Page 50 of The Vampire's Mate

Chapter 18

Somewhere arounddawn,I dozed off. I only awoke again when I felt the other side of the mattress dip. I had a fleeting moment of panic before James’s hard body slid in beside mine, his strong arm wrapping around my waist and giving me a squeeze. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he whispered, peppering kisses across my bare shoulders. “I was scared, and I overreacted.”

“Me too,” I muttered in return, barely awake enough to remember what the hell we’d been fighting about in the first place. “I don’t know what’s been going on with me lately.”

Another kiss to my neck released more of the tension. “Shiloh’s here?”

“Mmhmm.” I leaned into his lips, craving more of him. Each tender kiss lit up nerve endings beneath my skin.

“Why?”

“We were drunk.” Coming to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going back to sleep, I peeled my eyes open and turned into his chest. “I let them stay over.”

James pressed his lips to my forehead. “You really care aboutthem, don’t you?” I nodded. “I almost got jealous when I heard their heartbeat.”

I snorted. “Jealous? You? Pfft—ah!”

James dug his fingers into my stomach, and I wiggled in a vain attempt to free myself from his grip—hisvampiricgrip.

“Stop!” I cried through the laughter. “I can’t breathe!”

Reluctantly, James ceased the torture. “Humans are no fun.”

I slid out from beneath him. “I dare you to tell me that next time I have your cock in my mouth.”

That did the trick. I glanced over my shoulder as I sauntered away, and James’s eyes had turned almost predatory.

He was gone when I came out of the bathroom, but the sounds coming from the kitchen told me where he was. Before joining him, I checked on Shi; soft snoring from behind Hannah’s bedroom door confirmed they were still fast asleep. I found James in his usual spot in front of the stove.

“There’ll be plenty for them too,” he said before I could ask. The man was a caregiver through and through.

“They’ll need it.” I fished out a bottle of water and painkillers, then sat at the table. “They weren’t joking when they said they were a lightweight.”

“Two-drink drunk?” James asked, amused.

“Not even—and I watered the second down.” I cracked open my bottle, guzzling half of it before my thirst was quenched. I resorted to picking at the label as I asked James my next question. “Whydidn’tyou get jealous when you found Shi here?”

“Because nothing happened.”

“How do you know?”

James turned from the stove and brought me a plate of food. “Not only do I trust you, but I would’ve been able to smell them on you.”

“They tried to kiss me,” I confessed, dropping my voice to a whisper in case Shiloh had woken up.

“Tried to?”

I nodded, pushing the eggs around my plate. “I ducked out of it, but I kissed their temple when I put them to bed.”

Considering James had been ready to rip Luke to pieces for simply hitting on me, he was surprisingly calm after I admitted to kissing our co-worker. I wasn’t sure what made me spill everything.

“I’m not upset, love,” he finally said.

“You’re not?”

He sighed. “I don’t know what’s different between Luke and Shiloh, but the more I try to make sense of it, the more I infuriate myself.” He chuckled. “After the other night, I wouldn’t blame you if youhadshared a drunken kiss with them.”

“I couldn’t have done that—to either of you. They were too drunk to consent to a trip to Waffle House, much less anything physical.”

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