Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

Amber

I t was nearly midnight when Reuben’s garage door closed and the car expelled two love drunk idiots. Their hands refused to part as they entered the house, removed their shoes, and made their way up the stairs toward the living room.

“Let me go find you something to change into,” Reuben said while undoing the buttons of his polo and heading for the bedroom door. Amber nodded and flopped onto his couch, yawning widely. She barely had time to get comfortable before he returned with a t-shirt and some sweatpants. “These are probably too big, but should be fine for sleeping.”

Amber took the clothes and disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes. When she returned, she saw that Reuben had brought out some bedding just in case she didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in his bed yet. Which was completely fair; she wasn’t. He’d wrapped himself in a fluffy duvet and waited, eyes focused on the bathroom door.

Reuben stifled a chuckle and Amber shot him a dirty look. The clothes were easily four sizes too big and probably looked silly, but they were comfortable. He held open his arms and she stumbled over, happily dropping into his lap and resting her head in the hollow of his neck. He wrapped them both in the blanket and gave Amber a squeeze. Her body heat soon made the shared space nice and toasty, and Amber’s eyelids began to droop.

Their physical proximity seemed to have the opposite effect on the vampire. Wide-eyed, he brushed Amber’s hair away from her face. “Can I kiss you again?” he breathed.

“I will happily accept a kiss from such a handsome man," Amber replied sleepily, repositioning her arms around Reuben’s torso and pressing their lips together as she pulled him in tightly.

Suddenly, nothing else in the world mattered. At that moment, Reuben wasn’t a politician or a vampire. Amber wasn’t some girl who made a deal. Her entire existence was Reuben. Their eyes closed as their lips connected. Fire and ice fought desperately, yet moved in a synchronized dance.

Reuben stretched out along the couch and rolled over so Amber lay parallel to him under the blankets. Their lips never left each other as the maneuver was completed. The vampire’s hands were a bit too brave as his fingers slipped under Amber’s shirt. His thumbs carefully rubbed the warm skin of her stomach and hips.

Amber leaned into the sensation, allowing her shirt to slip up and reveal her stomach and lower back. Her own hands found their way into Reuben’s hair, tangling and ensnaring until they provided a solid anchor for Amber to press their lips more firmly together.

She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be doing this. Nothing they had done the last few days could be justified. This wasn’t for their arrangement anymore. She was doing this completely out of need. A soft hum escaped Amber’s throat as she leaned up into the kiss again, pushing harder into his lips. She wanted to be closer to Reuben any way he could.

Pulling his face away only an inch to speak, Reuben’s cool breath tickled her lips. “Gem...” Reuben gulped. He couldn’t speak. “I don’t think I’m faking it...”

Reuben's voice was low and riddled with anxiety. Amber ran her fingers gently over his brow in an attempt to smooth out the worry lines. And she blushed. Her nickname, that sweet current of sound uttered only by her Reuben, filled the space between them. The confession seemed to strike like lightning in the most tender places of Amber’s heart, causing it to threaten to cease its beating.

Her eyes opened wide and slipped desperately into the pools of Reuben’s irises and Reuben’s into hers, each drowning in the depths of those dark waters. Before Amber could connect her lips back to her mouth, they began to part. “You...I...Benji, I haven’t been completely faking from the moment you held my hand. I want...I want you to be mine, and me to be yours. For real. I want you to kiss me like this forever. I want to feel your cool skin against my body and see your face when I wake up in the morning!

“I know it’s only been like...a couple of months. But Benji, I want this to be real. Consequences or not, I want you to take me as your own. I can’t imagine seeing another person holding your hand or looking your way. Is that selfish? Because if I could rewind time, I would go back to that event and I would ask you to the coffee shop as a real date. I would kiss you first in the rippling blue light of the shark tank. I would introduce you as the only person I’ve ever loved to my sister at Tres Leches.

“Thank everything that I’ve only missed such a short period of time while convincing myself this is all pretend! I would take back every last moment that we’ve lost in this silly deal and drink the fire.”

* * *

Reuben

R euben responded with enthusiasm. It had been so long. So long since someone was willing to look past what had happened to him. What he’d become. So long since someone wanted to sit with him. Hold his hand. Rest their head on his shoulder. Kiss him.

And so he kissed her again, inhaling Amber’s breath until she broke away, desperate for air. They parted only long enough for a single inhale before jumping back in. Her body heat continued soaking into Reuben's chilled flesh, making him feel almost human against her hands.

Amber’s confession lingered in the air, hot and passionate. Reuben could hear her heart pounding like it was going to burst right through her chest as she lowered her head and pressed her forehead into his chest.

He felt like he was the one living a romance novel now. The words that Amber spoke sounded genuine and meaningful. His mouth had popped open sometime during Amber’s dreamy confession and left him entirely speechless. He clicked his jaw closed and took the deepest breath of his life. Mainly because Amber’s hands had slipped to his hips.

But he couldn't find enough brain cells to speak. Reuben instead pulled Amber to him with both hands and gently bit her lower lip.

As the kissing again grew more passionate, Amber rolled over onto her back while Reuben knelt over her, hands on either side of the human’s head. He felt an intense burning in his chest, an emotion so unfamiliar that he didn’t have a word for it. In response, his irises took on the burning red glow of lava. He didn’t notice the change in the heat of the moment; his buzzing brain had him clueless until he caught a glimpse of his reflection in Amber's eyes.

It wasn’t the clearest picture in the world, but his red irises stood in high contrast to his pale skin. Reuben froze in place. No, that couldn’t be right! His thirst was completely under control! Would Amber be frightened if she saw? He took a deep breath to corral his wild emotions. Now was not the time to get so worked up that he slipped into one of his traumatic flashbacks like he did the night of the soup kitchen brawl, but he could already see the edges of his vision darkening.

He couldn’t have one of those episodes in front of Amber! She had only just begun to trust him, and the state of his shredded couch pillows after he came back to himself last time proved he wasn’t always trustworthy when they struck. But his breath proved useless. He fell into darkness anyway as his girlfriend’s face shifted to the terrified face of a drunken stranger on the street.

The rain was cold on his skin. He could smell the human's fear and hear his pounding heart. All around him were dark streets and the cries of starving vampires. His own throat burned desperately and he clawed at it as if to rip it out. The sting of torn flesh barely registered over the screaming hunger which demanded that he find prey.

And then the human stumbled by, inebriated and unaware of the danger lurking only one shadow over. Instinct took over and Reuben leapt at the man, knocking him to the wet pavement with ease. The human’s heartbeat echoed like war drums in the vampire’s ears as his fangs extended and he pinned his prey, leaning forward to pierce the thin skin covering the juicy jugular vein.

Their eyes met for the briefest moment. Panic and primal fear clouded the human’s face, filling his being so that it strangled his vocal cords and rendered him incapable of screaming. Reuben paused as he momentarily regained a modicum of control, but his desperation soon dragged him under another wave.

He could feel the warm skin against his fangs when suddenly he was yanked backwards. Strong, furred arms pinned his arms to his sides and he was carried away into the darkness. The werewolf was speaking to him, but Reuben was too deep in the throws of terror to make any sense of the words. All he could do was claw at his throat and his captor’s arms in a vain attempt to gain control.