Imogene sighed and was about to disrobe when cold arms wrapped around her. She shivered a little but knew Nicholas well enough to recognize the feel of his lips on the side of her neck. “How’d you know where to find me?” she said, covering his hands with hers.
“I told you. I could smell you from anywhere.” His chest rose against her back as he took a deep breath.
She turned around in his arms, and he looked serious, troubled. He looked like he wanted to say something, but she shook her head. “Not right now.” She smiled. “We’re celebrating.”
“What are we celebrating?”
“Ian is going to start surfing again.”
“Oh.” He tilted his head.
“It’s kind of a big deal. To us.”
“Nicholas!” Ian shouted from the water. “Hey, man, come swimming!”
Imogene slipped her thumbs under his suit coat and pushed the expensive fabric into the sand. He’d probably find gritty granules in pockets for the next ten years. She tugged at his tie until it loosened and pulled it over his head. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead as she unbuttoned his shirt, only interrupted when he reached for hers and pulled her t-shirt over her head.
He wrapped her in his arms when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“What? They’re just boobs.”
“Perhaps, but they’re my—” He stopped himself.
Imogene glared up at him, trying not to smirk.
“I should probably shut my bloody mouth,” he continued. “However, there is a child present, and he might embarrass himself.”
Imogene recoiled at the thought of Ralph with a boner. “Sick.” She continued unbuttoning Nicholas’s shirt. “This is silk, isn’t it?”
“Mm.”
She pulled the shirt from his arms and tossed it over his shoulder. “Now it’s sand.”
“You minx.” He leaned in to kiss her, and she took off running, followed by a graceful dive into a coming wave. The water warmed and lifted like a cloud of hot steam. She swam out to where Ralph sat on Ian’s surfboard right next to Celia, floating with her back against Ian’s chest. Much as Nicholas foretold, when Ralph noticed the buoyancy of Imogene’s breasts in saltwater, he slid from the surfboard, eyes big as saucers.
“Imogene.” Celia lifted her eyebrows.
“They’re tits. He’ll see plenty of them. Someday.” She flipped onto her back and stared at the stars but soon swallowed a mouthful of water when arms dragged her down from below. She came up, spitting like an alpaca, with Nicholas—and everyone else—laughing. “You ass!” She smacked at him but soon jumped into his arms and wrapped her legs around his hips.
He hadn’t fed. His skin smelled like nothing but salty sea, but she nibbled on the side of his throat anyway. Even without his fresh garden scent, the man was delicious.
Ralph harrumphed behind her and she glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, as if, little boy.” She turned back to Nicholas and gave him a wet, sloppy kiss. She then swung onto his back and held on like a monkey as he paddled them around.
“How long has this been going on?” Ian asked, grinning like the proud father he would soon be.
Celia’s fingers tickled his arm. “I told you.” She lifted her hands and pantomimed a twisting motion.
“Oh. Right.” Ian’s face turned green. “The decapitations.”
Luckily, Ralph was underwater for that pronouncement.
Imogene held tight to Nicholas’s chest and enjoyed the way his muscles flexed and relaxed as he swam them in wide circles.
“Does this mean you’re gonna move to Florida, Nicholas?” Ian shouted.
Celia barely had time to move before Imogene sprang from Nicholas’s back, flew across the water, and trounced Ian, shoving his head under water. He came up laughing, wrestling, and doing his best to not touch Imogene’s bare boobs.
“You are… such a… little twerp!” she yelled while shoving him under again, but Ian just kept laughing until Nicholas pulled her off and held her against his chest—although he laughed, too. He pressed his nose against her neck and tickled her stomach underwater with cold fingertips.
Ralph had to leave soon after due to curfew. He said the word with such disdain, one would think he discussed a Paul McCartney-Michael Jackson duet. The three vampires and their human retreated up the beach, where they collected their clothes. Imogene caught Celia checking Nicholas out, but, in her defense, he was in nothing but boxer briefs, and it was a nice view. He had the ass of a male gymnast.
“Hey, why don’t we get stoned and have a sleepover?” Ian suggested.
“Totally!” Celia said. “You two can sleep on the couch. We’ll watch Labyrinth!”
“The Muppet movie?” Nicholas asked.
Imogene took his damp chin in her fingers. “It’s not a Muppet movie; it’s a David Bowie movie.”
“My mistake,” he mumbled since Imogene held his mouth mushed together in the shape of fish lips.
Once dry and inside, Celia went right for the television and her massive collection of DVDs. She’d been forced to upgrade from VHS after the now famous Sleeping Gull Apartments fire, perpetrated by the evil Bloody Betty—although Imogene had actually liked Celia’s crazy landlady, Heidi. She’d burned the apartments to the ground to cover up a bunch of corpses, murdered by Celia’s maker, Danny, and Vixen. It seemed like a million years ago.
While Ian went to the kitchen to fetch beer, Nicholas stood in the open doorway, still in nothing but dark boxers, and looked at Imogene.
“What?” Hair damp, she slouched into the couch in her shorts and tee.
“My Spencer Hart suit will never be the same.”
She sighed, at both his duress and the tragedy of a sand-filled designer classic. “Ian, do you have some clothes Nicholas could borrow?”
Ian threw her a beer at great speed because he liked testing her vampire reflexes. She caught the can in her open palm with an audible thwack. “Sure.”
A couple minutes later, Ian came back with a pair of army green shorts and a pink-blue-white-orange plaid button-down.
He held up the clothes. “Good?”
Imogene snickered as she sipped her beer, because she knew Nicholas would never, by choice, wear a shirt like that. Still, he said, “Thanks,” and got dressed. He sat on the couch next to her and caught the next flying beer without even flinching.
Imogene eyed Nicholas. “Although that monstrosity of a shirt clashes with your eyes, it makes your hair glow red.”
“I’m not a total ginger.” He squeezed her thigh. “And you know it.”
She poked him in the knee.
Labyrinth ready to go, Celia sat in Ian’s chair, having changed from her soaking maternity dress into yet another mumu—all of which Imogene planned to burn after the baby was born. “Nicholas, how did you never meet David Bowie? You met Freddie, and you’re all British.”
“Well, I haven’t met every British pop star of the past forty years. Had to keep a bit of a low profile, considering I never age. If I became a groupie, over time, they might have noticed something was different.”
“Maybe not,” Imogene said. “I mean, most of those guys were practically nocturnal anyway, weren’t they?”
“Not as much as you’d think. We all imagine Keith Richards and Mick Jagger in a constant stupor, but they actually did work during the day—wrote music, did photo shoots. They couldn’t look like partied-out shite all the time.”
“Is Keith Richards a vampire?” she asked.
“No. His skin is like papier mâché. That doesn’t tend to happen to vampires unless they’ve been dieting for a couple centuries.”
She shrugged. “It was worth the ask.” Nicholas’s hand grazed her back, running up and down her spine, but his eyes were on the TV. She wondered if he even knew he touched her.
As the film opened with Jennifer Connelly, running around in a Victorian gown, Ian sat on the floor at his wife’s feet. As if magnetized, Celia’s hand dug into his dark curls until hi
s eyes closed.
Imogene leaned into Nicholas and whispered, “I’ve never needed to glamour Ian. All you need to do to turn off his brain is play with his hair.”
Nicholas smiled.
“You know what we should do?” Celia shouted.
“Learn to control the volume of your voice,” Imogene suggested.
“No! We’re having a sleepover. We should play Truth or Dare. I’ve never played Truth or Dare.”
“Truth or Dare?” Imogene smirked. “Like the game created by annoying teenage girls intended to destroy lives?”
“Yes!” She smiled, and what with the touch of seawater and her pregnant glow, she looked damn near beautiful.
“This sounds dangerous,” Nicholas whispered.
“You bet.”
“Ian?” Celia nudged her husband. “Wanna?”
He stood. “Better bust out the whiskey.”
Celia clapped like an excited seven-year-old who had won a puppy.
“I don’t know how to play,” Nicholas said.
“It’s easy and immature. We go around the circle, say ‘Truth or Dare,’ and you choose. Either you have to answer a question truthfully or take a dare.” She looked up at him from beneath her dark eyelashes. “I imagine truth might be a problem for you.”
“Depends on the question,” he said in that over-emphasized tone he used when he was being challenged.
“Okay. Fine. Then, we’re playing.” She grabbed the bottle of whiskey from Ian’s hands and took a long swig before tossing it back. “Nicholas goes first.”
Over the backdrop of eighties synth and the sound of a crying baby onscreen, Celia hopped around in her seat. “Nicholas, truth or dare?”
“Dare,” he said.
“I dare you,” she said, “to kiss Imogene for ten seconds.”
“God, not that.” He pulled Imogene to him by the back of her neck and kissed her. Just like every time he kissed her, Imogene’s whole body buzzed—tingling from the tips of her fingers, down to her toes. She reached her hand up and crushed the short hair on the back of his head. He spoke against her mouth. “Was that ten seconds?”
Ian and Celia gave them a round of applause.
“How about you?” he murmured. “Imogene, truth or dare?”
“Truth.” She lifted her chin in defiance.
“Who is the best lay you’ve ever had?” Nicholas asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “Whatever happened to propriety?”
“Fuck it.”
“Lord Nicholas!”
He smiled—a genuine grin that showed all his straight, white teeth and a little bit of gum. “Propriety is overrated. You’ve reminded me.”
“Go ahead, answer the question, Imogene.” Ian tossed the whiskey to her, but Nicholas intercepted and took a glug for himself.
“The best lay I’ve ever had is this British bastard,” she said and pinched him in the nipple. She had a sixth sense about nipple placement. Plus, she was very familiar with the layout of his chest, almost like his body was a map she’d already memorized. “Ian! Truth or dare.”
“I feel daring, I think.”
“I dare you to run around the house twice, totally nude, singing ‘Bicycle Race.’”
Celia guffawed, but Ian stood and removed his shirt. “Challenge accepted. Nicholas, you might want to look away.”
Imogene put her hand on his knee. “Whatever. This fruit kissed Freddie Mercury.”
“Really?” Celia squealed.
His nose tickled the back of Imogene’s ear. “If you keep telling all my secrets, the game won’t be any fun.”
Collectively, they stood in the doorway as Ian did indeed run naked around the house screaming, “I want to ride my bicycle,” at full volume.
“My God, he’s tone deaf.”
“Yeah,” Imogene and Celia said in chorus.
“But Dr. Savage says you are, too.” Imogene shoved Nicholas in the chest.
“How dare she?” He feigned shock. “Although, I am, completely.”
“You two could form some kind of duet. We’ll call you Two Hot Guys, and women will come from miles to look at you and try to ignore the fact that you both sound like screaming cats.”
“Marketing genius.” He finished his beer and crushed the can in his hand.
Back inside, with Ian fully clothed, Imogene’s eyes lingered on the screen—David Bowie as the Goblin King.
“Celia,” Ian said, “truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“When did you know you loved me?”
“Oh, that’s silly.” She batted her eyes. “I loved you before I even saw you. Well, the smell of you, at least.”
“I don’t know if that counts,” Ian said just as Nicholas leaned forward, stuck his nose in Imogene’s hair, and sniffed.
Celia seemed to curl in on herself a bit, closely resembling the rambling, nervous vampire she once was—before Imogene, before Ian. “I guess it started when we watched Pretty Woman and just kind of…” She made a sound like a bomb going off. “I dunno. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love you.”
Imogene was going to say “gross,” but Nicholas must have sensed it, because he wrapped an arm around her ribcage and squeezed all the air from her lungs. She wheezed at him while Ian and Celia kissed.
“Nicholas.” Celia finally came up for air. “Truth or dare?”
“To avoid a naked jog, let’s go for truth.”
“Have you ever had your heart broken?”
The room stilled as everyone waited for his response.
“No,” he said.
“No?” Ian handed the whiskey to Imogene. “With all the lovers you’ve had, you’ve never had your heart broken?”
“You did all the breaking, didn’t you?”
He glanced at Imogene. “Now, that’s not entirely fair. I couldn’t retain lengthy human relationships, because eventually, my significant other would figure out what I am.”
Imogene took a long gulp of burning booze. “But you were with shrinky-dink for a long time, right?”
“Shrinky-dink?”
“Dr. Savage.”
“Not really. That was more of a whirlwind,” he said. “We were more friends than lovers.”
“Never thought about turning anyone?” Imogene asked.
“Me? No. God, no. I never wanted that kind of responsibility. From what I understand, turning someone is like birthing a child, and let’s just say I’m not very paternal.”
“I guess I never thought of it like that,” Celia muttered. “Ew, I had sex with my maker.”
Nicholas nodded. “Well, most vampires do. I don’t mean in a literal parent-child scenario, but new vampires need guidance and I wouldn’t want to be someone’s guide.”
“You’re self-centered,” Imogene said.
He gawked at her. “So are you.”
She smiled and kissed him.
“My maker was a jerk,” Celia huffed.
“Yes, but I hear he got what was coming to him.” Nicholas winked.
“Samurai sword to the face, bitch.” Imogene mimicked swinging a sword.
They all laughed, although, of course, Ian got that familiar green look about him.
“Not that this game isn’t very entertaining, but, Celia, while I’m here, do you mind if I check your stomach and talk to you in private for a few minutes? I’d say it could wait, but if Ian brings me another beer, I’ll begin to doubt my medical acumen.”
Celia smiled that googly-eyed grin she got when cute guys talked to her. “Of course.”
Nicholas stood and took her hand before leading her to the bedroom and shutting the door. Imogene slouched into the couch and stretched her legs out in front of her.
Ian smirked.
“What?”
He kept smirking.
“I will slap the shit out of you, Hasselback.”
“Celia says you like him like him.”
“And I told her it’s not true.” She got up and brought back another bee
r, but Ian was still sitting there, smirking. “I know you and Merk are all about the romance, but Nicholas and I are just fucking.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“He lives in London.”
“What’s wrong with London?”
“Are you suggesting I move across the world for a man?”
“Stranger things.”
“I’m not moving to London, Ian.”
He shook the dregs of his beer. The can made a sad little sloshing noise. “Why didn’t you bring me another beer?”
“Because you’re being annoying.”
He ruffled her purple hair as he walked by, which made her duck and hiss. She watched a little bit of David Bowie in spandex on mute. When Celia and Nicholas returned, it was announced that all was well. The baby was growing at the speed Nicholas expected, and there weren’t hooves poking out or anything. They played a few more rounds of Truth or Dare, which devolved into a chugging game as well as some embarrassing questions about sexual positions—at which point, when Nicholas spoke, Ian looked like he was taking notes.
Celia yawned first. Imogene knew she was sleeping more, what with the baby tiring her out. She didn’t complain when her friend disappeared to the bedroom after giving both she and Nicholas little kisses on the head. Ian tossed them some pillows and blankets for their makeshift couch bed, which they haphazardly threw over themselves as they curled up, arms and legs entwined. It was the way they always slept together, like tangled noodles.
“I never go to bed this early,” Imogene said. “It’s barely past three o’clock.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “But your friends are tired, and we don’t want to wake them.”
She tickled his jaw and licked his lip.
“No,” he grumbled. “I’m not having sex here with you with your friends in the next room.”
She pouted, although she doubted Nicholas could see in the dark. Then again, Dr. Savage said he was powerful. Maybe he had night vision. She thought about telling him she’d had her heart broken before, then mentally slapped herself for considering such a sappy conversation. Shit, what was this guy doing to her?
In the tight confines of the couch, she rolled onto her other side, away from him, but he wrapped his arms around her in a traditional spoon and hummed. He was asleep in minutes.
It must have been a little while later when Imogene blinked awake. From the bedroom, she smelled the bacon scent of Ian’s blood and, next to her, a touch of Nicholas’s peppermint. But there was something else—something potent and sweet and floral.
Bite Somebody Else Page 14