“Sweet dreams,” Gia called out on a laugh.
He merely nodded in response as he pushed through the door. Justin wasn’t sure Gia was right and he would avoid being blamed for any shared dream sex that might occur once he slept, but Lucian had ordered him to bed. Surely that would at least mitigate any punishment? He didn’t know, but was desperate enough to take the risk. He needed to know for sure that Holly was his life mate, and that he hadn’t given his one turn to a woman who would never be his.
Of course, her being his life mate didn’t guarantee he would ever gain her agreement to be his mate. There was still the problem of her being married. But at least if she was his life mate he might be able to claim her eventually . . . in twenty or thirty years maybe, when her mortal husband died. Maybe even ten or so, if the fact that her husband was aging while she was not became a problem. It at least gave him hope he’d briefly lost when he’d realized they hadn’t experienced the shared dream sex that plagued life mates.
Justin picked up his pace as he started upstairs, his mind now thoroughly entrenched in what might be coming. From what he’d heard, even dream sex with a life mate was better than the real thing with a non life mate. He had no idea if that was true, but had every intention of finding out.
Holly shifted restlessly onto her back and opened her eyes. She had been tired when she’d come up here to her room, but was now finding it impossible to go to sleep. Maybe she should have had some of the chicken and potato salad Bricker had prepared for their picnic after all. Or maybe having the blood before bed had perked her up and washed away the weariness. Whichever the case, she wasn’t sleeping now and that fried chicken and potato salad she’d put into the refrigerator was practically calling out to her like a siren’s song.
Clucking under her tongue, she tossed aside the sheet and blankets covering her and got out of bed, switching on the bedside lamp as she did. Pausing as she took note of the pajamas she’d bought that day and now wore, she briefly considered changing into clothes or grabbing a housecoat, but really, was there any reason to? They were flannel after all, with dancing bears in pink tutus on them. She’d thought they were charming when she’d bought them, and they were cute as could be, but they were hardly skimpy or seductive. No one would accuse of her of trying to seduce anyone if she were caught out in them.
Smiling faintly to herself, Holly headed out of her room only to pause again as she stepped into the hall and found it in darkness. Everyone else had obviously gone to bed too, which was rather surprising to her. She’d thought vampires were night -people and that she would naturally fall into that pattern too once she’d got more regulated. But it seemed she was wrong. The house was as silent as a tomb, and as dark as the cemetery had been the other night.
Not wanting to turn on the hall light and wake everyone, Holly reached for the wall and began to ease carefully toward the end of the hall, feeling her way when she got close to where she thought the steps were. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she grasped the railing to make her way cautiously down those as well. It was a relief when she reached the main floor without breaking her neck, and she moved a little more quickly along the hall to the kitchen, where she turned the light on the moment she pushed the door open.
Bright light immediately poured down over her and she slid into the room with a little sigh. The idea of returning upstairs without light was not a pleasant one and Holly decided that after she’d eaten she’d search the drawers for a flashlight or one of the candles Justin had used at dinner the other night, so that she’d have light for the return journey. With that problem solved, if only in her mind, she headed for the refrigerator and the fried chicken waiting inside.
She had removed the food, set it on the counter and was just reaching into the refrigerator for the potato salad when her gaze caught on the can of spray whip cream. Grinning, she grabbed that instead, the idea of the sweet, creamy foam doing more for her appetite at the moment than either the chicken or the potato salad. Probably because it was one of those things she’d had to avoid in the past. When she was mortal and diabetic, she’d had to be very careful of what she ate in an effort to keep her sugars balanced. But now . . .