by Tessa Bailey
Satisfied he wasn’t watching her dig through her abundance of sensible, full coverage panties, Ginny began to sift. Instead of taking out a perfectly functional white cotton pair, something rebellious lit inside of her—probably sparked by Roksana—and she opened a pack of midnight blue bikini-cut panties she’d never worn once. Some had glittery stars and moons all over them, others were sunshine and clouds. She’d bought them on sale at Kohl’s after too much coffee and was grateful for them now. Jonas might never set eyes on them, but maybe they’d make her feel more in control, the way her dresses did.
Feeling herself flush, she quickly stuffed them in her bag. “I’ll just get my toothbrush—”
A rumble of air blew hair across her face and then Jonas was standing in front of her with the toothbrush in his hand. “I’d really like to get you somewhere safe,” he said, dropping the item into her bag. “Quickly.”
“How do you know that’s mine and not Larissa’s?”
“The other one was electric. You’d never use one of those.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“The girl who loves old movies, talks to corpses and doesn’t want me to see her underwear? No, I don’t think so.”
“Does that mean you think I’m boring?”
His lips twisted. “It means I think you’re an original. And that you probably like to daydream while you’re brushing your teeth and the buzzing sound would deter you.”
Pleasure speared her. “You’ve given this some thought.”
“Yes.” He gave her his princely profile while zipping her suitcase and picking it up by the handle. “More than I should have.”
Ginny followed him to the door of her bedroom and out into the hallway. “Where do you live?”
He sighed. “I can’t tell you that, Ginny.”
They stopped side by side on the staircase landing. “How are you going to bring me there without telling me…” She trailed off when he took something out of his pocket. “Is that a blindfold? You can’t be serious.”
“It’s for your own safety. The world I live in is a volatile place. You knowing where three vampires live makes you vulnerable.”
“You’re planning on erasing that information from my head, remember?”
“Remember? I think about it constantly,” he enunciated, stepping closer. “Like I said, the longer I allow you to keep your memories, the harder it’ll be to erase them accurately. I don’t want to take chances.”
Ginny threw back her shoulders and sailed down the stairs, leaving Jonas to follow behind her with the suitcase. For one fantastical moment, she pretended to be Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. A rich debutante with a handsome manservant, preparing to depart for Paris. She wished desperately for a pair of white, silk gloves so she could whip them out and don them while looking annoyed. “Now then,” she murmured when Jonas stopped beside her at the bottom of the staircase. “Have the driver bring my car around.”
“What was that?” Jonas asked, his tone verging on amusement.
“N-nothing.”
He tucked his tongue into his cheek and herded her down the hallway, toward the back door. “As luck would have it, we do have a driver.”
“Who is it?”
Jonas hesitated with a hand on the doorknob. “One of my roommates, Tucker. Prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
He opened his mouth to answer, closed it and pushed open the door instead. She heard the low pump of bass before the black Impala slid into view at the curb, idling for a moment, before the passenger side window rolled down—and smoke billowed out into the night air. It cleared to reveal a Cheshire smile with a cigar clamped somewhere in its midst. The smile belonged to a man who was more like a mountain, a gold chain draped around his thick neck.
Brightly colored tattoos were the only thing covering him, as he was decidedly shirtless, his coloring reminding Ginny of a slightly sunburned Irishman she’d once worked on in the morgue who’d died while on vacation.
“Jonas,” called Tucker, taking the cigar out of his mouth slowly. “That’s a human girl.”
“I’m well aware of what she is. Put out the cigar.”
Tucker didn’t look happy about stubbing out the stogie in his ashtray. “Are we having her for dinner?” he drawled. “Or having her for dinner?”
Jonas left her wobbling in the wake of his swift departure. One second he was standing beside her, the next he was speaking to Tucker in a low, unintelligible tone through the driver’s side window.
After a moment of listening, Tucker threw back his head and laughed. “The prince himself is breaking the rules. Holy shit, man, this is going to be interesting.”
Ginny was in the backseat of the car before she could catch her breath, Jonas pressed in beside her. “What did you say to him?”
“Only that he’d be having stake for dinner if he comes within five feet of you.”
“Steak? I thought you don’t eat food.”
“S-t-a-k-e.”
“Oh.” Once she’d absorbed that violent implication, she leaned forward. “It’s lovely to meet you, Tucker. You’re the prankster, are you?”
“At your service.”
“I’m sorry Jonas has already threatened your life on my behalf, but you have to admit it’s well deserved after leaving him to be embalmed.”
Humor-filled eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “Threats to my life are all in a day’s work.”
“The day’s work of a vampire?”
“Nope.” He pointed to the circular sticker in his front window. “An Uber driver.”
Ginny chuckled. “I see.”
“Don’t judge me too harshly for the prank, sweetheart,” Tucker continued. “Playing the occasional trick keeps us human. As much as that’s possible, anyway. Think of it as me doing him a favor.”
“I’ll never understand how you get Elias to agree to these pranks,” Jonas muttered. “It’s not exactly his style.”
“I caught him with a picture of Roksana. I promised not to tell anyone if he’d help me execute the prank.” He gave an exaggerated wince. “Whoops.”
“Drive the car,” Jonas said mildly. “And don’t call Ginny ‘sweetheart.’”
Jonas was reaching up with the thin, black swath of material, preparing to tie it around Ginny’s eyes, when a thought occurred. “Jonas, how do I know you’re not the one dropping me into oceans and highways?”
His hands dropped like stones to the seat. Several seconds ticked by. “How can you ask me that?”
She waited.
“I’ve explained to you, it would take someone older and more powerful to transport you like that.”
“How do I know that’s true?” Without breaking the intensity of their stare, she reached down and fingered the material of the blindfold. “You’re asking for my absolute trust and giving me none in return, Dreamboat.”
“She called him Dreamboat!” More raucous laughter from Tucker. “Yes, indeed. This is going to be goddamn interesting.”
Jonas’s tortured expression was the last thing she saw before the blindfold turned her world black.
Ginny mentally counted the third right they’d taken since leaving P. Lynn Funeral Home, though she couldn’t be sure they hadn’t doubled back or taken a meandering route to throw her off. Every time they hit a straightaway, she counted the seconds until the next turn and committed the directions to memory, just in case she ever needed them. As a lifelong Coney Island resident, Ginny knew at least four ways to reach the boardwalk. If she wasn’t mistaken, they weren’t too far from the world-famous planks when Tucker pulled the parking brake.
“I’ll park and meet you inside,” Jonas’s roommate called. “Don’t say or do anything worth gossiping about until I get back.”
Jonas hummed distractedly. “She’ll need food and water. Can you pick up some groceries? Eggs, bread, milk…”
Tucker made a sound. “Gross.”
“Get a blanket for her, too.”
“Yes, a
lmighty prince.”
The back door on Jonas’s side opened and then he was lacing their fingers together, sending stardust blustering up her arm. He helped her step out of the car, though Ginny sensed his hesitation before he put an arm around the small of her back, urging her forward. A door opened and cool air crept out, wrapping around Ginny until she was fully ensconced inside of it. That same door closed behind her, dropping them into a total lack of sound. The sounds of traffic, seagulls and car radios cut off abruptly and all she could hear were her and Jonas’s footsteps.
“We’re going into an elevator now,” he murmured near her ear, steering her to the left. “I’ll have the blindfold off soon.”
She folded her arms across her chest, feeling the metal box lurch downward, followed by the familiar mechanical whine of a moving elevator.
“Are you giving me the silent treatment?”
Ginny kept her lips pressed into a straight line, because yes, she was rather irritated and if she started talking, all manner of smart comments would probably tumble out of her mouth. Just this evening, she’d almost been run over by a semi truck. Now she was being shuffled around by a highhanded vampire who still had plans to apply white out to her memory bank and didn’t want Ginny knowing where he lived. He was hedging his bets about her when she didn’t have the option to do the same.
“I’m sorry you don’t agree with my methods, Ginny,” he said in a low voice. “I only want to keep you safe.”
Okay. She definitely wasn’t cut out to administer the silent treatment. Words were leapfrogging over one another to exit her throat. “Why do you care what happens to me?”
The vein in his temple ticked. “There’s a complicated answer to that question.”
She took off the blindfold, ignoring his censorious look. “Try.”
Jonas stared straight ahead into the metal doors of the elevator. When Ginny followed his gaze, the only face staring back in the reflective surface was her own. A tingle crawled up her spine. She glanced back to find Jonas studying her reaction closely. “If someone put a single scratch on your skin, I would go utterly mad, Ginny, and yet I burn to sink my teeth into your neck every second of the day. I don’t know how to uncomplicate that for you.” The elevator doors rolled open. “Welcome home.”
Her exhale emerged as shaky as her legs. “What would happen if you did?” she managed. “Drink my blood, that is.”
Green cinders whipped up in his eyes, his hand curling around the elevator’s handrail. “I may have trouble stopping.”
“You think you’ll kill me, don’t you? Break one rule, break them all.” She stepped forward. “But I know you wouldn’t.”
“You’re so sure, are you?” His attention strayed to her neck. “We’re finished speaking of this,” he bit off, reaching down and taking Ginny by the wrist, leading her out of the elevator, into a cement corridor with a single light bulb buzzing in front of yet another door. “I will keep you safe from me and whoever is trying to hurt you. That’s a promise.”
“Will your roommates…” She gestured to her neck. “Will they feel the way you do about the sinking of the teeth?”
He followed the action of her hand with rapt interest. “Me reacting this way to you is unusual enough. Two of us would be unheard of.” Jonas took out a set of keys from inside his jacket pocket. “Still, I’m taking no chances with you, so I considered it. If Tucker felt this level of…” He blew out a breath. “…hunger, we’d already know it, since you rode in the same car. If Elias feels even a tenth of my thirst for you, I’ll take you elsewhere. He’s younger and doesn’t have the same willpower to abstain,” he said, cutting her a sideways glance. “If mine is testing its limits, someone without the same strength wouldn’t be able to cope.”
“Oh.” She gulped. “Great.”
“Ginny,” he said, trailing his knuckles down her cheekbone. “You are safe. I would never have brought you here otherwise.”
She nodded.
He unlocked the door and she followed him into…what was this place?
They walked into blue. It felt like the bottom of the ocean.
“Sorry about the darkness. We see as well in the pitch black as we do in the light.” He walked to the closest sconce and twisted a knob, casting a faint glow. “I’ll make sure we keep them on while you’re here.”
Ginny nodded. “Thanks.”
The wide, low-ceilinged room was painted in an azure glow, courtesy of a backlit fish tank arranged against the far wall. To the right was a dining table surrounded by shelving and a counter that ran the length of the wall, to the left was a living space, complete with plush gray couches and a nine-thousand-inch television. A bachelor pad to the extreme, although it wasn’t shaped like a typical apartment. Something about the layout and lack of warmth suggested it had been used commercially.
Textured black wallpaper decorated the walls, dotted with golden sconces and frosted glass. Vintage fixtures were everywhere, right down to the embellished grating on the heating vents and elaborate crown molding. Though they weren’t turned on, there were lighting fixtures shaped like picture frames in spots—the kind that called to mind an old-fashioned dressing table. Big, bulbs surrounded where the mirrors used to be. Lauren Bacall would have sat in front of one in a silk dressing gown, reading the note on a dozen roses from Bogart.
“There aren’t actually fish in that tank. We move around too much to have pets, but Tucker thinks it gives the place atmosphere,” Jonas said dryly. “There’s no kitchen,” Jonas said at her side, gesturing to the left side of the room where a stainless steel appliance hummed. “We do have a refrigerator, so we’ll be able to keep your food from spoiling.”
“How will I cook the eggs?”
“Huh.” He gave her a boyish half smile. “I didn’t think of that. It’s been a while since I had to worry about meal preparations.”
“It’s okay. I won’t be here long, right?”
“Right.” His smile faded. “As soon as I eliminate the danger you’re in…I’ll bring you home where you belong.”
Ginny advanced into the room, worrying over the emptiness in her chest. If she was already sad about leaving, how would she feel when the time actually came? And far more importantly, Jonas had just admitted to thirsting for her blood every second of the day. Why wasn’t she screaming for help?
Why did she want to lean against his solid chest and exist quietly inside the silent, unexplainable bond between them?
“Are you going to give me a tour?”
“Sort of.” Jonas came up beside Ginny, taking her warm hand in his cool one, guiding her through the apartment and into a wide hallway. “I’m not sure you want to see more of what Tucker considers design choices. And Elias is extremely private. I’m going to give you my room while you’re here, so I’ll take you there.”
“Where are you going to sleep—” Ginny caught herself. “I mean…how often do you sleep?”
“Every couple of weeks.” His thumb traced the veins in the back of her hand. “I won’t be sleeping until this situation is resolved and you’re safe, so my bed is free.”
“Is it always free?”
His eyebrow quirked. “What do you mean?”
“What?” She turned her head so Jonas wouldn’t see her self-directed eye roll. What is wrong with you? “I’m not curious about your love life at all.”
“Aren’t you?” Jonas moved back into her line of sight. “I definitely wanted to know about yours.”
“You don’t want to know anymore?”
“You’ve never kissed…” His upper lip curled with distaste. “…Gordon and he’s the only date you’ve been on. You’re not the casual affair type. I think I’ve got it figured out.”
He knows I’m a virgin. Great.
Amusement crept across his face, which was half illuminated in the blue glow of the fish tank. “You’re speaking out loud again, Ginny.”
“Oh.” She shifted. “Well, do you want to tell me about your…”
“Love life.” He tucked his tongue into his cheek. “I’d rather not.”
“Why?”
He seemed to be thinking hard about his answer. “I felt something like love once, a long, long time ago. Probably before your parents were born. Between then and now…” He searched for words. “I definitely wouldn’t use ‘love’ to describe any of it.”
An unpleasant shock ran through her. “Oh my Lord. Are you a player, Jonas?”
“What? No.” He shoved impatient fingers through his hair. “No, Ginny. I am not that. Not at all. I’m just finding it difficult to admit I’ve been with anyone at all. Ever. When you’re near me, I just want like hell to undo everything.”
The shock dulled to a slight pinch. Honestly, Ginny. Was she actually jealous? It would be ridiculous to expect a man who looked like Jonas to be celibate, especially considering he’d been alive almost ninety years. “They were…other vampires?”
Jonas’s nod was almost non-existent as he crowded her against the hallway wall. “Even though I can’t have you, God help me…” His palms molded to her hips. “If I’d known you were out there, I’d have easily abstained—”
A door slammed open just ahead in the hallway and Ginny was swept behind Jonas’s back in the blink of an eye. “Do my senses deceive me?” rasped a voice. “Or is that the human?”
The human?
“Elias,” Jonas said in a measured tone, as if gauging the other vampire’s reaction to her. “This is Ginny. It sounds like you already knew Roksana and I have been protecting her.”
“Roksana?” Slowly, footsteps creaked closer. “No, I’ve been smelling this one on you every time you walk in the door. Whatever and whoever you do in your spare time is none of my business, but I never imagined you’d bring her here.” The footsteps stopped. “What the hell does Roksana have to do with her?”
Ginny tried to peek out from behind Jonas, but he sidestepped, thwarting her.
“She’s facing a threat—and there’s no doubt it’s one of our kind. An Elder. I tasked Roksana with keeping her safe.” Jonas’s paused. “She was unsuccessful, so I brought Ginny here.”