MaryJanice Davidson: Dead Over Heels

“Well, yes, but there was a method to my madness. You see, Nick hates you and Sinclair.”

I blinked. “Yeah. So?”

“So?” Jessica threw her bony arms up in the air. “So? So I finally find a guy who doesn’t give a shit that I gave away more money last year than the Target Corporation. So I finally find a guy who isn’t so busy crushing on my best friend he doesn’t even notice me. So I—”

“Hey, hey!”

“Oh, shut up, you know it’s true. I finally find a guy who likes me for me , and it turns out he hates my best friend and her husband. Not ‘God, they’re boring, I hate going over there’ hate, or ‘I hate how all she talks about is shoes’ hate. Hate hate. ‘I hate war’ hate. ‘I hate plague’ hate.”

I blew out a breath, which wasn’t necessary, but I’d only been dead a couple of years, and old habits died hard. Jessica wasn’t lying, or even exaggerating. Her boyfriend did hate me, and it was a problem.

See, when I was a newborn vampire, out of my mind with the thirst, I’d feasted on Nick. And it . . . sort of drove him crazy. Crying, slobbering crazy. Sinclair had to step in and fix it by erasing Nick’s memory of all events leading from my death.

We’d assumed it worked.

It hadn’t.

It had actually worn off several months ago but, like all cops, Nick could lie like a sociopath. Instead he’d waited and watched. When Jessica had gotten sick, he’d explained in terrifying detail all the things he and his Sig Sauer would do to me if I didn’t cure her. But I’d had plenty of other things on my mind at the time, and as upsetting as it was to find out how he really felt, there hadn’t been much I could do about it.

Frankly, what with one thing and another (the aforementioned rescue, the wedding, Jessica’s miracle cancer cure) I’d managed to put Nick’s simmering hatred out of my mind.

“I can’t have the man I love hating my best friend.”

“So you figure we’ll hang out on my honeymoon and get to be friends again?”

Jessica opened her mouth to reply, but our hotel door popped open and a bellboy (bellman, actually) trotted down the hallway toward us, dressed in the crimson uniform of the hotel staff. He was a wide-eyed redhead with a goatee. Goatees irritated me. Either shave it all off, or grow a proper, Grizzly Adams beard, that was my motto. “Mrs. Sinclair, did you want your shoes kept in the tissue paper, or—”

“It’s not Sinclair and go away,” I snapped, a little too forcefully, as all the expression fell out of his eyes and he spun jerkily around, hit the Exit door, and disappeared.

“Great, he’s probably going to swan into the Hudson,” Jessica said disapprovingly.

“The least of my problems,” I snarled back, pretending I didn’t feel hugely guilty. “Are you saying Nick thought coming to New York was a fine plan?”

“Well . . .”

I got it. “Ah. ‘Hey, Nick, I’ve got a great idea for a way to mess with your archenemies . . . how about we beat them to their hotel and tag along on their honeymoon?’”

Jessica spread her hands and grinned the grin I could never resist. I ground my teeth in a vain attempt to resist. “He did smile. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile when you or Sinclair’s names have come up. What could I do?”

The door opened again and Sinclair’s head popped out, which was as startling as it sounds. “Where did the bellboy go?”

“Bellman,” I said helpfully.

“I’ve got twenty pairs of shoes in here and I don’t know what you”—his eyes narrowed as he took in Jessica’s grin—“I know that look. You’re giving in, aren’t you?”

“It’s not like they’re going to be sharing the room,” I began, but my husband cut me off by shutting our door.

Great .

Jessica coughed. “Sorry,” she almost whispered.

Dinner was, um, an awkward affair. Nick was morbidly cheerful because he knew he was fucking with us, Jessica was trying to play peacemaker, I was as tense as a boiled cat, and Sinclair was icier than usual.

“Can I tempt you with the dessert specials?” our waiter asked, gliding by for the fiftieth time. He seemed to find us fascinating, and no wonder—we were giving off enough tension to light up the entire island of Manhattan.

“Sure,” Nick said, grinning. He and Jessica had been the only ones to eat, of course, while Sinclair drank glass after glass of Cabernet and I worked my way through four peach daiquiris. “Run ’em by us.”

“Well, we have a lovely crème brûlée—”

As opposed to a disgusting crème brûlée.

“—a flourless chocolate cake with mint hazelnut filling, a vanilla bean gelato, a peach tartin, and a miniature root beer float served in an espresso cup.”

I burst out laughing.

“Careful, Minnesota,” Jessica murmured, looking down at her napkin. “The straw in your hair is showing.”

“I’ll have the crème brûlée,” Nick announced. “Money is no object— he’s paying.” Jerking a thumb in my husband’s direction.

“Can I have the gelato except served as a milk shake?” I asked, when steel pincers clamped down on my forearm and I yelped.

“We are not lingering over this table.”

“O- kay , can I have my arm back?”

“Mrs. Sinclair, do you want to press charges for spousal abuse?”

“Don’t call me that, Nick, you rotten bastard, and I do not. I’ll take that gelato to go,” I added to the waiter, who was unabashedly goggling. And I’d always heard nothing fazed New York waiters.

“We’ll take it in our room,” Sinclair said shortly, standing. “Along with another bottle of the Cabernet. Charge the dinner to our room as well. Jessica. Detective Berry. Good evening.”

And with that, I was unceremoniously hauled out of one of the toniest dining rooms in Manhattan. I would have given Sinclair a kick to the shins, except I caught a glimpse of Nick’s nasty grin and decided I was more pissed at him than my husband.

Our door had barely snicked shut when Sinclair started in. “This is intolerable and I will not—”

I decided to distract him the best way I knew how. I jumped on him, wrapping my arms around his neck and my ankles around his back. I pressed my mouth to his and licked his teeth. The alternative was engaging him in a lively discussion about that day’s Wall Street Journal .

“Do not think,” my husband gasped, as we staggered around the room together, knocking over lamps and pictures and such, “I am unaware of your motivation.”

“Shut up and fuck me.”

“Oh, I will. I just wanted you to understand I know what you’re up to.”

“Who cares? It’s our honeymoon. Now boink!”

He snickered into my mouth. It always slew him when I used the B word.

“And stop laughing at me!”

“At once, my wife.”

“You liar,” I said, swallowing a giggle of my own.

He tugged at my clothes, and I tugged at his, and we got about two thirds naked and decided that was plenty. Then he was lowering me to the floor.

I couldn’t stop kissing him; his mouth was original sin, and the wine had made his breath sweet and spicy, like the peach tartin I hadn’t ordered. I couldn’t blame him for rushing us out of there but I sure wish I’d been able to order dessert— argh, focus, Betsy!

Let’s see, what’s he doing? Oh, yes! We were more or less naked and I could feel his hands on my inner thighs, spreading my legs apart, could feel his sharp teeth on my tongue.

He entered me and I rose to meet him, pulling his shoulders, pulling him as close as I could. His hands were buried in my hair, pulling, stroking