Seconds or minutes or hours later, I clutched at his back, his lips at my ear, his breath in gasps, even as tremors shook my body, my breathing ragged.
After a moment, Ethan pushed himself onto his elbows, kissed me roughly, and pressed his lips to my forehead. Then he dropped back to the bed, positioned himself on his side, and pulled my body against his. I nestled in front of him, his arm beneath my head, the warmth of his body cocooning mine once again.
We lay there together quietly, even as the sun fought the horizon behind the shutters in his room, two lovers savoring the fleeting cover of darkness.
“What’s your favorite thing?” he whispered, his lips at my ear.
“My favorite thing?” I traced a fingertip across his long fingers, across the veins in his hands.
“Tell me something you haven’t told another vampire.” The question was as sad as it was sweet. He wanted to know something dear to me . . . as long as it was a secret I’d held dear from others. Something I hadn’t yet brought across to the supernatural world into which he’d brought me.
“You know I’m a Cubs fan?”
“Yes, although why remains a mystery.”
I glanced back at him. “You’re not a White Sox fan, are you?”
“Of course not,” he huffed out. “I hardly follow baseball.”
“But if you did?”
There was silence for a moment. “If I had to, I’d root for the Yankees.”
I let out a groan. “I can’t believe I just did what I did with a Yankees fan. You really should have given me a little warning. Included a disclaimer. Something.”
“It’s just baseball.”
“Spoken like a Yankees fan. Anyway, you asked me what my favorite thing was. So, one year, I made this pledge to get a baseball signed by every Cub. I was going to donate it to this charity thing my mom was involved in. I was ten, and I spent a lot of time that summer at Wrigley, at practice, trying to get the guys to sign it. It took me four full months to get all the guys to sign it—there was a holdout.”
“For a Merit? Say it isn’t so.”
“I know, right? Joe Mitchell was pitching back then, and he kept holding out on me. He knew what I was trying to do, but he also knew who I was. I managed to corner him once, but he wouldn’t sign it until I got every other player’s signature on my own. It was a test, I think. A character-building exercise—let’s see if this Merit kid can do something on her own, not rely on her father.”
“So did he sign?”
“He did. Gave me a ‘Good job, kid,’ and everything, just like in the commercial. But by that time, it was nearly September, and I’d been following these guys around for months. I’d done what I set out to do, but that ball was hard to part with.”
“You didn’t keep it, did you?”
“Oh, no. I gave it up, but it killed me. That baseball was like a touchstone. Not because it was collectible—although they did have a great season that year—”
“Go Cubbies.”
I grinned. “That’s my boy. It was more like the baseball was a scrapbook—an album of how I’d spent the summer. A reminder of the games, the players, the heat, the hot dogs, the entire experience.” I was silent for a moment. “I wish I still had it. To remember the summer days, the sunlight. The heat.”
“It helps to have those touchstones,” he said. “Tangible memories of the people and places and things you wish to remember when they’re gone.”
“Is that why you have so many collectibles?”
“Well, part of the reason is merely the passage of time. I’ve lived the lifetimes of many men. I’ve seen things, and I’ve brought forward my own touchstones, as you said. But, yes, you’re right. Those things remind us who we were. Being immortal doesn’t make that any less important.”
“That makes sense,” I said, but it took time for me to answer him, to force the words from my lips. The sun had risen, and it was pushing me asleep.
“Sleep,” Ethan said, and as if he’d issued a command I couldn’t disobey, I did.
Sometime during the day, as I lay groggy and barely awake, I became conscious of his hands on my abdomen. I made a questioning sound.
He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “I need you.”
My body slow and sluggish as if moving through water, I turned my head and squinted at the clock on his nightstand. “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon,” I grumbled, and curled away from him, hitching up my knees and curving my hands into my chest. “Go back to sleep. You can have me at dusk.”
There was a rumbly laugh behind me before his fingers splayed and dipped between my thighs. He kissed my neck, then flicked his tongue against the tip of my ear. “Please, Merit?”
My eyes still closed, I smiled a grin of feminine pleasure. I’m pretty sure that was the first time Ethan had ever said please to me. How was I supposed to say no to that?
But then his voice turned more urgent. “Now,” he growled, his erection against my back.
In answer, I slid my hand behind me and around to the small of his back, pressing his body closer.
“If we keep this up,” I said quietly, “we’re going to kill each other.”
He shifted to raise his body over mine, silver eyes staring down at me. “We’re immortal. That would be quite a battle.”
I pushed a lock of hair from his eyes. “An historic battle.”
“A battle for the ages. You could write about it.”
I credited the hour, the fact that the sun was high above us, but that seemed the funniest thing I’d ever heard. I chuckled and soothed my hands down the sculpted muscle of his back. “Far be it from me to turn down a research project.”
Some hours and two more interruptions later, the sun set again. I awoke, my stomach twinging nervously. We’d finally crossed the boundary between us.
Now what?
I yawned and stretched, still buried in piles of cool cotton blankets, then opened my eyes. Ethan stood beside his bureau, already showered and dressed in unbuttoned black trousers. He had just begun to button the button-down shirt that lay open across his torso. He glanced back, smiled politely, and finished fastening his shirt. “Good evening.”
“Good evening?” I didn’t mean to make it a question, not intentionally, but even I could hear the uptick at the end of the sentence.
Ethan chuckled, then moved to the bed, leaned over me, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. He must have seen the surprise in my eyes. “I told you I wasn’t your father.”
“I clearly wasn’t giving you enough credit.”
“I’m sure that’s not the first time.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, pulled on socks, then slipped into chunky black designer shoes.
I sat up, pulling the comforter around me. “Nor will it probably be the last.”
Ethan snorted and, when he was shoed, went back to the bureau and slid trinkets and change into his pockets. “It’s eight thirty. We’ll need to leave for the Breck estate shortly, so if you’d like to pretty up before we leave, now would be a good time to do it.”