He leaned back slightly. "That, yes. But there's much more than that that makes you different now. My own mistakes have changed things that should have been left alone. Les jeux sont faits."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that the games are set. The plays have been made. And now we must wait and hope that all is well, for I fear that there is no turning back."
"I remember the good old days when you didn't talk so much." I smiled and put my hand on the back of his head, twisting my fingers in his dark hair to bring him back down to me.
His lips parted with the next kiss and I felt his tongue slide against mine, which made my entire body ache for more of him.
"What am I going to do with you, Sarah?" he mused.
"I can think of a great many things," I said. "None of which require a French translator.
And we better get started right away or it'll be too late. There's not much time left."
"Indeed," he said.
He pulled me into his arms and lifted me off the lounge chair. I put my arms around his neck.
"Room. Now. Immediately."
"As you wish." He kissed me again.
Best dream even Yes. It was definitely number one, taking over from the George Clooney one back when he was on ER and I was a patient he had to "take care of."
But in my new bestest dream ever, Thierry didn't carry me immediately back to our hotel room to ravish me like something out of a romance novel. Instead he placed me back down on the lounge and I stared up at him.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"I forgot something very important," he said.
"What?"
"That little issue of you being a nightwalker."
I frowned. "I thought you said that didn't matter."
"I'm afraid you were wrong."
I gasped. There was suddenly a wooden stake sticking out of my chest. The same one that was there the other night when Heather's boyfriend tried to kill me. And I wasn't on the beach in Puerto Vallarta anymore wearing a red bikini, I was wearing regular clothes, jeans and my white camisole, and the only thing red was my blood.
"The weapon hasn't pierced your heart," Thierry said. There were people behind him.
George was there. Amy and Barry. Butch. Claire and Reggie. And even Veronique looked over Thierry's shoulder.
"My poor, stupid, trusting dear girl," she said. "However did you come to be in this unfortunate situation?"
"Get it out of me," I gasped. Every breath I took hurt.
No one else approached me. It was as if they were afraid for some reason. But Thierry did. He pressed his palm against my chest and with one forceful pull, he removed the stake.
I looked down at my chest and watched as the wound healed itself before my very eyes.
After a few seconds it was as if it had never been there in the first place.
I felt so relieved I began to cry. "That was a close one."
"It was," Thierry said. "You were almost lost to me forever."
I reached up to touch his tense, handsome face. "I love you so much, Thierry. Do you know that? Do you have any idea how much I love you?"
He kissed my hand and brought it back to my side. "I know, Sarah. That's why you must die."
Then he raised the sharp wooden stake above his head and plunged it directly into my heart.
I sat bolt upright in bed and stared at the large shard hanging across from me on the wall.
It reflected a woman who had just had a very lousy night's sleep climaxed by a nightmare of epic proportions.
Poor thing.
I blinked at the reflection. My straight, dark brown shoulder-length hair was plastered across my face. I raked it back into place. My face beneath the hair was pale and damp with perspiration. My brand new Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun T-shirt with the picture of designer-clad zombie chicks was twisted enough to almost cut off my circulation.
In other words: totally hot babe alert.
Riiight. It was a very good thing that I was all alone.
What a terrible dream.
I heard a ringing sound. The doorbell. Maybe that's what had woken me up in the first place.
With my head in a just-woken-up-after-a-lousy-dream fog, I swung out of bed and grabbed my new—free—bathrobe, put it on, and walked to the front door. It was probably
Thierry. Where was George? I blinked, feeling the side-effects of not getting a whole lot of nightmare-free sleep that night.
I twisted the lock and opened the door.
And that's when I remembered my little "aversion to sunlight" problem. How the hell could I have forgotten that little tidbit?
I screamed as the laser beams of death attacked my entire body, and I slammed the door shut. Even knowing I didn't have to breathe anymore, my chest heaved as I braced myself against the wall. Wisps of smoke moved in the air around me as my exposed skin recovered from leaving the fry-zone.
The doorbell rang again.
"Uh… delivery here for a Sarah Dearly?"
I approached the window, which I suddenly realized was blocked by heavy blinds and curtains. I braved a quick, very quick, peek outside, which very nearly melted my eyeball.