“What?” His eyebrows snap into a frown. “You must be joking—you can’t stay in a place with no heat. That’s inhumane.”
“Thanks.” I scoff, despite the ribbon of blush I feel curling up my neck. “Apparently my landlord doesn’t give a shit.”
“Well…” Orfeo drags his teeth over his bottom lip, suddenly drawing my attention to how unbelievably kissable his mouth is. Genetically modified to make me want to crawl across this rug, push him back against the couch, throw my leg over his hips, and just—“I can drop off our essays, then I’ll take a look at your heater.”
“Oh.” I furrow my brow, then shake my head. “Don’t you have to work?”
“Not until midnight.” He checks his watch. “I have an hour—more than enough time.” I watch his expression change like the sky at dawn; a smile lighting up his features the way a sunrise paints everything bright. “I’ll be fast. I’m good with my hands.”
“Oh, really?”
“Uh huh. Notably good.”
“Notably good,” I repeat dryly, fighting fiercely against the smile pulling at my lips. “Well, don’t let me get in the way of your reputation then.”
He gives me a quick once-over, a hot sweep of his eyes over my body. “Don’t worry, I haven’t left a customer unsatisfied in over fifty years.”
He sounds so damn proud of himself. I gawk, snagging the pillow up off the floor and tossing it at his head. “You pig!”
He catches it easily, lazily intercepting its path directly toward his face. “Come on, Diantha. Enough goofing off. We need to keep you warm.”
Our words melt into laughter. We pull on our coats, and I bundle myself against the cold. Even as the night air bites at my cheeks, there’s a warmth that stays lit inside my chest. When Orfeo holds the door open for me and slows his pace to stay by my side, it only intensifies.
Orfeo drops off our essays, evading locked doors through some sort of warp-speed vampiric power, and then we take the long way back to my apartment. The streets of Echidna are eerily quiet, but as we pass behind Devil’s Row, I can make out the drunken shrieks and thudding music coming from all the bars and clubs.
We reach my place, and I lead Orfeo through the front door and up the three flights of steps to my studio, once the servants’ quarters of this two-hundred-year-old townhome.
My apartment is slightly less cold than it was this morning, but regardless, I keep my jacket on.
When I flick on the lights, I find Orfeo shockingly close with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows pinched into afearsome frown. “It’s freezing in here, Diantha. You could have died.” He points toward my bed. “And no more Hello Kitty?”
“Um, that was actually Kuromi before. She’s like Hello Kitty’s goth friend. Anyway.” I clear my throat. “Guilty on both counts.”
Hetsks at me. “I miss the Kookoomi.”
Then he pulls off his jacket and his sweater and demands to see my toolbox—all while wearing the tightest undershirt I’ve ever seen in my life.
“I hate to disappoint you and whatever idea you might have about me being a strong, fiercely independent woman.” I hand him my “toolbox”—a double-knotted CVS bag from three rebrands ago. Inside, there’s a wrench, a screwdriver, a hammer, and a handful of nails. “This is all I have.”
He takes the bag from me, lips pulled to the side in a look of deep consternation. He unfurls the mess before extracting my Phillips screwdriver and holding it up between us. “This is one of your occult relics, no? An ancient object from Mesopotamia?”
“Ha ha.” I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him and instead shrug off my jacket and toe off my boots. Undeniably, this damn vampire is warming up my apartment. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water? Coffee?”
Orfeo flashes me a sardonic smile before grabbing a chair and getting to work on the mini-split unit near my bed. “It has been a very long time since someone has offered me a coffee.”
“Sorry—is that stupid?” I feel my cheeks heat. “It just feels rude not to?—”
“No, no. I like it.” He works the screwdriver at a dizzying pace. “Makes me feel human again.”
“Well…” I lean against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest. “What would happen if you drank coffee?”
He pushes out his bottom lip, shrugs. “Nothing. Maybe the flavor would be offensive…” He presses his tongue to the ridge of his top lip, curling his fingers around the heater’s front casingand popping it off with almost no effort. The thick, corded muscles in his forearms don’t even tense.He’s strong. “Maybe I would enjoy it.”
I swallow against the sudden swell in my throat. “I can make a pretty mean cappuccino. Wanna try?”
He clicks his tongue at me, shaking his head. “Oh, Diantha. A cappuccino is not something you drink at night.”
“I forgot—Italians love food rules.”
