Молли Харпер - Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I croaked, “if you were going to use Ms. Polygraph over there, why did you ask me to tell my side of things before?”

Ophelia offered the barest of shrugs. “To see if you would tell us the truth without assistance—if your version of events is, in fact, the truth. Also, we enjoy scaling the punishment to fit the depth of your deception.”

“If I may be so bold as to question the council further, what could ‘punishment’ mean?” I asked.

If I didn’t know that my toe bones would regenerate, I would have been very upset about the crushing pressure Gabriel was applying to my foot.

Ophelia smirked. “You could have a choice of being locked in a coffin full of bees or having a red-hot silver poker shoved up your—”

“Ophelia.” With an apologetic glance my way, Mr. Marchand interrupted her.

“That’s enough.”

“She’s only joking,” Sophia assured me. “The silver poker is actually at room temperature. Ancient vampires called it the Trial.”

I asked, “Why?”

“Because it sounds incredibly scary.” Sophie nodded.

I was dismissed before my pancakes were served, which was better in the long run.

I probably would have found uneaten pancakes singularly depressing. Gabriel escorted me to the car before I could say anything else incriminating. And by escorting, I mean he dragged me across the parking lot like a caveman and ushered me none too gently into the front seat.

“What the hell was that?” I yelled. Having fully recovered the use of my arms and legs, I seized the opportunity to swing at him as he slid behind the wheel. “Did you know they were going to do that to me? And a coffin full of bees? What the hell?”

“Calm down, just calm down,” he said, catching my wrists. I thought he meant to stop the hitting, but he was examining my reddened skin, poring over the marks left by Sophie’s truth-seeking expedition into my brain. I remained quiet long enough to watch them evaporate away. I had a feeling it would sting for a while longer.

“What is wrong with you people?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me they were going to go digging around in my brain? You know, I was raised to believe the contents of someone’s brain are that person’s own business! And have you noticed how often I yell at you?”

“Jane, I know you were frightened—”

“I was terrified, you ass!”

He was across the front seat with my face between his palms before I knew what hit me. Despite being extremely pissed, I’m not going to say I didn’t like kissing him. Or that I didn’t kiss back. Because, damn. I mean, damn, he was some kisser. If our first kiss was sparklers and fireworks, this was a full-scale nuclear detonation. My whole body was involved—face, lips, hands, thighs, legs. I don’t think he was actually touching all of those parts. I just know they were involved.

The sweep of his tongue across my lip was subtle at first, then increasingly demanding, until I couldn’t tell where his mouth started and mine ended. He pulled me onto his lap, anchoring my ankles on either side of his thighs with his hands, stroking exposed skin with his thumbs. I tugged at his hair, pulling his head back so I could kiss that little thumb-shaped depression in the middle of his chin. Gabriel grunted, protesting my mouth leaving his. He brought me back to his lips, one hand cradling my head as the other kept my hips pinned to his.

A minivan pulled into the spot next to ours. I could hear the gasps and then giggles of the three teens who were piling out with their parents.

One of the kids yelled, “Jeez, get a room!”

I broke away from Gabriel, moving across the seat, ignoring the snickers of the kids as they walked away. I stared at him for what I’m sure was an alarming amount of time. I hadn’t had a kiss like that in, well, ever. I’d finally found something simple and natural about my relationship with Gabriel: making out with him.

Yay for me.

Just as I’d managed to produce that coherent thought, he was back on my side of the car again and giving me a repeat performance. It caught me off guard, and I accidentally bit down on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. The good news was he liked that, so I came off as provocative, not inept.

“If that was an attempt to shut me up, screw you,” I panted after he’d let me go a second time.

Through my hair, where his face was buried, he muttered, “I did it because I wanted to. Shutting you up was an added side benefit.”

I shoved at his shoulders. “Ass.”

“You said that already,” he said, his fingers tracing the lines of my jaw.

“Meant it this time, too.”

“Jane, I know you were frightened. I know their methods of questioning can be a bit brutal, but that was necessary,” he said, pulling me tighter against his chest. I rested my forehead against the hollow of his throat, happy to find comfort even for a few moments. Having your brain scoured is an emotionally unsettling experience.

“I know you’re angry with me for bringing you here,” he murmured. “But failing to answer the council would have caused far more problems. And as your sire, I’m responsible for presenting you to the panel. I’m responsible for watching over you in these first weeks. Obviously, I haven’t been doing a very good job.”

“That’s pretty insulting,” I said, poking his ribs.

Gabriel finally said, “I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me?” I said, cupping my hand around my ear. “What was that?”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry for being so abrupt with you at your house.

I’m sorry for blowing up at you over spending time with Dick. I’m sorry for being so…unsettled around you. I’ve never spent time with a childe I’ve made. There are complications I didn’t expect. I have this overwhelming need to protect you, and you’re making it very difficult.”

“Why haven’t you ever spent time with a childe?”

“It hasn’t been possible,” he said in a voice that brooked no further questions.

“And even if you weren’t my childe, I would feel this way. We’re connected, you and I.

That’s why seeing you with Dick tonight was so unnerving. He’s always had a way with the ladies, and you’re exactly the kind of woman he enjoys corrupting. The idea of some other man touching you, kissing you, smelling him on your clothes, your skin. I couldn’t take it. Between that and the council summons, I overreacted.”

“So, it’s not that you like me, it’s that a biological function is making you jealous,” I muttered.

“Yes, wait—no!” he howled. “Why do you always reduce me to a blithering idiot?”

“This is blithering?” I grinned.

“For me,” he admitted.

I had to concede that one.

“You smell him on me?” I asked, sniffing my shirt. “What does he smell like to you? To me, it’s all lust and bergamot.”

“Uselessness,” he grumbled. He tipped his forehead to mine and kissed my temple, my forehead, the bridge of my nose. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. “I do enjoy your scent, though, and I like you. Very much. I want to protect you.

If anything happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.”

I lifted my head to eye him warily. “You’re not going to do something weird with my dryer lint, are you?”

“I never know what is going to come out of your mouth,” he said, staring at me. “I enjoy that, in a morbid way. I am saying that even before I turned you, your scent was part of what kept me close to you.”

“What did I smell like?”

“Mine,” he said, kissing the hollow of my throat, the tip of my nose, and finally my mouth. “You smelled like you were mine.”