Chapter 13
I had to leave today, but I was putting it off.
I’d talked myself into doing some last-minute chores around the ranch.
It felt good to move my body, especially to stretch my shoulder that was only softly complaining at being overextended.
I was healed enough. No excuses left. I went into the barn, fully hoping to run into Fenton, but still surprised to actually see him, especially down on the first floor where a rectangle of sunlight spilled inside.
“Morning, sunshine,” Fenton drawled.
“That’s a pretty sadistic nickname. Doesn’t sunshine kill you?” I passed by where he stood in the shade and pretended to look around for something.
“Hurt me, maybe, but I think I’d kind of like it.
” He purred in my ear, and so I thwapped his chest with the back of my hand as a light punishment.
He had the audacity to moan, so I hit him harder to shut him up.
He let me, then grabbed my arm with his long fingers so I couldn’t get away.
I glared up at him, fighting not to smile, which he made an easier task by running his fingers through the loose pieces of hair that weren’t long enough to stay in a ponytail.
“To be fair, you look like sunshine with that hair of yours. Those bright eyes. When the light hits you just right, your peach fuzz makes your whole face glow.” To reinforce the point, he stroked my cheek.
“Peach fuzz? Fenton, could you just…” I slapped his hand away. “Shut up.”
“What? It’s cute. I love it about you.” His sincerity didn’t make the point much better. I self-consciously brushed my fingers over the side of my face, and I cut him off before he could dig himself deeper with his idea of compliments.
“Do you miss the sun?”
“Nah, not really.” He relaxed and took a few steps closer to that harsh line of light on the concrete floor.
“Even knowing you’ll never feel it again?”
“Worse things to never feel again,” he pouted, aiming a humorous look my way.
“Fenton.”
“Go on. Ask me what I’d do.” He was all ego, stepping too close to my personal space. I didn’t back down an inch.
“What you’d do?” I repeated in confusion, trying to keep my head on straight.
“If I could ever walk in the sun again.”
There were about five big, flashing signs warning me that I was headed straight for a trap, so I proceeded with caution. “Fenton, if this is sexual,” I let my warning linger unspoken.
“Never mind, then,” he said, and then his face brightened. “Look! See, I’m learning!”
He was learning. Well, he was trying. I didn’t want to dissuade that, so I stepped out of the barn again to take a few beats so that Fenton didn’t overwork my nerves.
Amanda and Lily came out from the house and made me promise I’d still be around if they made a quick trip into town and back.
Amanda was making full use of her high school graduation gift, a used car that was now all hers.
I waved as they left and finished watering the rosebush in front of the porch.
With nothing left to distract me, I went back into the barn.
Fenton now sat on the edge of the loft, leaning his forearms on the lower horizontal railing, his legs dangling down.
“Doing okay up there? No deadly holes in the roof?”
“Just deadly boredom. Nothing to do up here.” His back stiffened, though, and he got a look on his face like he’d just been stabbed through with a sword.
“What’s wrong?”
“Fuck, take a step back.”
I surveyed the ground, expecting something like a snake or a toad to be under my feet. I stepped back from the barn’s shadow into the sunlight that was coming in through the door.
“That’s it,” he said. “You look so stupidly gorgeous in the sunlight from this angle.”
I said his name in a warning tone. I was wearing a baggy t-shirt, work boots, a pair of denim shorts, and my hair that I’d put off cutting for too many months was in a sweaty ponytail.
I’d spent the morning doing physical labor, so I knew I wasn’t looking good.
He had to be teasing me. But when I looked up at him again, I was startled by the raw reverence.
Right. Vampire. Sunlight. Maybe he missed it more than he’d been letting on earlier. Maybe I was taking it for granted, too, this light and warmth.
“Could you show me your tits? In the sunlight?”
The magic of the moment evaporated. Right. Vampire.
“Awww, come on, Fallon. I’m so fucking bored up here. At least give me something nice to think about before bed.” His bare feet swung back and forth when he leaned further over the railing.
I actually scanned around me to make sure none of my family members were anywhere nearby, even though I already knew the girls had just gone, and the boys were out in the pasture on the four-wheelers that were missing in front of me.
I lifted the front of my shirt high enough so the excess fabric cleared over my breasts, and I angled my body towards the direct sunlight.
I gave him a few seconds of wanton staring before I pulled it back down and carried on inside, despite the heated blush that tingled on my cheeks.
Fenton groaned, long and low, and I’d have deemed him feverish if he weren’t undead.
“Thanks,” he hissed. Warmth was flooding more than just my cheeks. What the hell was wrong with me?
I stood below the loft, staring at an unremarkable spot on the wall, having lost my train of thought, if it had even been there to begin with.
It could wait. I climbed up to the loft, leaving my dirty boots on the top step next to Fenton’s shoes.
He’d watched my entire ascent but hadn’t moved, so I sat next to him, sticking my own legs over the edge, adjusting so the metal didn’t dig into the back of my bare thighs.
“You’re still leaving today?”
“Is that why you’re awake with the sun up? Wanted to see me off?”
He rested his head against his forearms on the bar. Even in indirect sunlight, Peter looked out of place. Something about it felt dangerous, and I wasn’t sure if it was him or me who was in danger.
“Thank you for watching over them.”
“You did right choosing me, huh? Imagine if you’d asked Virgil.”
I winced at the name, and of course, Fenton had noticed. I couldn’t think fast enough to change the subject.
“I never thanked you for that. So thank you,” he smiled. I replayed the moment in my head again, the vampire attack only a few nights ago that had ended my relationship with Virgil. Fenton put so much value in that choice I’d made to spare him. It didn’t feel deserved.
“I was just doing what felt right.”
“It was one of the happiest moments of my life.” Peter turned his smile towards the barn door below. “Felt like the first time you ever chose me.”
I pressed my lips together. My gut soured with guilt, and I couldn’t even place where all it was coming from anymore. Fenton, Virgil, the Hopes, the Hunters, Derrick, even.
“We never talked about my payment for watching over your family.” Each word dripped with flirtation. I stared and waited for him to say the words directly or to think better of it. “You look cute in this outfit.” He tugged on the excess fabric of my shirt.
“You’re such a liar,” I snickered, but his flattery was working.
“I know I am, but not about this.” Pure lust darkened his half-lidded gaze. “Can I at least get a taste?”
“A taste?” I choked out.
“Not your blood!” he said, though my mind hadn’t even gone there, which probably should have concerned me.
“No, no, I know what you meant.” I planted my face in my hand.
“We’ll talk about it when I get back. I can’t even begin to think about it before then.
” A part of me, better left ignored, wished I could have been the same as I was back before Derrick, when I’d share my bed with Fenton without much thought for consequences.
I’d wanted to feel good, to find an outlet for the stress of courting death most nights, and that was all the reason I’d needed.
Falling in love with Derrick had complicated sex by making it more than just physical.
It was one of those rare moments when Fenton had nothing to say, so I chanced a look.
His whole face was doing that thing where it had melted with gratitude like I’d just saved his life.
Facing the potential months of training and trials was easier than looking straight into the open display of Peter’s emotions.
A while passed before he started again like a snap.
“You know, in movies when one person tells the other that they’ll talk about something later, one of them always dies before it can happen.
” He grabbed hold of my waist and pulled me in so I was inches from him.
“Stake me now, but this will be worth it.”
He kissed me, intense from the start, like it would be our last chance, and I kissed him with the same urgency drawn from the sudden fear that one of us actually might die before we see each other again.
Kissing Fenton wasn’t as familiar as I’d been expecting, but his cooler lips felt good against mine.
It was easy to let him take control, and the stress that tightened my chest leaked out through the soft sighs working their way from my throat.
His hand slipped under my shirt, and his thumb grazed the skin above the waistband of my shorts, testing before he smoothed his palm up the front of my torso to grab my breast. I pulled away from his lips, and his eyes locked with mine as he lifted the hem of my shirt up to my shoulder.
Moisture had collected on my body during my morning chores, so I put a hand on Fenton’s shoulder to stop him when he leaned forward.
“God, you’re beautiful.” He sounded like I was strangling him.
“I’m sweaty and gross,” I breathed. My head was so hot I thought I might pass out. I certainly wasn’t thinking logically.