Like I was still a stupid little kid with a raging crush on him.
Which was exactly how I felt.
Crushed.
The shame wasn’t helped by the fact he up and disappeared the next night, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from me.
“Whatever,” I huffed, sounding totally mature and not at all like a pouting teen. “It’s a free country.”
Corbin fell in step with me as I exited the house. “Mind if I drive?”
“I have a truck.” I dangled my keys in his face. “Feel free to drive yourself, though.”
The spit dried in my mouth when I saw what he was driving. A 1969 Ford Bronco painted reef aqua with sharp white trim, a pristine white hardtop, and gleaming white leather seats.
“One last chance to change your mind,” he breathed in my ear. “Sure you don’t want me to drive?”
That model and paint combo was one I had obsessed over for years, and I envied him for owning it.
“I’m good,” I mumbled, failing to tear my gaze from his ride. “See you there.”
With vampire strength, Corbin removed his hardtop and carried it into the garage while I watched, leaving his Bronco open to the cool night air.
“Vroom. Vroom.” Keet scratched at the plastic bubble. “Vroom. Vroom.”
Removing the backpack, I stared him down. “Really?”
He broke into garbled Transformer noises, another beloved franchise of his, that cemented the request.
“Do you mind if Keet rides along?” I heard the betrayal in my voice. “I can strap him in with a seat belt.”
Corbin took him, placed him in the back, and secured the pack before turning back to face me.
“Come on, Eva-Diva.” Corbin opened the front passenger door. “Please?”
“Don’t call me that.” I fisted my keys until they cut into my palm. “I’m not a kid anymore, Corbin.”
Nostrils flaring, he rasped as the jut of his fangs grew more pronounced behind his lips. “You’ve cut yourself.”
Turning my hand over, I saw he was right. I had been too angry to feel the bite of the metal.
“I’m gwyllgi.” I flashed him the already closed wound. “It’s not like I’m in any danger from a scratch.”
Eyes darker than a starless sky, Corbin strode toward me. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
His strong fingers braceleted my wrist, and he brought my hand to his nose. No. Not his nose. His mouth. He bent his head, ensnared my gaze, and glided his tongue across my palm.
I forgot how to breathe, how to think, how to do more than gawk as he cleaned my skin of blood.
“Well, look at that.” He rubbed his thumb down the pink seam. “You were right.”
While I was dumbstruck, he shepherded me to the Bronco and lifted me into the copilot seat.
I let him strap me in with a kind of wonder, a near certainty I was dreaming, and then he shut the door.
The metallic slam broke the spell he put me under, jarring me out of my shock, but the vampire was quick. He slid in behind the wheel, cranked the engine, and spun out before I could fumble the catch open on my seat belt.
Manic laughter trailed us as Keet fluttered, enjoying the wind cutting through the tiny breathing holes in the clear plastic.
When I acknowledged how much I enjoyed my long hair snapping in my face, I felt like a traitor to my pickup, which Dad handed down to me when I turned sixteen.
“Is that a smile?” Corbin cut his eyes toward me. “Having fun yet?”
“No,” I lied, smothering a dopey grin resulting from riding in this car with this guy.
“You’ve always been a crap liar, Eva.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say that.”
“I know all kinds of things about you.” He pitched his voice low. “Like how your lips feel on my skin.”
Mortification shot my hand to the door, and I closed my fingers around the latch. Jumping wouldn’t kill me. Even if the asphalt shredded my skin and impact broke bones, I would survive it. I would rather that, rather a semi hit me, than have this conversation with Corbin. Ever.
“I made a fool of myself, and I’m lucky the guy whose lap I fell into didn’t take advantage.”
“That’s how you want to play this?” The steering wheel groaned beneath the clench of his fingers. “You want to pretend you didn’t brush off every boy who spoke to you on your way to me?”
“I was drunk. I don’t remember what I did or didn’t do. That’s how drunk works.”
A growl vibrated in his chest, and the wild heart of me thumped harder, until fur brushed the undersides of my skin in warning the beast wanted out. A crimson veil drew across my vision, and I had to focus my breathing to hold on to this form.
“I remember.” He stared out the windshield, his voice a thready whisper. “Enough for the both of us.”
The rest of the trip passed in silence, minus a fart sound here or there from Keet and the random burst of birdy laughter.
This time of night, the doors to the Clarice Lawson Oceanic Research Institute had just opened, and lines weren’t long. It helped that the entire building was warded against humans. Only the paranormal community was welcome at the area’s largest attraction.
Seeing as how the aquarium was named after Uncle Linus’s mother, who funded the project, he finessed a lifetime pass for me the year it opened. Another bonus of Aunt Grier being Clarice Lawson’s daughter-in-law was that no one batted an eye when I brought Keet in to spend quality time among the fishes.
Corbin, who rarely spent time in Savannah, was doomed to the ticket line or hitting a kiosk.
Smiling as I walked up to the door, scanned my card, and entered the cool building, I left him behind without a hint of guilt. “You want to hit the shark exhibit first?”
I preferred the leafy sea dragons, but Keet loved sharks. And penguins. God, the penguins.
After he saw an African penguin at the aquarium’s grand opening, he became obsessed with them. The live webcam of their enclosure became his new favorite TV show. He refused to fly for a year and took up waddling as his primary mode of transportation.
For hours each night, he swam in the pool at my parents’ house until he worked up the nerve to dive and swim underwater. African penguins held their breath for four minutes max. Keet, being undead, had a poor sense of time. He also didn’t require oxygen. His laps tended to last twenty minutes.
“Bum, bum, bum, bum,” Keet began, alarming the patrons around us. “Do, do, do.”
When we passed under a splashy banner for The Little Guppies Show, he belted out his favorite song.
“Save our oceansss.” His claws raked the plastic bubble. “Oceans. Oceans. Oceans.”
The song came from the animated 4D show for kids, which included live elements to surprise the audience. Water sprays, rumble seats, and flying mylar streamers. The latter, he always stole and nested in until they got so ratty Aunt Grier tossed them.
“I have to buy tickets, remember?” I headed to a kiosk. “It’s not movie time yet.”
“Bum, bum?” Keet pouted. “Do, do?”
“We can see the sharks while we wait,” I assured him. “Maybe you’ll see that big stingray you like too.”
With a show ticket in my pocket, I joined the queue for the people mover that carried patrons through an acrylic tunnel bisecting the floor of the shark exhibit.
“You still like vanilla?”
A groan poured out of me as I glanced over my shoulder to find Corbin holding two soft serve ice cream cones. With so many people, and so much perfume and cologne, I hadn’t smelled his approach.
Vanilla for me. Pineapple for him.
Always with the pineapple.
And yes, I was aware how sad it made me that I had memorized his favorite, well, everything.