I shrugged and found myself, despite the horrific night I’d had, smiling at him for his completely bizarre but strangely sweet suggestion to keep me safe. “I’ll get kind of lonely, you know. With all those boring nuns. I’ll need some company.”
“Is that so?”
I nodded slowly.
“I should leave.” Thierry glanced at the door. “There are things I must do and you’ve had a very traumatic night.”
I grabbed the lapel of his jacket and pulled him toward me. Not thinking, just acting. A little spontaneous. That used to be me. I used to be spontaneous. I didn’t always think over everything I said,
everything I did—being careful to do the right thing at all times. That’s just the recent me, but not necessarily the real me.
Thierry didn’t resist. He drew nearer, leaning over to gaze directly into my eyes. My hands tangled in his black coat, and I felt the heat of his delicious body underneath.
“I was very worried about you,” he breathed against my mouth, his lips only a whisper away.
“I know.”
And then I kissed him. Full and deep and hot and open-mouthed. His fingers twined into my hair, my hands went down to his waist as I pulled him against me.
After a moment we crashed down to the mattress on the floor, and,oh yeah . Being with him like this,
touching him freely, desperately, like it hadn’t been like sinceMexico —hell, this wasbetter thanMexico —was like a glass of water after wandering through the desert for weeks.
Very refreshing.
And extremely tasty.
Enough to make a girl forget all of her problems.
I felt his hands on my bare skin, moving lower, kissing down my neck and along my collarbone, parting my bathrobe.
My own hands slid down his back, under his jacket, to slip under his shirt, trying to pull him closer against me. Aching with the need that I usually tried to ignore so as not to scare him away by how much I wanted him. But he wasn’t scared. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. I arched against him, as my hands drifted lower, receiving a ragged gasp from his lips as he moved slowly down my chest, my stomach, to my—
Then he suddenly stopped. He pulled away to look up at me and I groaned out loud with frustration.
“What is it?”
He frowned, his gaze trailing off to the side of the room. “Your werewolf is staring at us.”
“My—?” I glanced to the right. Barkley sat, not four feet away, panting and wagging his tail. “Barkley!
Shoo!”
Barkley didn’t shoo. His tail began to make a “thwack, thwack” sound against the hardwood floor.
Thierry shifted slightly. “Shall I remove him from the room and—” he looked down at me and our eyes locked “—then return?”
I couldn’t help smiling at that. Here I thought this would be his excuse, yet again, to leave me all alone.
“He might need to go outside first, if you know what I mean.”
He brushed his mouth against my cheek in a knee-weakening line to the curve of my ear and whispered,
“Then I’ll be right back.”
And he stood, slowly, and with a glance down at me lying on the mattress, took Barkley out of the room.
Oh, this was very, very good.
Maybe whoever blew my apartment up was acting under strict direction from Cupid himself. It could happen. All of my earlier doubts about Thierry were starting to get all blurry and difficult to remember.
He was wonderful, giving, fabulous, perfect. And unbelievably sexy. I was a lucky, lucky girl.
And about to get even luckier.
Veronique could stick her words of wisdom. Stick them! Ha!
I smiled and then stretched out long and languidly on the mattress, raising my arms high above my head.
As soon as Thierry came back I wasso going to rock his world.
However, after waiting for a few minutes, I yawned. It had been such a long, draining, exhausting day.
Very, very, very long.
Very exhausting.
So tired.
So very tired.
No. . . I thought, but it sounded a million miles away.Don’t you dare close your eyes . . .
Zzzzz.
“And then I fell asleep,” I explained to my best friend Amy the next day. “Like Rip
Van-freaking-Winkle. And ruined what could quite possibly have been the most incredible night of my life. The end.”
Amy shook her blond head in silence. “What’s a Rip Van Winkle?”
I blinked, then looked both ways as we crossed a busy intersection after visiting the fourth clothing store of the day. “He’s an old man with a long white beard who fell asleep for twenty years and missed out on some hot vampire loving.”
“What does this have to do with what happened to your apartment?”
“Nothing.”