“Sometimes I don’t think she listens to the things that come out of her mouth,” Jane said, obviously speaking to Mr. Wainwright.
“I heard that!” I called over my shoulder.
I carried the boxes out to the alley, where I found Dick silently staring at a brick wall.
I only wished this were the weirdest part of my night so far.
“Uh, Dick?”
He turned, an expression of anguish twisting his features. I frowned. I hadn’t realized he and Mr. Wainwright had been close. As far as I knew, Jane had met Mr. Wainwright before Dick even came into the picture.
“You OK?”
“No.” He shook his head. “You’re not supposed to bury your children. It’s unnatural and wrong.”
The words coming out of his mouth made no sense. And in my confusion, my eloquence produced “Uhhh . . .”
“Let me guess, ‘everything about my life is unnatural and wrong,’ right?” He snorted derisively, like he was trying to beat me to a joke.
“I wouldn’t say that. Dick, what’s going on?”
He dragged his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. I just, I just—” Dick grunted, a frustrated, desperate sound. There was a blur of motion, and then he was in front of me, pinning me against the rough brick wall. I froze, because that’s what you do when you’re confronted with a predator who’s hovering over you with his mouth uncomfortably close to your jugular—no matter how clever his T-shirts. I’d never seen Dick like this, unhinged and unsmiling.
I held my breath, staring at his open mouth as the tip of his nose brushed down my cheek. He was breathing heavily, despite the fact that he didn’t have to breathe at all. He lunged, and it was all I could do not to flinch. But instead of the pain I’d expected, I felt his lips, smooth and cool, against my own.
My eyes popped wide open. Dick threaded his fingers through my hair and cupped my cheeks in his hands, angling my face so he could get better access to my mouth.
Holy hell. I was kissing Dick Cheney.
And Dick Cheney was a pretty incredibly freaking good kisser.
Dick’s hands skimmed my jaw, slid down my shoulders to my ribs, and settled around my hips, pulling me even closer. He bit down gently on my bottom lip with his blunt teeth, making me gasp. He groaned into my open mouth, sliding his tongue between my lips and letting it dance with mine.
I twisted my fingers in his hair so I could arch against him, because I didn’t seem to be touching him enough. We had too much space and far too many layers of clothing between us.
I’d had lovers in the last few years: nice, stable guys who treated me with respect and were about as exciting as a lukewarm bath or cold oatmeal. This was hot and dirty . . . and sort of uncomfortable with the brick scratching at my back. I could feel the excitement building in my chest, the thrill of something illicit and ill-advised. I hadn’t felt this way since college. I hadn’t felt this way since Mathias.
No.
No.
I would not make this mistake again. I’d worked so hard to put this sort of flawed decision making behind me. My hands went cold and a shudder ran down my spine. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen into this trap again. Grief did indeed make people do strange, stupid things. I would not be a funeral sex statistic.
But I was still kissing him.
Oh, no.
I pulled back, pressing my lips together, and put a hand to his chest. To his credit, the moment I pushed away, Dick took a step back. “What?”
“I can’t.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I just can’t do this.”
I turned, running back into the shop as Dick yelled, “Andrea!”
2
Vampires tend to be very literal. They do not tolerate mixed messages, such as not liking them “that way” or “necking.”
—Surviving the Undead Breakup: A Human’s Guide to Healing
Dick Cheney was bad news.
And not just in the political sense, or the hunting-accident sense.
Thanks to Jane’s prattling to an invisible dead man, I managed to get through the cluttered shop and grab my purse without having to explain why I was paper-pale and shaky. I’d kissed Dick Cheney. Hell, I was pretty sure I had been about to round third base with Dick Cheney. All those months devoted to holding him at arm’s length, to staying aloof and unapproachable . . . wasted.
I couldn’t talk to Jane about this. She tended to do jazz hands when she did her little “I told you so” dance. No one deserved smug jazz hands. Of all the weapons in a vampire’s arsenal, they were the most demoralizing.
White-knuckling the steering wheel, I drove across Half-Moon Hollow to my cute little townhouse apartment. Compared with Jane’s centuries-old stone farmhouse, River Oaks, it was sort of short on personality, but it was comfortable, airy, and in a nice part of town. And my neighbors weren’t nosy about my weird hours and tendency to get dressed up and go out late at night. My last landlord fielded a lot of complaint calls about “the hooker” living in my apartment.