Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)

“It’s okay Bailey. Mommy’s fine. She was just dreaming. It’s okay. Stop licking my face, sweetie. Mommy’s fine.”

Dante let his breath out on a sound that was half amused and half frustrated, and then sank back on the bed. Mary must have been moaning and perhaps even thrashing in her sleep as they’d had their shared dream. It had obviously alarmed the dog to the point she’d woken up her mistress . . . bringing an end to the lovely dream.

He listened to Mary as she continued to soothe the dog, but when the dog apparently settled and she fell silent, he closed his eyes, eager to return to sleep and the dream they’d been sharing.


Mary moaned and pushed Bailey wearily away for about the hundredth time since she’d gone to bed. The dog had repeatedly wakened her from sleep through the night, licking her cheek and pawing at her arm to pull her from sleep and the dreams that had apparently made her restless and disturbed Bailey’s sleep.

Sighing her relief when Bailey gave up licking at her face and merely dropped her head to rest it on Mary’s belly, she wiped her eyes tiredly. She was exhausted, and extremely frustrated after a night of wet dreams that had constantly been interrupted before they could reach their happy ending.

Each one of those dreams had been about her and Dante, and Mary supposed she should be embarrassed, but hell, they were just dreams and they weren’t the first inappropriate ones she’d had in her life. Besides, what they amounted to was her subconscious telling her that she was attracted to Dante. Not surprising. He was a good-looking young man and built like a damned Adonis.

Actually, Adonis probably would have envied him, she thought. But the point was that of course she’d lust after him. Who wouldn’t? It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like she was going to try to drag those dreams into reality with her. She’d just enjoyed them for the private fantasy they were. Well, as much as she could enjoy them with Bailey taking on the coitus-interruptus cape. Honestly, Mary loved the dog, but sometimes she could just smack her.

Bailey shifted her head a little higher on Mary’s stomach and whined piteously, a sure sign she wanted to go outside and relieve herself. Mary pulled her hands from her face and scowled at the dog.

“Really?” she asked in a hissed whisper. “Keep me up half the night with your nonsense and then expect me to crawl out of bed to let you out?”

Bailey blinked at her innocently, eyes wide, and Mary sighed and sat up, forcing the dog off of her. She muttered, “Fine. But I have to dress first, so you’ll just have to wait a couple minutes.”

Bailey whimpered and sat up to give her “the sad eyes,” and Mary shook her head and grimaced in response. She supposed, to be fair about it, she had obviously kept the dog awake with her thrashing about and moaning in her sleep. In fact, Mary supposed she should be grateful Bailey had woken her repeatedly, otherwise she might have disturbed Dante’s sleep . . . and wouldn’t that have been embarrassing? It probably would have been obvious that her dreams were sexual in nature. Bailey had woken her up at one point as she was gasping, “oh, oh, oh,” over and over again. In her dream, Dante was—Well, point being, she’d still been crying out when she’d woken up. Had she got much louder, her guest would have heard and had no doubt about the kind of dreams she was enjoying.

Which is perfectly normal and healthy, Mary told herself as she crawled to the end of the bed and stood to tug the closet door open to find clothes. Hell, she was surprised she could still have wet dreams.

Sunlight was pouring in through the open blinds at the head of the bed, making it easy to see and pick out clothes. Mary moved quickly into the bathroom with shorts and a T-shirt and closed the door so Bailey wouldn’t try to follow. The bathroom, while spacious for an RV, was tiny enough that the two of them in there would have made it as crowded as the subway at rush hour.

Very aware that Bailey needed to relieve herself too, Mary started out trying to be quick about getting herself ready to face the day, but then as it occurred to her that they would no doubt wake up poor Dante as they traipsed through the living area, she frowned and slowed a bit. It was times like this that she realized how inconvenient an RV could be. Of course, with just her and Joe in it, having only one door had never been a problem, but the few times they’d had guests with them, she’d thought that a second exit in the back of the RV might have been nice. Of course, there was nowhere to put one back here, unless she wanted to walk through the shower to a door, but . . .