When Michael’s eyes opened again, they were back to clear, quiet blue, just the way I loved them. He took another breath and scrubbed his face with both hands, like he was trying to wash something off. “I scared you,” he said. “Sorry. Caught me by surprise.”
I nodded, not really ready to talk again quite yet. When he held out his hand, though, I put mine in it. I was the one in black nail polish, rice-powder makeup, and dyed-black hair; what with my fondness for Goth style, you’d think that I’d have been the one to end up with the fangs. Michael was way too gorgeous, too human to end up with immortality on his hands.
It hurt, sometimes. Both ways.
“You need to eat something,” I said, in that careful tone I found myself using when speaking about sucking blood. “There’s some O neg in the fridge. I could warm it up.”
He looked mortally embarrassed. “I don’t want you to do that. I’ll go to the clinic,” he said. “Eve? I’m really sorry. Really. I didn’t think I’d need anything for another day or so.”
I could tell that he was sorry. The light in his eyes was pure, hot love, and if there was any hunger complicating all that, he kept it well hidden deep inside.
“Hey, it’s like being diabetic, right? Something goes wrong with your blood, you gotta take care of that,” I said. “It’s not a problem. We can all wait until you get back.”
He was already shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I want you guys to go on to the party. I’ll meet you there.”
I touched his face gently, then kissed him. His lips were cool, cooler than most people’s, but they warmed up under mine. Ectothermic, according to Claire, the resident scholarly nerd girl in our screwed-up little frat house of four. One vampire, one Goth, one nerd, and one wannabe vampire slayer. Yeah. Screwed up, ain’t it? Especially living in Morganville, where the relationship between humans and vampires is sometimes like that between deer and deer hunters. Even when vampires weren’t hunting us, they had that look, like they were wondering when open season might start.
Not Michael, though.
Not usually, anyway.
He kissed the back of my hand. “Save the first dance for me?” he asked.
“Like I could say no, when you give me that oh baby look, you dog.”
He smiled, and that was a pure Michael smile, the kind that laid girls out in the aisles when he played. “I can’t look at you any other way,” he said. “It’s my Eve look.”
I batted at his arm, which had zero effect. “Get moving, before you see my mean look.”
“Scary.”
“You bet it is. Go on.”
He kissed me again, gently, and whispered, “I’m sorry,” one more time before he was suddenly gone.
He left me standing in the middle of the living room of the Glass House, aka Screwed-Up Frat Central, wearing a skintight, pleather catsuit, cat ears, and a whip. Not to mention some killer stiletto heels. Add the mask, and I made a superhot Catwoman.
The costume might have been the reason for Michael’s shiny eyes and out-of-control hunger, actually. I’d intended to push his buttons for Halloween. . . . I just hadn’t intended to push them quite that hard.
I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Shane’s voice drifted down ahead of him. “Hey, have you seen my meat cleaver—holy shit!”
I turned. Shane was standing frozen on the stairs, wearing a lab coat smeared with fake blood and some gruesome-looking Leatherface mask, which he quickly stripped off in order to stare at me without any latex barriers. What I was wearing suddenly felt like way too little.
“Eve—jeez. Warn a guy, would you?” He shook his head, jammed the mask back on, and came down the rest of the stairs. “That was not my fault.”
“The leering? I think yes,” I said. And secretly, that was pretty cool, although, hey, it was Shane. Not like he was exactly the guy I was hoping to impress. “Totally your fault.”
“It’s a guy thing. We have reactions to women in tight leather with whips. It’s sort of involuntary.” He looked around. “Where’s Michael?”
“He had to go,” I said. “He’ll meet us at the party.” No reason to tell Shane, who still couldn’t quite get over his anti-vamp upbringing, that Michael had gone to snag himself a bag of fresh plasma so he wouldn’t be snacking on mine. “Seriously, do I look okay?”
“No,” Shane said, and flopped down on the sofa. He put his heavy boots up on the coffee table, sending a paper plate with the dried remains of a chili dog close to the edge. I rescued it, gave him a dirty look, and dumped the plate in his lap. “Hey!”
“It’s your chili dog. Clean it up.”
“It’s your turn to clean.”
“The house. Not your trash, which you can walk your Leatherfaced ass into the kitchen to throw away.”
He batted his long, silky eyelashes at me. “Didn’t I tell you that you look great?” Shane said. “You do.”
“Oh, please. Chili dog. Trash. Now.”
“Seriously. Michael’s going to have to watch himself around you. And watch out for every other guy in the room, too.”
“That’s the idea,” I said. “Hey, it was this or the Naughty Nurse costume.”
Shane sent me a miserable look. “Do you have to say things like that?”