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“The pajamas stay,” I told him. He arched his eyebrows, making me giggle. “Well, not at the moment, obviously.”
He snickered, pushing the bottoms down to my ankles with his feet. He tucked his fingers between my hips and the waistband of my panties and tugged. The cotton buckled and tore, landing in a frayed heap next to my pajamas.
“What do you have against my panties?” I moaned, mourning the loss of yet another pair.
He smirked, casting a glance to where he was brushing against my wet, willing flesh. “Well, I think that should have been fairly obvious.”
I was still laughing when he slipped inside me. I stretched my arms above my head, gripping the headboard as he trailed kisses down my chest, increasing his pace. The deeper he drove, the tighter I held on, until I ripped the wood spokes out of the frame. I gasped, horrified at what I’d done to a family heirloom. And then I just gasped, lost in the waves of sensation that threatened to drag me under.
When I came to, I still had the hunks of wood clutched in my hands. Gabriel looked vaguely guilty.
“We made it to a bed,” he offered meekly.
“And then we destroyed it,” I moaned. “But it was worth it.”
He pulled me onto his chest, pushing my hair out of my face before pulling me close.
“It’s kind of weird to see Mr. Big Bad Vampire being all cuddly.” I chuckled. “It kind of destroys your mystique.”
“I haven’t had a lot of good, soft things in my life,” he said against my forehead. “Not since my family sent me away. Apart from being your sire and feeling that pull to you, it’s that goodness, that softness and warmth, along with the resolve and strength in you, that I love. Being turned hasn’t taken that from you. If someone were going to design the perfect mate for me, it would be you. Even when you infuriate me with your pigheaded stubbornness and your temper and incredible lack of anything resembling self-preservation—”
“Stop describing me, please.”
“You’re the most fascinating, maddening, adorable creature I’ve ever met,” he said, sighing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. “So, when I seem possessive or I’m raving like a lunatic, it’s just that part of me is still very afraid that I’ll lose that—that I’ll lose you. I love you.”
“That’s such a normal boyfriend thing to say. I’m so proud and yet a little freaked out.”
“Stop joking and listen to me,” he said. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” I objected. “That was a very normal thing for a boyfriend to say.”
He grinned down at me. “Does that mean I’m your boyfriend?”
“Oh, my Lord, this is such a juvenile conversation to have with a hundred-and-fifty-year-old man,” I groaned. “Yes, Gabriel, I would like you to be my boyfriend. I think we should go steady. I don’t want to be with any other vampire but you. I love you. Idiot.”
“We need new nicknames for each other,” he said. When I shoved at his shoulders, he grinned. “I haven’t loved anyone in a long time. And I’m glad it’s you. I’m glad I met you on the worst day of your life.”
“Well, you certainly made it more memorable.”
12
Bachelorette parties are less about celebrating the bride’s acquisition of a husband and more about making the female relatives feel vindication after the wedding planning process.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
When we were kids, Zeb and I used to spend post-sleepover mornings eating Cap’n Crunch and watching the Smurfs. Somehow, I didn’t think Gabriel would appreciate the same routine.
I padded into the kitchen, still clad in flannel cows, and warmed up a healthy breakfast of donated Type A. Gabriel let Fitz out to snag the evening edition of the Half-Moon Herald from the end of the driveway. Unfortunately, Gabriel overestimated Fitz’s capabilities and had to get the paper himself. We climbed onto the porch swing to sip blood and read the happenings in the Herald while Fitz gamboled around the yard chasing his own tail.
It was strangely domestic, with the exception of finding another package on my doorstep. We were both relieved that it was just the genealogical information Daddy had found on Mr. Wainwright’s family. Despite my library background, my strength tends toward database research, whereas Daddy excels with the dusty-old-book route. After Mr. Wainwright lamented his lack of family history, I’d asked Daddy to use his mojo.
Gabriel left for some council meeting, and I ripped into the research without bothering to change out of my pajamas. Daddy had done an impressive job. He found copies of Mr. Wainwright’s old school pictures from Half-Moon Hollow Public School archives and an old newspaper clipping announcing Gilbert Wainwright’s engagement to Brigid Brannagan, a girl he met while traveling in County Cork. Daddy found Mr. Wainwright’s parents’ marriage certificate and both of their obituaries. Searching through old records kept in the courthouse basement—records Daddy accessed through a school chum named Deeter who worked there as a night janitor—Daddy found the origins of the Wainwright family. Gilbert Wainwright’s father, Gordon Wainwright, was the son of Albert Wainwright, son of Eugenia Wainwright, a laundry woman who had worked on the Cheney family farm. She had Albert in 1879 but drowned a short time later during the town’s inaugural Fourth of July picnic down at the riverfront.
Eugenia was unmarried, and there was no father listed on the birth certificate for young Albert. Albert was sent to an orphanage and raised there until he ran away at age ten. According to a book Daddy found in the library’s special collections, called The Hollow Frontier, Albert worked at the railway station and eventually took a job on a barge traveling the Ohio River, before returning home to the Hollow in the 1920s. He was known for opening one of the first successful saloons in the Hollow, the one my great-grandmother burned. While water-stained and crumbling, the book contained a copy of a tintype of Albert.
“Oh, man,” I breathed, startled by Albert’s face. I flipped to Daddy’s research on Eugenia, whom one of the groundskeepers at the Cheney farm described as a “big buxom piece of woman.”
I flipped back to the picture of Albert, who bore a striking resemblance to Dick. The same light, laughing eyes, the same devilish smile, the same long, patrician nose. But Albert looked to be at least fifteen years older than Dick had been when he was turned. I checked the date on the photo and did some quick math in my head, then groaned. “Dang it.”
