Things like that.
This was no awkward evening with Gordon. She was on a rooftop in the moonlight with Jonas towering above her and the implication that he wanted something from her still hung in the air. She pulsed head to toe, her lips and neck tingling under his rapt attention—and even in her state of hormonal excitement, there was a sense of finally. Finally, she was there with him.
Jonas gave a slight head tilt. “What are you thinking about?”
“Mostly that…this is nothing like my date with Gordon,” Ginny mumbled.
He was already so still by virtue of his nature, but he went even stiller somehow, his left eye twitching. “Gordon?”
She waved a hand. “He’s neither here nor there.”
“Oh? Then where is he?”
“Not here. Not there.”
“Well he has to be somewhere.”
“I was just thinking…well, I’ve never kissed him. But I’ve never wanted him to kiss me, the way…” Her blurted words lost steam as his expression shuttered. “The way I think you would kiss me.”
“I’m not going to kiss you,” he rasped, leaning down to speak inches from her face. “You won’t be finding out.”
His rejection embarrassed her. The fact that her nipples were still in tight buds didn’t help. Had she assumed too much? Had she been around so few men her age that she grasped onto the slightest sign of interest?
He’s not a man.
He’s a vampire.
Her body and heart clearly weren’t making that distinction, no matter how hard she tried to make them. However, her heart was sputtering like a five-day-old party balloon that someone had finally got around to popping and squeezing out the dull air. Ginny turned and walked to the other side of the roof, hoping for a few precious seconds to gather herself before asking more questions.
Jonas sighed as she walked away. “Ginny…”
“So what are the other rules?” she asked brightly, settling her forearms on the cool stone perimeter wall. Jonas came up beside her, leaning a hip against the barrier with his arms crossed, a healthy distance away. She ached to look at him, to see his gorgeous face surrounded by starlight and the glittering boardwalk amusement park in the distance. Instead, she tracked the silhouette of the buildings across the street and let the autumn wind cool her flushed face.
His answer came after a stretch of time, his voice more subdued than before. “There are three rules, although breaking one usually means you’ve broken all three.” In her periphery, she could see him count the items off on his fingers. “One, no relationships of any kind with humans. Two, no taking of human life. And three…”
Finally, she judged her face had lost enough pinkness to look at him. “Yes?”
“No drinking from humans.” He dropped a hand to the perimeter wall, seeming to hold it in a tight grip. “Not directly, at least.”
Her mind raced with the unusual knowledge. “What if you used a straw?”
Jonas’s tight expression gave way to astonishment. Slowly, he turned and looked out toward the coast. “How could I not want to protect you, Ginny? How could anyone?” His chin fell towards his chest. “You’re funny and brave and so fucking beautiful and God, I really should not be here.”
The organ in her chest swelled and danced so unexpectedly, she almost toppled over the wall. “But…I thought you didn’t want to kiss me.”
He moved faster than a blink, his image blurring until suddenly her back was pressed to the wall, Jonas’s nose an inch away from hers. “Did you hear what I said about the three rules? Breaking one leads to all three being broken.” Their lips grazed and both of them swayed, fingers twisting in one another’s clothing. “Think about it, Ginny. I can’t look at your trusting face and spell it out.”
“Okay…” She reached out with her mind, trying to grab onto the strings of information, but balloons were floating off with them. How could she think when his eyes blazed down at her with a trifecta of fascination and pain and need? “You can’t be in a relationship with me because you’ll break rule number three. I think, right? D-drinking?”
“Yes,” he hissed, dropping his mouth to Ginny’s neck and inhaling deeply, those strong hands pulling her closer by the waist of her dress. “I meant what I said last night. There’s a difference between you and everyone else. It’s as if I already know what you’ll taste like. I recognize you.” His lips brushed across her pulse. “I recognize this like it’s welcoming me home.”
If her thoughts weren’t scattered bits of crumb, due to their blistering proximity and his body, oh Lord his body, she might have recalled her earlier sensation of déjà vu. Of trusting him without reason or cause because she knew, without a doubt, he’d never hurt her.
Jonas lifted his chin and pressed their foreheads together. “You’re forgetting the second rule, Ginny.”