankfully didn’t go out. The blizzard had apparently decided it wasn’t done fucking with us yet.

Amelia’s eyes flew open. She tugged on my sleeve.

“Stay,” she said, sounding frightened. The wind gusted again, causing the shutters on her bedroom window to creak and the eaves outside to groan. She squeezed her eyes shut again. “It’s embarrassing to admit this, but winter storms terrify me at night. If I’m in my room, and you’re at the other end of the cabin, it’ll feel like I’m truly all alone.” And then, in a much quieter voice, she added, “My bed is big enough for two.”

I could almost feel my mind splitting into two clean halves.

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