Page 33 of Road Trip with a Vampire

Sixteen

Five weeks earlier

“I’m no closer to cracking the safe than I was when I arrived,” Peter admitted.

His employer rested his elbows on the table where he was sitting and steepled his fingers. The only thing louder than the man’s garish red plaid suit was the sour expression he leveled at Peter through his computer screen.

“This is most disappointing,” he said.

Peter nodded. “I agree.” He wasn’t used to failure. That was because he never failed. Until now. Gods, was he ever failing now. “I’ve tried everything I can think of to get the thing open. And still, nothing.”

John extracted his red plaid pocket square from his jacket, then dabbed delicately at his mouth before setting it to the side.

Peter shifted uneasily in his chair. If John and his organization planned to terminate his contract over this, so be it.

He only wished the man would hurry up and get it over with.

“If you’ve tried everything you can think of,” John said, tapping his chin thoughtfully, “perhaps try some things you haven’t thought of.”

Peter stared at him. “That makes no sense.” He didn’t make a habit of talking back to the hands that fed him, but honestly . “How can I do something if I haven’t thought of it?”

John’s scowl deepened. “We are paying you handsomely for this job, are we not?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then figure it out,” John snapped.

John’s condescending tone unlocked something visceral, something angry in Peter that he rarely indulged. “Why do you want this safe cracked so badly, anyway? What’s inside?” If he was going to be talked down to, he had a right to know.

“That is none of your concern.” John leaned closer to his camera until his face was all Peter could see on his screen. “Get the job that we are paying you to do done , by any means necessary.”

“Good morning.”

I blinked open my eyes to see Peter lying beside me in bed, his head propped up on one hand so he could look down at me. His hair was an utter disaster, sticking up in all directions from my tugging the night before.

I smiled up at him, then teasingly tapped his nose with a finger. “Good morning to you, too.”

He grasped my finger in his hand before I could pull it back, then slowly brought it to his lips, kissing the tip. I felt the gentle, intimate gesture down to my toes and I burrowed closer to him beneath the covers. When he pulled me in for a hug, I went willingly.

“Did you sleep well?” he murmured. My ear was pressed to his chest, his words a deep rumble beneath my ear.

“Not really,” I deadpanned. “Someone kept me awake.”

He chuckled. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” I tilted my head up a fraction and kissed his lips. My mouth tasted like something had crawled into it and died overnight, but whatever. Peter drank blood, for gods’ sake. He could deal with a little morning breath. “Totally annoying, to be honest.”

My reaction earned a rare Peter smile, so broad it lit up his entire face. And…was that a dimple in his right cheek ? How the hell hadn’t I noticed it before? “You seemed okay with it at the time.”

He wasn’t wrong. Whatever his amnesia had done to the rest of his memories, it had left his understanding of how to please a woman completely intact. I’d lost count of my orgasms somewhere around number five.

I doubted either of us had slept more than an hour or two all night.

Fortunately, the torrent of my power that had destroyed those wineglasses and knocked over that lamp the first time we’d had sex seemed to have burned itself out. Other than one additional bedside table lamp that had somehow ended up on the floor, the suite seemed no worse for wear.

I reached up, unable to resist tracing the shape of Peter’s smile. “I didn’t realize you had a dimple,” I said matter-of-factly. “This is the first time I’ve seen you smile big enough for it to show.”

“I do not have a dimple,” he said, pretending offense. But his smile only grew.

“You do.” I touched it with a fingertip, then cupped his cheek in my palm.

He closed his eyes, leaning into my touch. “Fine,” he conceded. “I suppose I do. What do you think of it?”

He tried to play the question as casual, but the slight hesitancy in his voice told me he cared about what I thought. I bit my lip, then pulled back, pretending to consider both the dimple and his question.

“It’s cute,” I said.

He opened an eye. “Cute?”

“Mm.”

“Not sexy?” He waggled his eyebrows, making me laugh.

In truth, his dimple was so sexy I wanted to lick it right off his face. “It’s…moderately sexy,” I admitted. No point in giving him a swelled head about it.

“ Moderately sexy,” he repeated. “I don’t know whether I should be pleased or offended.”

“You should be pleased,” I said. “I think your scar is sexy, too.” Possibly the understatement of the century.

Peter reached up and traced the faint scar above his upper lip. “I’m glad you like it,” he said. “When I see it in the mirror, I can’t help but wonder how I got it.”

A hint of melancholy had crept into his voice. That wouldn’t do. I sat up, letting the sheets pool around my waist. His eyes fell to my bare breasts, darkening as he took in the sight of me.

“I bet you got it doing something very brave,” I murmured before leaning in close and gently kissing it.

“Brave?” He dipped his chin a fraction and pressed a lingering kiss to my lips. “You think so?”

I nodded. “Definitely.”

He tugged me over him until I straddled his lap. Neither of us had dressed again before falling asleep the night before; his erection was rock-hard beneath me. It was only with great difficulty that I managed to keep from rocking against him and starting all over again.

“I like that you think I might have been brave,” he said. “It lets me imagine I might be worthy of someone as incredible as you.”

He kissed me again, flipping us until he had me pinned beneath his body.

Alarm bells should have been going off in my head through all this. I’d gone to great lengths to change every part of my life and to keep vampires out of it. But in that moment, all I wanted was to touch him. And to let him touch every part of me.

To keep him, maybe. Even after this trip was over.

“You…think I’m incredible?” I breathed.

His eyes blazed. “I know you are.”

He kissed me then, all lips, tongue, and teeth, and—

All conversation stopped after that.

When I woke up again a few hours later, Peter was still sleeping beside me.

I was tempted to stay in bed with him for a while longer. The idea of waking him up with kisses and picking up again where we’d left off was so appealing I nearly gave in to the temptation.

My stomach demanded breakfast, though. It was nearly eleven, and last night’s dinner had been more than twelve hours ago.

I decided to take advantage of Peter’s sleeping in to check out the hotel’s breakfast buffet.

I pulled on the clothes he’d all but torn off me the night before from the floor of the suite’s common room.

My cheeks heated as I remembered how determined he’d been to get me as naked as possible as fast as possible—and how eager I’d been to return the favor.

Before I left, I grabbed Peter’s road map so I could review it while I ate.

Then I turned back to look at him one more time.

He’d rolled over onto his side, the arm I’d used as a pillow outstretched as if I were still beside him.

His mouth hung slightly open as he slept, his normally furrowed brow relaxed in slumber.

It was probably cliché to think someone looked younger when they slept.

But in Peter’s case, it was true. Watching him, I could almost imagine the person he might have been before becoming what he was today.

Somebody with very human hopes and dreams. Maybe with a family.

A more innocent person by far than what he was now: A vampire, who had done gods only knew what before losing his memories.

I shook off the pang of sympathy that hit me whenever I thought about everything vampires had to lose to become what they were.

For most, it was a tragic story. Some vampires chose that life for themselves, but for every person I’d known who’d run to vampirism with open arms, I’d met at least a hundred whose origins were steeped in violence and tragedy.

Peter knew my story, warts and all. What was his? I had so many questions about this enigma of a man. Hopefully one day we would both get answers.

I got to the breakfast buffet just before it closed, my stomach grumbling when I caught a whiff of bacon and fresh coffee. The dining area was only half-occupied, mostly by hungover-looking people in their twenties and thirties staring blearily down at their plates.

Wedding guests, probably.

I had to stifle a grin of recognition at how miserable some of them looked. I’d been there myself countless times. The importance of alcohol moderation hadn’t hit home until well into my third century.

After heaping my plate with scrambled eggs and sautéed tomatoes—nothing beat a good buffet—I found a table near the back of the room where I could review Peter’s map, wrinkled now from frequent handling.

Calling my own handwriting chicken scrawl would be an insult to chickens everywhere, but Peter’s writing was as neat and intentional as he was.

It made his notes easy to follow. The bowling alley we were visiting was just down the state highway from here.

It wouldn’t take more than an hour to get there.

I traced the interstate eastward, cross-referencing all the locations Peter had circled with my murky memories of this part of the country.

I’d spent an unwise amount of time doing unwise things in Nebraska in the 1980s and was relieved we weren’t stopping there.

Not because I thought any of the vampires who lived outside Omaha would still be angry or even remember me.

But on the off chance I was wrong, it seemed wise to give the entire state a wide berth.