Undead and Unreturnable (21 page)
"Damn right!"
"My only excuse—"
"Hey, I thought you said there
was
no excuse."
"—is that I was driven by fear, which is a new experience for me." He frowned. "An unpleasant one."
"Well." I sulked and allowed him to hug me. He did it carefully, like he was hugging a barrel of snakes. One open at both ends. "I did surprise you. And not in a good way. I really didn't mean to keep it a secret for so long, and I didn't mean to blurt it out that way."
"And you apologized, repeatedly, for that."
"Yeah, I did! What, so, you're not worried about that anymore?"
" 'That' being the frightening and unmanning way you can get into my head during our most intimate moments, while you yourself remain a locked door to me?"
"Well," I grumped, "when you have that attitude, anything's going to sound bad." Then I loosened up and kissed him on the chin. "Aw, come on. I wasn't a virgin when I met you, and I kind of liked that this was a 'first' with you. It helped me—it helped me decide a lot of things. A big thing, this October. I mean, you were aware I was going to stay with you forever, or leave forever, right?"
"
Ummmm
," he said, because he was nuzzling my throat. I flinched back a little, and he kissed me reassuringly in the same spot he had chomped me the night before. It had, of course, healed perfectly, but I couldn't help being twitchy.
"And part of the reason I decided to stay was because, in my head at least, you weren't sneaky and weird."
"It will take me some time," he said, working his way into my cleavage, which was as wonderful as it sounded.
"Time?" I laughed and clutched his head. "Sweetie, you're so quick to check the Book for every little thing, you forgot we're stuck with each for a thousand years."
"Anything's going to sound bad," he said, picking me up and tossing me on the bed, "when you put it like that."
He had come up for a kiss after spending an inhuman amount of time between my legs, and I was trying to figure out if you could actually die, yes die, by orgasm. It seemed likely. It also seemed like a great way to go.
Can you hear me now?
"Sinclair, we are not doing a cell phone commercial right now," I growled. "Now take that thing and stick it in me and let's worry about something else! Anything else!"
But you can .
. . pausing for the thrust. I moaned when it went home, when he buried himself in me, when I could feel him everywhere…
hear me
.
"Yes," I groaned. "I hear you."
And when I think about how precious you are to me and how I nearly broke your sister's back when I saw her sword between your breasts, you can hear that, too?
Thrusting back now. It was weird, having a conversation like this. About this. But I was nothing if not adaptable.
"Yes, I hear you."
All right, then. I can live with this.
"It's nothing," I grumbled, "compared to what I have to put up with."
"I read your columns," he said, after.
I groaned and hid myself in the blankets. After a few seconds of digging, he found me and pulled me out. "Aha! I've been saying that in my head for over a minute, to no avail. So it really is only during—"
"I
told
you. Must we relive every fight, all the time? And I don't want to hear the editorial report on my columns."
"I liked them," he continued, ignoring my
queenlike
command. And was it my imagination, or was proof that I wasn't a constant telepath really cheering him up? "I thought they made much sense. They will, of course, cause a bit of a scandal among the older crowds—"
"They're
not for
the old guys. Those guys have already figured out all the rules. I
gotta
admit, I kind of get a kick out of writing them."
"Perhaps seeing the lighter side of the queen will appease some of the more, ah, some of the vampires who are more set in their ways. Particularly the European faction."
"I don't have any other side," I admitted. Then: "European faction?"
"Yes, that group of older vampires who was giving serious consideration to overthrowing you."
I sat up. "
What
?"
"Did you never wonder why I suddenly went to
"Well—yeah, but—at the time we were—I made it a point not to show too much interest in your activities because I was still mad at you for being a sneaky freak, and
this is the sort of thing I've been talking about
!"
"But I persuaded them not to revolt," he said, looking totally puzzled. "I fixed the problem for you."
"First of all, why can't they just mind their own business? They can worry about them, and I can worry about me. Jesus!"
"Because you killed two major vampires in three months, one of them the sitting power," he explained. "It was cause for concern."
"And second,
whyyyyyyyy
did you secretly go over there and then not say a word about why you were going and what happened when you got back? Instead it was all 'I miss you, Betsy, why won't you sleep with me?' "
"I did miss you," he pointed out. "And I
was
wondering why you wouldn't share my bed. Or vice versa," he added, looking down at my green flannel sheets.
"But this is the stuff I'm talking about!" I thrashed between my sheets like a landed bass. "You can't keep this shit from me!"
"But I fixed it," he said. Honest to God, he was completely bewildered. No doubt wondering why I wasn't on my knees
fellating
him out of pure gratitude. Men! "I fixed the problem. There was no need to bother you with any of it."
I fought not to choke the living shit out of him. "But it was
my problem
?"
"But when you didn't tell me about your sometime-telepathy—"
"That was a totally different thing! That was something I couldn't help, that I meant all along to tell you about, and eventually did, and understood why it was wrong to keep it from you, and we moved on!" I was stomping back and forth, wrapped in my comforter. "This was not sneaking off to
"I never sneak," he said coolly.
"Oh, dude, you invented sneaking!"
"You knew where I was going. And you knew when I returned."
"Semantics! And here's a question, ladies and gentlemen—"
"Who are you talking to when you do that?"
"Why not bring me with? Huh? They were going to overthrow
me
, why not let me come over and plead my case?"
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I had either cornered him with my
cementlike
logic, or he didn't want to tell me he thought I'd fuck up the whole thing. Either way…
"Get out!"
"All right," he said mildly, climbing out of bed, "but you did state in your terms that I must move all the way in, or all the way—"
"I know what I said!" I kicked the duvet in a rage. "I don't care about that now! If I look at you another second I'll—I'll kick you in the gonads! Now get lost!"
He got lost.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Jessica made the time-out sign. "You made up after your other fight, but now you're fighting again?"
I nodded miserably.
"You guys. Seriously. I really think you should get married already—talk about
prewedding
jitters! You're tearing each other apart!"
"Perhaps my father could help," Laura suggested. "He has counseled many couples before their special day."
Oh, right. I could just see Sinclair and me sitting in the minister's office. "Thanks anyway, Laura."
"What are you doing here?" Jess demanded. She was jealous of any woman who took up my time, even relatives. "Weren't you just here?"
"I had to let George feed again," she said glumly. She pulled back her coat sleeve to show us the neat bite marks and reddened flesh. "He's pretty much healed up now."
"Oh. Well, good work." I tried an encouraging smile, which felt like an embalmed leer. "Don't almost kill him anymore. Let that be a lesson to you. Etcetera. Time to get back to my problems: can you believe that bum?"
"Well. He
did
go to
"You just like him because his rent checks have never bounced."
"No, but frankly, I figure that other hurdle—whatever it was—if you got over that, you can get over anything."
"Excuse
me
," Cathie said, right next to my ear, and I yowled and knocked over my tea. "But if we're going to get back to anyone's problems, we're getting back to mine."
"There's a ghost in the room," I told Laura and Jess.
"Oh, honey. Not this again." Jess didn't believe in ghosts (funny '
tude
for someone who lived with vampires). No matter what I did, I couldn't get her to see them. So she just…
"I'm out of here." She got up, ready to put her cup and saucer in the sink, when Laura opened her mouth. I shook my head, and we sat in silence until Jessica left.
"What does it want?" Laura practically whispered.
"I can hear
her
fine," Cathie snapped.
"She can hear you fine," I translated. "She's the latest victim of the Driveway Killer."
"The one who's missing? Mrs.
Scoman
?"
"There's another one?" Cathie cried. "
Dammit
,
dammit
! This is why I'm floating around this dump, trying you to get your head out of your ass! This is exactly what I was trying to prevent! Son of a fucking bitch!"
"All
right
, don't
yell
." I put my hands over my face and shivered for a minute. "She's mad because there's another victim."
"Well… another lady who's missing. She got pulled out of her driveway tonight; they've already put an alert out on her." Laura was obviously trying to sound encouraging to the dead woman she couldn't see or hear. "She hasn't actually shown up, um, dead."
