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And, hey, at least I was clean now.
I took off the robe and looked at the door again. I felt cold. And really, really naked. Like, super-ultranaked. Which was stupid, because naked was naked and goddamn it! Just do it already.
I grasped the doorknob, feeling nervous and jittery and silly and kind of turned on and—
I took my hand off again.
How often do you get a free pass? the less cowardly part of my brain demanded. I didn’t answer, because talking to yourself is a little too close to the scary side of crazy, and I was teetering on the brink as it was. But I knew the answer anyway. If I didn’t do this, if I let myself chicken out, I knew damned well I’d regret it. Maybe not now, but soon, and I had enough regrets. Tonight I wanted to live.
I put my hand back on the knob. It’s like pulling off a Band-Aid, I told myself sternly. Just do it fast and the hard part will be over. Before I could talk myself out of it again, I took a deep breath, grabbed the doorknob and flung it open.
And burst out into a room full of vamps.
The fat little manager was standing over by the fireplace, along with Mircea and a couple of young guys dressed like waiters. Another waiter type was by the door, wheeling out a room service cart, but of course he turned to see what the commotion was about. And I didn’t doubt that he got a good view. The room was dim, lit mainly by a couple of lowburning lamps in the corners and the bright white light flooding in behind me.
Spotlighting me like freaking Gypsy Rose Lee.
For a moment, I stared at them and they stared at me and it was like Agnes’s party all over again, after it had been frozen in time. Nothing moved except the flames somebody had stoked in the fireplace. And then I gave a shriek and the paralysis broke.
One of the guys jumped and one of them grinned and Mircea held out a hand, and then I don’t know what happened because I ran back into the bathroom and slammed the door.
Oh, God.
Oh, God, oh, God, oh God.
Tonight sucked. Tonight sucked so damn hard I just didn’t even know—
Someone rapped on the door.
I could feel it in my shoulder blades, because I had my back to the damn thing and I wasn’t moving. I might never move again. “Dulceat?a??”
Shit.
“Dulceat?a?? Are you all right?”
I didn’t say anything, because he knew damn well I was all right. He could hear me breathing through the door. This close, he could probably feel the heat from my flaming cheeks, which a glance in the mirror informed me were bright, lobster red. As was my neck and a good bit of my chest, all of which was perfectly visible, and oh, God.
“Dulceat?a??
”
“I’m fine,” I choked out, hoping he’d just go away. If there was some kind of disaster scale for dates, this one had just hit ten. Or maybe twenty. Or maybe some number heretofore unknown in the history of dating, and I really didn’t think I could take a conversation on top of—
I heard a door close outside, with a discreet snick. “They’ve gone, dulceat?a?,” Mircea said, his voice sounding a little funny.
Somewhere in all that, I had slid down to my haunches, with my arms over my head, hoping the floor might be merciful and swallow me up. But that tone got me back on my feet. I grabbed one of the damn robes and jerked it on, and then stuck my head out the door.
“Are you laughing at me?” I demanded incredulously.
“No,” he said, and pulled me against his chest.
It was vibrating.
“You are laughing at me, you complete and total—”
“I’m not,” he said, but he had a hand on the back of my head and he wouldn’t let me look at his face.
“This was your fault!”
