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“Beg pardon?” I asked, cupping my hand around my ear. “What was that?”
“You heard me,” he grumbled. “With our hearing, it’s impossible for you not to have heard me.”
“No, I don’t believe I did,” I said. “Because I’m sure the Master of Poise could not possibly have just apologized to little old me.”
“Smugness is not attractive on you, Jane.”
“Smugness is one of my best features,” I retorted, backing him against the footboard of my bed. “I’m really, really good at it.”
“I’ve noticed,” he muttered, nuzzling his nose along my jawline. Laughing, he slipped his hand through my hair and kissed my temple.
I shrugged him off. “Hey, I’m still mad at you, Valentine’s Day skipper. You are going to be punished. And not in the fun way.”>Still, I slinked around the house and lit the vanilla candles. I wanted to build some ambience for Gabriel to appreciate before I jumped him. My home was considerably more welcoming than it had been the last time he visited. I hadn’t had disposable income in a while, so after months of scrimping and saving and buying generic market-brand blood, I went into a sort of online shopping fit. I bought blackout curtains for every window in the house, a new comfy couch, a bigger fridge. I even booked a prefab contractor to come out and attach the garage to the house with a covered walkway. It was like babyproofing for someone with fangs.
I was feeling adored and very in touch with my inner sex kitten when he showed up at my door later that night.
“Someone earned himself a very nice Valentine’s Day ‘dinner,’ “ I purred, leaning against the door frame. “In case you didn’t notice, ‘dinner’ was in special naughty secret-meaning quotation marks.”
Gabriel stared at me, his expression blank. I liked to think it was the barely there black dress I was wearing over the lingerie hindering his neurological processes, but … no.
“The lingerie … the red satin thing with little garters …” I watched his face go from blank to thunderous. “Judging from that expression, you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” My stomach seemed to ripple as I squirmed in the suddenly icky red undergarments. “Oh, not good.”
I started toward the stairs, then turned on him, hands on hips. “Wait, what did you send me for Valentine’s Day?”
His face was set in grimmer lines but for a totally different reason.
“Valentine’s Day, commemorating the martyrdom of Saint Valentine, patron saint of beekeeping, epileptics, and greeting-card manufacturers?” I said. There was a beat of silence where I was smacked in the head with a clue-by-four. “You didn’t get me anything for Valentine’s Day, did you?”
Gabriel cleared his throat. “Valentine’s Day was not something we recognized in my day.”
I poked him in the chest. “First of all, yes, it was. Lacy cards and love tokens were widely exchanged even in Victorian times. By now, you should know better than to screw with me on historical trivia. Also, you’ve had one-hundred-forty-something years to adjust. Get with the program. You didn’t notice the giant hearts and paper cupids hanging off every stationary object?”
“I’ve never dated a modern woman before.”
I poked him again. “You can only use that as an excuse so many times. And don’t offer to give me ‘awesome sex’ as a present, because I think we’ve established that given the right circumstances, I can hurt you.”
“I wasn’t going to—” I narrowed my eyes at him. Instead of finishing that ill-fated protest, he said, “Let’s focus on the creepy anonymous gifts.”
“You don’t say ‘creepy.’ Don’t try to get in good with me by talking like me. I just don’t understand how someone could select a pitch-perfect girlfriend Christmas gift and then completely ignore Valentine’s Day.”
“Well, what did you get me?”
“You will never, ever know,” I promised him. And he wouldn’t. Because now that I’d made such a big deal about it, boxer shorts with little glow-in-the-dark vampire lips and fangs all over them didn’t seem that great.
“Let me see the gifts you did get,” he said. “You were going to show me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not now I’m not.”
“Jane.”
“Fine.” I slid the straps off my shoulders and let the dress pool at my feet. Gabriel’s eyes went wide as he scanned me from head to toe. “Gabriel?”
“Give me a moment. All of the blood just drained out of my head.”
“I find this whole thing to be incredibly gross now that I know I’m wearing some stranger’s undies.” I shuddered and shrugged out of the suddenly disturbing get-up.
And now I was naked and embarrassed, which was a sensation I was much more familiar with. The phone rang.
“Saved by the bell,” he muttered.
