Chapter 7
“Will you tell me about it?”
I lay in James’s arms, my back to his front.
We’d been awake since noon, but neither of us felt inclined to move, even though we both desperately needed a shower.
I’d been sweating all night, but I was… content.
James had his arm threaded under my pillow, the fingers of his left hand laced through mine—he had refused to leave my side throughout the night.
He played with my engagement ring, the colors reflecting the sunlight coming through the open window.
The sun was a rarity during New England winters, but it added to the warmth in the room from James’s body.
Or maybe that was just how he made me feel… Warm.
“What do you mean?” he murmured dreamily. Lately, he’d been choosing to sleep more often. He claimed it was because it made him more effective at work, but I think it’s because he couldn’t wake me up whenever he wanted—not without bribes or consequences, at least.
“The ring.”
“What about it?” James said, nuzzling into my neck. Like it could sense his presence, the venom trapped beneath my skin heated, sending a dull throb of pain through my body.
The aches and nausea I’d felt after our bath only lasted a few hours, long enough to trick us into taking the day off in case I was turning.
Most of the symptoms faded away sometime in the early morning, and James had tried his best to hide his disappointment when I’d woken up human.
Despite the second bite not working, I was still sluggish and weak and with the larger quantity of venom that had gone into me the night before, so James wasn’t inclined to bite me again.
Yet.
I wasn’t going to give up that easily.
“First off,” I said, “how long were you and my kid scheming behind my back?”
James’s laugh rumbled my back. “I didn’t need a supernatural bond to know we were soulmates.”
“James…” I warned. He knew that I didn’t do butterflies, but that didn’t stop him from giving them to me at every turn.
“To answer your question, it was right after we rebuilt the bar. I hoped you’d adjust to the idea of marriage someday and it gave me time I needed to craft the perfect proposal.
Then you blurted out the two words I never thought I’d hear out of your mouth, and I couldn’t let all my hard work go to waste.
” James nuzzled into my neck, his mark tingling beneath the attention.
I shuddered. “Hungry, vampire?”
“For you? Always.”
James’s fangs crept out, clearly in the mood to play. With my energy returning, so was I. I rolled my bottom lip between my teeth, biting down hard to keep my mouth shut. He needed my verbal permission to feed, and I was happy to drag things out.
“After I turn,” I said, relishing his groan when I didn’t say what he wanted to hear, “will I taste the same?”
“You will,” he said, pulling me closer. “Though I think you’ll taste even better because you’ll taste like mine in every way that matters.”
“Oh, God,” I said, rolling onto my back. “Keep talking like that.”
Before, that kind of talk would have put a giant, Ryder-shaped hole in the wall. Now, I craved it.
“You are mine, Ryder.” He shifted on top of me, pressing his lips to my chest and nibbling an electric path down my stomach. “This mark on your neck? And this one here?” He paused to kiss the crescent-shaped splotch on my ribcage. “These mean you belong to me, and only me.”
My lips parted on a sigh, and James’s mouth disappeared below the blanket. I shut my eyes, anticipating his mouth on my swollen cock…
And my phone rang. I didn’t plan to answer it, but I glanced at the screen anyway. I whined, tugging James from beneath the blanket.
“Pause,” I told him. “Give me five minutes. It’s my mom.”
Pouting, my vampire lay on my stomach, and I suspected he had zero intentions of behaving.
I answered the call. I’d been trying to get in touch with my parents for over a week, ever since I asked James to marry me.
Vastly different schedules had us missing each other every time.
Not that I minded; I’d been trying to come up with the perfect way to give them the news.
Considering my charming personality, it had to be good.
“Hi, Mom.”
James tried to distract me with his tongue in my belly button, but I clenched my free hand in his hair, holding on tight. He only looked at me as if daring me to challenge him. Had he wanted to fight me, he easily could have, but thankfully he laid back down.
“Aha! I finally caught you! No graveyard shift today?”
“Nope, James and I have the day off. Is Dad home?”
“He is—hold on, I’ll put you on speaker.” There was a brief pause while she tried to figure out how to do that—like she hadn’t been taught a million times. Then I heard the familiar echo, and my dad’s voice in the background.
“How’s my favorite son?” he called.
“Technically, I’m your only son, but I won’t tell Raleigh you said that.” At my words, James rolled his eyes.
“Where’s that boyfriend of yours?” Mom asked.
“About that…” I smiled down at the man lying on my stomach. Knowing exactly where I was headed, he grinned and nodded his approval. “I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.”
Protests from both my parents. “What the hell happened?”
“I, uh…” I reached out, palm up, and James slid his hand into mine. I twirled the tungsten ring around on his finger, and that gave me the courage I needed to get the words out. “I have a fiancé now. I asked James to marry me.”
For the first time in thirty-six years, both of my parents went dead silent. My heart thundered in my ears. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes, and I pulled my phone away from my ear to make sure they hadn’t hung up on me. “You guys still there?”
Another beat of silence, then, “You’re getting married?”
I was unable to hide the smile that tugged at my lips so aggressively that it made my cheeks hurt.
Spearing my fingers through James’s hair, he leaned into my palm and shut his eyes in content.
When he opened them again, that intoxicating red swirled in his irises.
Something tugged in my chest, and I found myself longing for the day when I wouldn’t need to use words to express how much he meant to me.
What would it feel like to wear my heart on my sleeve?
“Yeah, Mom. We’re getting marr—” I cut off with a “Christ!” as Mom shrieked so loud that even James cringed. I tugged the phone away from my ear until she settled down. She still shouted, but it was more tolerable.
“Meredith,” Dad scolded, “stop jumping around before you hurt yourself!”
James peered up at me and laughed.
“Remember,” I told him, “you chose to marry into this chaos.”
His red eyes softened. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Mom… Mom!”
My mother appeared to have run out of the breath required to continue squealing, panting into the phone. “I’m sorry! I never thought I’d see the day! When? Where? Oh, God, what am I going to wear?”
“We haven’t started planning anything yet, Mom. I don’t know when or where. It’s only been a few days, but I do know one thing: Dad, can I still wear your cufflinks?”
“Of course. What did I do with them…”
“Please tell me they aren’t with you in Florida.”
“No,” Mom jumped in, “they’re in the attic at the Cape. All the things we kept from our wedding are there—you two help yourselves.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
That was far from the end of the conversation.
Once Meredith Clark got started on something, she didn’t stop.
After an hour of grueling talk about color schemes, I started to wonder if colors even existed anymore.
We had to pick a date first, and with spring approaching that sent my mom on a spiral about pastels and all of it made my head spin.
Even James was getting impatient, if the way he teased me was any indication.
“You know what, Mom?” I said, voice wavering with James’s hand dangerously close to my dick. “Why don’t you call Hannah tonight? I’m sure she’d love to talk all of this stuff over with you.”
“Oh, that’s a fantastic idea!”
Perfect. I rushed through the I love yous and ended the call, all but throwing my phone aside and letting out the moan I’d been stifling since James started licking a hot path up my thigh.
“I think,” he teased, pressing his lips to my sensitive skin before rising to his knees, “all this wedding talk has me excited to start planning. Why don’t you take me to see those cufflinks?”
“Oh, hell no.” I clenched a fist in his hair, shoving him back down to his elbows. “Not until you finish what you started.”
James laughed, shoulders shaking, but he began attacking my belly again. I whimpered as he placed open-mouthed kisses down to my shaft. I sighed, only allowing my eyes to shut once he put that hot, talented mouth of his to work.
A few hours later, James and I were freshly showered and making the drive to the Cape.
It was rare that we had a day off together, but for once we didn’t want to spend it indoors.
He’d been right: Something about telling my parents had made the engagement that much more real.
Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, the old Ryder tried to peek through.
Panic threatened to break through the joy, but as if James could sense it—and he likely could with the damn mate bond—he stretched an arm across the console and placed a reassuring hand on my thigh.
Just like that, my sense of fear vanished.
The last time I had made this drive I was alone, and it wasn’t under the best conditions. I could admit it now: I’d been running. Things were getting serious, and I got scared. I hadn’t realized how much my past with Erin fucked me up when it came to falling in love.
I’d never forget the night James chased me out to that beach house and found me standing at the edge of the water, very much not dressed for the cold and wet.
I dropped my hand to meet his.
It had been the single biggest fight we’d had, and at the end of it all, I confessed to falling in love with him. I’d known he felt the same way. With or without the bond, we were head-over-heels for each other. Once I accepted that, it made loving him a whole hell of a lot easier.
The weather was freezing when we arrived at the beach house, so I huddled close to James. I let him get inside the front door before I pressed him against it and claimed his mouth. “Why don’t I get the heating started?”
“Mm, I can think of another way for you to keep me warm.” I took each side of his jacket in my fist and tugged, wedging a leg between his thighs.
It… almost worked. James indulged me, grinding against me for a moment before he wrenched away and spun us around so that it was my back against the door. Breathless, I said, “Bedroom’s that way,” like he wouldn’t remember where he entirely unraveled me after my romcom-worthy confession.
But then I yelped. James had dropped his body temperature to be freezing cold, causing me to lunge away from him. “Asshole,” I muttered, shivering.
He laughed. “My version of a cold shower,” he explained.
“It won’t work after you turn though.” He must have felt bad at my sour expression, because he opened his arm to me.
I was suspicious—until he brushed my cheek with a warm hand.
I tentatively stepped up to him again. “Let’s find these cufflinks first, and then I’ll spend all night keeping you warm. ”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good, because you need to make up for pulling that stunt on me.”
While James got the electricity going, I took in everything around the house.
Gloomy daylight illuminated the modern furniture and the white walls.
Everything was exactly the same as the last time I was here.
My parents hired a groundskeeper to clean every couple of weeks, and they were doing a good job.
The front door opened directly into the living room, and the open floor plan expanded into the kitchen on my right, where a back door opened up to the deck that led down to the beach.
A hallway to my left housed both bedrooms and the main bathroom.
In the middle, between the two bedrooms, a pull-down door led to the attic.
I raised a hand to tug on the string and lower it—and squirmed into James’s arms as he snuck up behind me and tickled my ribcage.
“Hey!” I laughed, narrowly avoiding being hit in the face by the ladder as it slid down to the floor. “What are you doing?”
James weaseled his way in front of me, placing his foot on the first rung of the ladder. “Getting to the good stuff before you can hide it from me.”
He tossed me a wink, then disappeared into the attic.