“I’ve never met someone’s parents before,” she said.
“We should make a list of all the firsts I am for you.” He rolled onto his side and pulled her to him.
“Tonight was the first time I considered ripping someone’s throat out.”
“Is that how you kill a vampire?”
She shrugged in his arms. “I’m not sure.”
“Sunshine. Stakes,” he muttered against her forehead.
“Sunshine for sure. The rest could just be mythology. I’ll have to ask Dr. Savage.”
“Later.” The venom coursed through Ian’s system. She could hear his heart slow down, his body calm. He was right; he did sleep better after she bit him. She slept better just knowing he was there.
Chapter Sixteen
In her head, Celia kept a countdown clock: two days until the arrival of Ian’s parents.
She figured they would hate her and think she wasn’t cute enough for their son and/or think she was an idiot. She went through every negative scenario possible, from her fanging out at the dinner table to her tripping on a curb. Every embarrassing outcome possible, she pictured, and she didn’t even have time to see Dr. Savage for advice.
That night, Ian and Imogene sat on her couch watching Jeopardy! and Ian kept shouting questions before Imogene could even read the answers.
“Cut it out.” She elbowed him.
“Read faster. You’re a vampire.” Ian had a race Saturday morning (the official reason for his parents’ visit), so he ate some strange-looking whole grain cereal with apple juice—not milk—apple juice. He was almost fully assimilated to Celia’s schedule, considering he now ate cereal for dinner.
“Why are you pacing?” Imogene asked.
“What am I going to say to your parents? How am I going to talk to them?”
“Vishnu,” Ian said.
“Huh?”
He looked up from the TV. “What?”
Celia rolled her eyes. He was impossible to talk to during Jeopardy!.
“You know, at least you don’t have real person problems. Meeting Ian’s parents is cake compared to the possibility of losing your house.”
Celia paused. “You’re losing your house?”
Imogene shrugged. “It’s been a slow pick-pocketing month. Plus all the dudes I’ve been biting lately haven’t been carrying cash.”
“I can lend you some money,” Celia said.
“From your part-time Happy Gas paycheck. Dude.” She looked over her glasses at her.
“No, I got something like two million bucks from my parents’ life insurance policy.”
Ian dropped his cereal bowl, which Imogene caught before it hit the carpet. She handed it back to him, her mouth wide open.
“Thank you.” Ian’s voice sounded two octaves higher than usual.
Then, they just sat there, gaping at Celia. Jeopardy! was forgotten.
Celia stopped pacing. “Did I say something wrong?”
“You have, like, two million dollars just…sitting around?”
Celia shrugged at Imogene. “Well, most of it’s in a bank. I don’t keep it all in my mattress.”
Imogene glanced at Ian. “I don’t think she gets what I’m saying.”
He cleared his throat. “Sweetie. You’re a millionaire?”
“Yeah. So?”
“And yet she wears yoga pants every day and lives in this shit hole.” Imogene gestured to her David Bowie poster and collection of VHS tapes.
“Hey, it’s beach front. How much do you need to borrow, Imogene?”
She looked sort of mopey. “I don’t know. Like four hundred?”
“Okay.” Celia headed to her bedroom but smelled Ian behind her. She reached for her stash, and he laughed.
“You actually do keep money in your mattress.”
“Only a couple thousand.” She glanced back at him.
One of his eyebrows was super high, and he had a smirk on the mouth she loved to bite. “I have an idea,” he said.
“Does it involve Jeopardy!?”
“No.” He was silent.
“I will kiss that smirk right off your face.”
“Funny, that doesn’t sound like a threat.”
Celia kissed him to make her point. “What’s this idea?”
“Well, it’s your money,” he said, “but you know that scene in Pretty Woman that you like so much?”
She stood on her tiptoes. “The one where she gets to go shopping and have salespeople fawn over her and she buys all those pretty dresses?”
He smiled. “Yeah, that one. The shops at St. Arthur’s Circle don’t close until eleven, which gives us a little under two hours. What if I went and put on my suit and played Richard Gere for you?”
She put the hand not holding cash on his chest. “You’d go shopping with me?”
“I would be honored to go shopping with you, Vivian.”
She hopped around in her stocking feet. “Oh, my gosh, you remember her name from the movie?”
“Celia, we’ve watched it three times.”
“Right.” She winced. “Go put on your suit!”
They took Imogene’s car. Ian said she wasn’t invited; this was “a couple’s thing.” Celia thought Ian looked totally dashing in his one and only suit. Plus, he’d somehow managed to gel his hair back over his forehead, which made him look about ten years older and very respectable. Celia had on her muumuu dress, but she thought it wasn’t as bad as Vivian in her hooker gear.
They arrived in busy St. Arthur’s Circle. Celia waved at Dr. Savage’s office as they drove past. She wanted to scream at her therapist, tell her, “My boyfriend is taking me shopping!”
She felt like she was in a movie…
Zoom in on St. Arthur’s Circle, Florida. Palm trees are everywhere, and hidden between them, nude marble statues. There are fountains and rich tourists on every corner. The shop fronts are lit with golden light—beacons of glutinous American over-spending.
Enter the happy young couple. He looks delicious. He looks like he could be on the cover of GQ. She has red hair, curves, and a huge smile. Their hands are clasped as he drags her through expensive parked cars and to their first shop: Shoe Heaven.
“Every woman needs a good pair of heels.”
“How do you know that?” Celia asked.
“My mom told me.”
The shoes were indeed first. Ian made Celia try on a dozen pumps, and since the owners of the shop were these two gay guys, they scurried around like horny rats—if rats got horny; Celia wasn’t sure. Anyway, whenever Ian spoke, they jumped…and drooled. The gay boys finally talked her into three-inch red pumps that Ian said matched her hair and a pair of sensible black open-toed heels that Celia thought Imogene would really like.
After that, they went to a place called World Fashion that had sitar music playing and smelled kind of like incense. The women were really nice. They helped Celia find the right sizes and the right styles that suited her over-size-eight physique. Ian would give her a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on outfit options. When no one was looking, she even snuck him into the dressing room, where they made out like a pair of teens.
Next was To Be Yours, a more romantic place filled with dresses reminiscent of a Disney princess. Celia bought some jewelry there and a hat with feathers.
They hit fashion gold in a shop called All Woman. It was retro but in that eight-hundred-dollars-a-dress sort of way. There was another gay dude watching the racks, who first offered them a glass of wine. Then, he went to work. He was like a color guru. Every dress he brought made Celia’s vamp skin glow like moonlight—and everything was a perfect fit!
Nothing was ever a perfect fit for Celia. Either the butt was too tight or the waist was too big or the pants were too long. But this gay dude was a magician. When they left, Celia kissed him on the nose. She even wore one of her new dresses out into the St. Arthur’s night. She left the muumuu in the dressing room, curled into an embarrassing ball against the mirror. No more muumuus for Ce
lia Merkin!
Ian carried all her goodies back to the car, and she finally realized she felt good standing next to him. She didn’t feel like an imposter. She felt like a hot girl with a hot boyfriend. She felt like she was going to impress the hell out of his parents Saturday night. She also felt frisky.
On the car ride home, she started by just sucking on Ian’s ear. Then, she went for it. She put her hand on his upper thigh, and the car almost lurched off the road.
“Celia.”
She giggled and moved her hand around a little. “Want me to stop?”
“No.” He bit his bottom lip.
“Can we tonight?”
Ian glanced from her and back to the road. She assumed he knew what she meant, because he smiled and increased the speed of the car by about twenty miles an hour. They didn’t need to explain their intentions to Imogene when they got back, because she just huffed and said, “Finally! I have a fucking date.” She grabbed the keys from Ian but did spare a moment to say, “Nice dress, Merk,” before disappearing into the night—as she so often did.
Ian put Celia’s newly acquired clothing on her living room floor.
Celia felt like she might be losing her nerve—maybe because Ian wasn’t carrying her to the bedroom and ripping off her new dress. Or maybe because he wouldn’t look at her.
She spoke, just to say something. “Did you want to do it here or your place?”
“I have condoms,” he said.
“We don’t need them. I can’t get pregnant.”
That made him look at her.
“I was gonna tell you. I know you want kids, but—”
“Celia.” He gave her a half-smile. “It’s okay.”
“Then what’s wrong?” She wrung her fingers. “Do you not want to?”
“Of course I want to.” He put his hands on his hips and toed at the carpet.
She looked at his pinkie. “You’re scared I’m going to break another bone, aren’t you?”
He chuckled, thank God. “No.” He paused. “Okay, let’s sit down.” He took her hand and led her to the couch. He sighed. “Celia, I’ve had sex a lot.”
“I kind of figured.”
“But you haven’t.”
She nodded.
“I need to make sure you’re doing this for you and not because you think it’s what I need.”
“Oh.”
“I just don’t want this to feel like an obligation because you think I’m some kind of nympho. Because what we have already is great. I don’t want you rushing into anything.”
She leaned back against the couch. “I’ve never had an adult conversation about sex before.”
“That’s kind of what I’m getting at.” He smiled and brushed some of her hair off her neck. “Is sex tonight really what you want or is it just for me?”
Celia thought about it. She looked at Ian. Then, she looked beyond his utter adorableness and thought about the way he made her feel—which made her stand up and say, “Nope, I really want to bang your brains out.”
“Okey-doke.” He stood up, put his hands on her hips, and threw her straight up so that her legs wrapped around his waist.
Celia giggled into the collar of his shirt.
There were three things she learned during what will forever be known as “Life-Altering Sex with Ian Hasselback:”
1.Celia thoroughly enjoyed removing Ian’s suit—so many layers and so much fun.
2.Large things really did fit in small places.
3.There was nothing more beautiful than Ian. Not sunsets. Not pizza. Not even David Bowie in Labyrinth. Not A-positive blood. Nothing, nothing, nothing…
Afterward, sweat glued her face to his chest. Ian’s breath still hadn’t slowed. He twitched when she rubbed her naked skin against his side.
“I love sex,” Celia announced.
“Yeah, you do,” he muttered.
Her cheek made a squelch noise when she pulled away from him. “And look, no broken bones.”
“Yay!”
“What do we do now?”
“Huhm?” Ian’s eyes were still shut.
“Can we do it again? Right now?” She made the whole bed bounce.
“Celia. Lie down.”
She circled his left nipple with her fingertip. “What do people do after sex?”
“Go to sleep?”
“It’s too early to go to sleep.”
He winked one eye open and looked at her. “Come ’ere.”
She laid down as instructed, and he wrapped her in his arms. Her nose was in the sweet-smelling spot where his neck met shoulder.
“So what do we do?” she asked.
He made a nondescript noise in the back of his throat. “Play twenty questions?”
She laughed against his collarbone. “Am I being annoying? I’m being annoying.”
“You’re fine.”
She reached her hand around and played with the shaggy hair on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry I can’t have kids.”
“Celia, you’re a vampire. I probably should have seen that coming.”
“I guess. I just know you want them.”
“I want you more,” he said.
She buried her nose against his chest because her fangs were out. She hadn’t known they popped out due to the sensation of pure happiness.
He was silent for a second. “You know you don’t have a heartbeat, right?”
“Yeah, it’s creepy, isn’t it?”
“Something else I’ll get used to,” he said.
She licked his throat until his breath hitched.
“I really do have to get some sleep, Mermaid. I gotta get up early Saturday.”
“I know.” She ran her fangs over his skin but didn’t bite down.
He twitched again. “That tickles.”
Celia leaned up and looked at him. He was already half to la-la land. “Maybe I’ll go for a swim,” she said, although she was really hesitant to wash him from her body.
“Mm.”
“Will you ever get in the ocean again?”
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I’m scared.”
She brushed pieces of sweaty hair off his forehead. “You always say what you mean, don’t you?”
“To my detriment.” He opened his eyes and touched her lips. “You’ve never looked more gorgeous.”
“I don’t really have to go for a swim,” she said.
“Good. I think I’m ready for round two.” With that, he swooped an arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him.
“Wait, I thought you said you needed to sleep.”
He pulled her closer with his hand on her ass. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Chapter Seventeen
When Celia woke up, Ian was gone. She knew how he was the day before a race: he did an endurance ride—long on distance and low on speed. Then, he ate a huge plate of pasta with lean meat sauce, side salad, and water—lots of water—and for dessert, a kale smoothie.
Celia allowed herself an extra hour of sleep, because she’d just had tons of sex. She knew Ian had joked about needing his “fix,” but Celia now understood. After rolling out of bed, she popped open a bag of blood, sat on her kitchen counter, and considered how much she wanted sex again already. She wanted sex on the couch, on the beach, on the very countertop on which she sat.
She slurped her bag of A-positive, but it didn’t taste as good anymore, because it wasn’t Ian’s blood. This was possible cause for concern, because she knew damn well one human could not sustain a vampire without ending up deaded—and they were not allowed to do that. Dr. Savage said so, and even Imogene agreed with her.
Celia sniffed. Ian was home from his ride! She went old school and leaned against the kitchen wall. She put her fingers in the marks she’d left more than a month before when she’d tried clawing through the plaster to get to him. But she didn’t have to do that anymore, did she? She made a little happy noise.
Then, she h
eard the clomp-clomp outside and wondered what Imogene was doing up so early. Her friend kicked the front door open; Celia didn’t think it even locked anymore.
“Merk!”
“Kitchen.”
Imogene appeared in the doorway from the living room but paused, mid-step. Her boot hung in the air like a suspended anvil. “It smells like sex in here.”
Celia wrapped her robe tighter around her waist. “It does?”
Imogene pointed at her. “You fucked like bunnies last night.”
“Imogene.” She rolled her eyes.
“What? You totally did. Ha!” She smacked her slim upper thigh. “Was he as good as he looks? ’Cause I bet he was as good as he looks.”
Celia looked at the ceiling but couldn’t press her lips together hard enough to suppress a smile.
Imogene cackled. “Yeah, I got laid last night, too!” She held her hand up, and Celia gave her a high five. Imogene reached into her tight jeans and pulled out a wad of cash. “Oh, and thanks, but I don’t need this anymore.” She handed Celia’s money back to her.
“Imogene, what did you do?”
“Bachelor party, baby. They were loaded. With booze and cash.”
Celia shoved the four hundred bucks in a kitchen drawer. “Who’d you have sex with?”
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“You’re not a lady,” Celia said.
Imogene wandered back to the living room (after filching a bag of B-negative), and Celia followed her. “That’s not why I’m here anyway. Another human got killed last night. Jugular, just…” She made a croaking noise. “Torn out. One of us did it. Probably the same asshole newbie who did the first one.” She slurped thick, sweet red.
Celia sat down on the arm of her couch. “Damn.”
“Shit happens. I just wanted to drop in and check on you and hottie over there.” She nodded toward Ian’s apartment and plugged an earbud into her head. She pushed a button on the cassette player attached to the side of her jeans and nodded her head to music Celia couldn’t hear.
“Imogene?”
She glanced at Celia.
“Were you…worried about me?”
She squawked. “No. I don’t worry about anything.”
Bite Somebody Page 16
