Page 62 of Road Trip with a Vampire

“It does,” I assured him.

“What happens if this is all I ever get? Little glimpses of what my old life used to be, but nothing more? Nothingreal?”

The pain in his voice was so genuine that I impulsively reached out and covered his hand with one of mine.

“We still have a few more places to visit before we get to Indiana,” I pointed out. “Hopefully you’ll get more memories back on the way. And if not…”

I trailed off.

While I was speaking, Peter had flipped our hands so that our palms touched. I reflexively wove my fingers through his. It was electric, this small, physical connection turning the moment into something larger than the sum of its parts.

We were no longer two strangers on separate journeys of self-discovery, I realized, as Peter slowly, gently caressed the back of my hand with one of his large, calloused thumbs. We were becoming a team. A couple of misfits, each trying to reconcile their fraught relationship with their past with what they knew of their present. Together.

Us against the world, I thought. Like a fool.

“What are you thinking?” Peter’s voice cut into my reverie.

What was I thinking? That I was frightened of feeling this attached to a vampire—especially one whose story was unknown even to himself.

That I didn’t want to let go of his hand.

I couldn’t tell him any of that. I looked into his eyes, searching for some hint that whatever it was I was feeling, he felt it, too. But his expression gave nothing away.

I cleared my throat. “I’m thinking that everything’s going to be all right in the end,” I said honestly. “No matter what.”

He gently squeezed my hand, giving no sign that he wanted to let go anytime soon, either. A corner of his mouth turned up into a small, sad smile. “I hope you’re right,” he said, looking entirely unconvinced.

Fourteen

Six weeks earlier

Nothing was working and ithad Peter rattled.

In all his years of doing this, he had never met a safe he couldn’t eventually crack with the right tools and a little ingenuity. Even warded safes eventually yielded their secrets to him with enough time and patience.

But this safe wasn’t an ordinary safe. It wasn’t even an ordinarywardedsafe.

The safe his employers were paying him to crack was areally fucking wardedsafe.

Peter had tried everything. The lock-picking tools he’d purchased decades ago with his first paycheck. The small hammer he used to knock locks loose when his lock-picking tools failed. The not-so-small hammer that had served him well when he’d been cracking safes in the Baltics in the late 1980s.

All any of it had gotten him for his efforts were a sore thumb and a series of increasingly severe electrical zaps from the wards protecting the safe and its contents.

Whoever this safe belonged todid notwant it tampered with. They were also someone with warding skills unlike anything Peter had ever seen.

He would honestly be impressed with them if they weren’t making his life a living nightmare.

Peter didn’t think he was losing his touch, but it was clear that other, less conventional methods were needed.

After I paid our bill,Peter and I made our way to the elevators. A group of rowdy wedding guests got on with us, forcing us to stand so close together our elbows brushed. The others were laughing about something that had happened at the reception, but I barely registered anything but the lights on the elevator panel ticking up as we climbed higher, the rapid beat of my heart, and how badly I wanted to hold Peter’s hand again.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to move my hand just a fraction to the right and twine my fingers through his. The urge to do it was so strong I bit the inside of my cheek to ground me—and to remind myself not to do anything stupid.

Butwouldit be stupid? He’d admitted he wanted me. I wasn’t certain when it had started happening, but I realized I wanted him, too. It had nothing to do with the pheromones he’d been throwing off downstairs. Something about this man drew me in and had since the night we’d met.

It wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. But perhaps indulging our impulses now would help us get over our feelings before they could bloom into something complicated.

A kiss now to save a massive headache later.