Wade followed me over the edge, hips bucking, face buried against my collarbone. I collapsed back against the table. I stroked my hands down his back while his breathing settled.
Despite the cold and the wet and the adjacent serial-killer training ground, I could stay sprawled across that table forever. His weight on top of me only added to my contentment as I came down from my high. Maybe this was some sort of side effect of drinking real blood? Was this why “live-feeding” vampires seemed to be less angsty?
“Did I take too much?” I asked. “Do you feel OK?”
“I can’t feel my face, but I don’t think that has to do with the blood drinkin’,” he muttered against my cleavage. He slowly withdrew from me but kept me propped against the table, comfortably bearing my weight.
I lifted his head so I could inspect his wound. I was rather proud that I had only made two small punctures over his vein, leaving barely a swipe of blood on his skin.
“I feel fine,” he assured me. “Better than fine.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Barely felt it. Are you sure you got enough?”
“Yeah, I didn’t have to drink as much as I normally do.”
“That’s what you get when you go organic,” Wade said.
I snickered, batting weakly at his back. “That’s so wrong. And unless you’re a vegan who uses one of those salt-rock things as deodorant, I don’t think you count as organic.”
“So was that your first time?” he asked.
“Having sex in a death barn? Yes.”
“Drinkin’ blood from a human,” he said.
“Yes, you took my fang-ginity,” I told him. “Sorry about that. I didn’t feed properly before I left the house.”
“You’ve gotta take better care of yourself, Libby,” he said. “You run around takin’ care of everybody else but you. I know you’re immortal and all, but I think that only counts if you’re a fully functionin’ vampire.”
“I know, I know.” I sighed, tracing the path of the koi that swam along his arm.
“You can ask,” he said.
“Didn’t this hurt? I mean, clearly, you kept going back, so it couldn’t have been that bad, but . . .”
“Oh, no, it hurt like a bitch,” he said. “But it was a good hurt. And I love all of ’em. I’m assuming you don’t have any.”
“No. Rob didn’t like them, thought they looked trashy. And I don’t think I could get one now, since I basically heal up within seconds of getting a wound.”
“That’s a shame,” he said. “Because I think you would look insanely hot with ink.”
“I’m insanely hot without ink,” I countered.
“Of course you are,” he said. Leering a little, Wade bent, rummaging through his pants pocket, and pulled out a black Sharpie. He balanced my ass on the edge of the table as he methodically wrote something along the curve of my rib cage.
“If you’re writing ‘Property of Wade,’ I will punch you in the throat,” I told him, craning my neck as I tried to make out what he was writing.
“Nope.” He bit the tip of his tongue while he finished his work with a flourish.
He hitched up his pants, crossed back to the bike, and grabbed my purse. “Use your mirror thingy to look.”
“Thank you for not going through my purse,” I told him, plucking my compact from a side pocket. “Also, thank you for knowing that I have a reflection.”
“I may be a redneck, but I ain’t fool enough to go through a woman’s purse uninvited. And everybody knows that vampires have reflections.”
It took me a second to figure out how to read Wade’s neat handwriting backward, but I eventually read, “I had sex in a death barn, and all I got was this temporary tattoo.”
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head.
“Hey, a girl’s first tattoo, that’s a milestone. That, your fang-ginity, and your first barn sex all in one night. I’m just glad I was here for it.”
“Well, it’s been so long since I’ve had sex, you might get credit for taking my actual virginity,” I muttered into his neck.
“How long?” Wade asked, smirking down at me.
“About two years . . . two and a half . . . three. It’s been three years since I’ve had sex,” I told him. “Oh, my God, this is pathetic.”
“Nah, it’s not pathetic—three years?” he marveled. “How is that possible? Your husband’s only been dead for two years.”
“Well, the last year with Rob was . . . distant.”
“Were y’all living in the same state?”