Page 48 of Road Trip with a Vampire
Was Ithatunguarded around Peter? I didn’t think so, but then I thought of how he’d remembered I didn’t sleep well just from one offhand comment I’d made weeks ago. The way he’d known I was too clumsy to be a dancer from the way my feet and legs were proportioned.
Either way, this was not a conversation I wanted to have.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, with as much confidence as I could muster.
“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “Before this trip, I thought maybe I was imagining things. But I’m not.” His eyes met mine. “You don’t look like you’re in discomfort at all right now. And you’ve just cast a spell. Which leads me to think you not using your magic has something to do with it.”
Oh gods. What did I say to all this?
Peter spoke again before I could decide. “Do you judge me for needing to drink blood to survive?”
I blinked at him. Whatever I’d expected him to say next, it hadn’t been that. “What?”
“This is relevant, I promise,” he said.
I considered his question. Did I like that vampires drank blood? No. It was gross at best and violent at worst. But did Ijudgevampires for eating the way they ate due to their innate biological imperative?
“Of course I don’t judge you,” I answered honestly.
“Why not?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “You’re just doing what you need to do to survive.”
His smug expression told me this was exactly the answer he’d been looking for. “Then why do you judge yourself for doing whatyouneed to do to survive?”
“It’s…not the same thing,” I spluttered.
“Isn’t it?”
My head was spinning. “No,” I said flatly. “I don’t need my powers to survive.”
“But you need them tothrive.” He sat back on his haunches, considering me. “If you don’t expect vampires to suppress who we are, why do you insist on suppressing whoyouare?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that he was comparing two very different things. Then closed it again when I realized I couldn’t.
It was apparently all the confirmation Peter needed. He nodded, satisfied that he’d caught me, then stood up. Now he loomed over me from where I still sat on the edge of the bed. My eyes traveled up, up, up his body until they reached his face.
He could overpower me so easily, I realized. Push me down and take anything he wanted.
But I knew, with a certainty I’d seldom felt, that he never would.
His expression was unreadable. “I…need a shower,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”
It was nearly three inthe morning, but I was way too wired to sleep. Once I heard Peter’s shower running, I got out my phone to check my texts. I’d long been in the habit of muting them during business hours to minimize distractions and thenchecking them once I got home from work. But I was all out of my routine and had forgotten about my phone until just now.
My stomach sank.
Becky and Lindsay had texted over a dozen times.
Becky:I know you’ve only been gone a few hours but I am still worried about you driving across the country with a stranger
Becky:Please write back and let us know you aren’t dead in a ditch somewhere
Lindsay:ALSO—v important, we finally got the dirt on Katie’s ex-husband
Lindsay:(Katie from Early Crew, not Katie from Lunch Bunch btw)
Becky:Oh yeah
