NINE
After Nick left, I took a long bath, letting my mind freely wander, specifically to what was going to happen the following evening at eight. I had a feeling that the next twenty-four hours weren't going to go by as fast as I might have liked.
That night, I probably slept the hardest I had in maybe my whole life. Out like a light by ten, I slept for a full twelve hours, not waking even once until a little after ten in the morning. It was the first day I hadn't seen the sun come up since I’d arrived in Everglen.
After lunch, I took the elevator down ten floors to visit Dana, and she answered the door with a smile, telling me to come on in. I did, and after closing the door, she paused, her smile fading, and just seemed to study me for a moment or two.
"You know...I know I haven't known you that long, but something's a bit different about you today. You look really...." She trailed off, seeming to be studying me intently again. "You look really well-rested, I think. And not that you looked worn down or anything before, because you didn't, but...you just look really bright-eyed and refreshed today. And it's something else, too. Something I can't put my finger on. You just look even more beautiful than usual. You look like you’re glowing."
Blushing, I was sure, I gave my head a little shake. "Well, I did sleep really well last night. But as for the 'something else'...well, I really have no idea what it could be. If I'm 'glowing,' maybe it's just from using facial exfoliating scrub in the shower today, something I don't normally use. That's the only thing I think it could be."
"You little liar."
I sputtered, feigning ignorance. "Well, other than the facial scrub, I can't think of anything in particular that might have given me a glow. Except for maybe the little bit of bronzer I used today, just because in the late fall and winter months, I seem to get a bit pale, so I-"
"What a terrible, terrible little liar you are." Dana shook her head at me, with her pink-glossed lips twitching with amusement. "Honestly...I have other friends who are pretty bad liars, but, Tiffany, you really suck."
I began to protest, but she grabbed my hand, chuckling, and began leading me out of the foyer in the direction of a short hallway that led to her kitchen.
"Come on. Stephanie's down for a nap, so it's coffee and chatting time for us. And you don't have to tell me what exactly gave you your glow today other than your bronzer, which, nice try about trying to pass that off as the only thing, but if you do want to tell me, the least I can do is give you the opportunity."
Despite her saying I didn't have to tell her, I had a feeling I was going to have to come clean, at least partially. I wasn't so sure she was going to let me leave her apartment otherwise.
Her kitchen, which was large and airy and painted a vivid, sunny yellow, smelled like brewing coffee and vanilla. And even though I'd had a fairly substantial lunch not an hour before, my stomach instantly growled.
Maybe having heard it, Dana smiled and told me to have a seat on one of the bar stools around a large island in the middle of the kitchen. "Just one sec, and we'll have piping hot sugar cookies fresh out of the oven to go with our coffee. I don't know why, but I was just in the mood for something a little sweet with lunch today.
“Specifically, something very sugary. I guess just because the enormous slice of strawberry cake I had for a midnight snack last night didn't completely satisfy my sweet tooth. Or, as Noah says, my sweet teeth, plural. He claims I must have several considering the way I eat sugar."
Like me, Dana also seemed able to indulge in treats frequently while still keeping her trim figure. In fact, unlike mine, her slender body could have been described as downright willowy. She had a gap of several inches between her toned thighs, and even though she'd given birth not a year before, and to a nine-pound baby no less, her waist was teeny-tiny, and almost literally flat as a board.
In contrast, Aurelia had always eaten fairly birdlike portions, and of mostly healthy, unprocessed foods, and yet she'd been on the heavier side her whole life, as she'd told me once, with a very round middle that she just couldn't get rid of. Once she'd even tried to use magic to try to whittle her stomach down to the size she wanted. It hadn't worked.
Aurelia. I really didn't want to think about her right then. Being that my ever-anxious mind had only recently seen fit to give me a little peace and rest for the first time since I'd arrived in Everglen, I just couldn't handle it.
Once Dana and I were both seated up to the island with a plate heaped with sugar cookies and mugs of fragrant coffee with cream and sugar, she gave me a little look, and I knew pretty much what she was going to say before she even said it.
"Okay, new friend. Time to spill. If you want to, that is, but just let me say that I've always believed that confession is good for the soul. And if one doesn't do it every so often...well, I always picture it something like leaves building up in a rain gutter.
“If you don't clean them out every so often, something's going to overflow or something's going to break. And maybe that wasn't the very best metaphor. I guess I just have leaves on the brain because I just cleaned about forty pounds of soggy, windblown leaves from my balcony planters this morning. But you get what I mean."
I took a little sip of coffee to wash down a large bite of sugar cookie, then set the mug down with a sigh. "I do get what you mean. And all right. Okay. I'll 'spill,' because I don't think I'm getting out of here alive if I don't. But just know that I'm still sorting some things out, some things that are just very complicated, so I'm just going to be brief. I've had...just, a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about certain things lately...things I really don't want to get into right now...and this is the first day since arriving here to town that I kind of feel okay, and I'm just feeling like I want to ride that good feeling while I can, I guess, before having to do any more thinking about...well, just, certain things."
I'd basically come to a point where I'd realized that Nick likely hadn't been behind the killing of my coven. That scenario didn't seem to fit. However, the smallest sliver of me still wondered if he had been and had just changed his ways since then. However, in my gut, I just didn't feel like this was the case.
Which left me completely clueless about who else could have possibly killed my family. Clueless and vaguely in shock because from the day it had happened, I'd been so sure that the vampire responsible was the leader of the Everglen Coven. Now, I had to rethink everything, feeling as if some rug had been pulled out from under my feet. But, as I'd told Dana, I just wanted a short break from thinking. Maybe a break just long enough to enjoy the rest of the day and then the evening with Nick.
In response to what I'd said, Dana nodded, licking a few crumbs off her thumb. "Well, you're certainly being cryptic, but I think I understand what you’re saying. And you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, really. Just tell me whatever you're honestly comfortable with sharing. I really don't mean to be pushy."
"Oh, so I can just grab my sugar cookies, hop down off this bar stool, and trot right out the door, and you won't do anything to stop me?"
"Well, no. I'd definitely have to tackle you in that case. Then I'd drag you back in here and withhold all treats from you until you talk."
"All right. That's what I figured. I'll briefly share what I'm going to share, then. It's basically just that...well, part of my glow might be because things have...'progressed physically’ with Nick, I'll say. And things are going to continue to progress physically tonight. As far as emotionally...well, I think that area is kind of gaining speed, too."
Dana set her coffee mug down, smiling. "That's great...and pretty much what I expected you to say, but I guess I just wanted my suspicions confirmed. So, do you care to share what's brought all this about? Was it anything in particular? Or did things just kind of naturally and slowly progress?”
"Well...kind of. But I guess what really caused the progression is that I realized that I might have...." I trailed off with a sigh. "This is really hard to explain. In short, I realized that I might have been thinking something about Nick that isn’t really true."
"Like that he'd drain humans dry to kill them, or whatever it was that you said when we had breakfast at the cafe?"
Stalling while I planned my response, I took a sip of coffee, and then another, before finally setting the mug down. "I guess I'd just heard some crazy tales about vampires in general, and I was struggling to figure out exactly what was true and what wasn't. But...I think I've got it now. At least I hope I do. I've come to believe that Nick isn’t the type of vampire who'd kill humans. Although, unfortunately, this realization leaves me with many more questions."
With a shaft of sunlight falling on her curly auburn ponytail, giving her hair a bright reddish hue, Dana swallowed a bite of sugar cookie, frowning. "Well, questions about what? I don't understand what you mean."
I was really tempted to tell her everything. Like she did, I also believed that confession could be good for the soul. Especially since I hadn't been able to tell a single soul what I'd been going through since meeting Nick. Which had greatly intensified the sense of profound loneliness and emptiness I'd felt since being kidnapped by the government.
I knew I couldn't tell Dana everything, though. At least not right then. I liked her a lot, but that didn't mean that I trusted her a hundred percent yet, or even fifty percent. I'd always tended to be like that with friendships, and really, with relationships of any kind. A person had to really earn my trust before I would give it fully. Which made it strange that I was beginning to trust Nick already, when just a few days earlier, I'd been convinced that he'd murdered my coven in cold blood, or at least had had something to do with it.
In response to what Dana had said, I just gave her a little smile and picked up another cookie. "I'll fill you in on more another day. I promise. But right now, I want to get serious about eating another one of these cookies while they're still warm."
To my relief, Dana didn't argue, and for the rest of the day, while we did some serious shopping at the various little shops and boutiques within the city, she didn't press me for any more personal sharing or details.
When I got back to my apartment around six, I cooked and ate a quick dinner and then took a long, leisurely shower before dressing in the short magenta dress that I'd deemed too sexy the night of my ill-fated Easter dinner with Nick. Now, the dress struck me as just perfect, particularly the plunging neckline.
Adding to what I hoped would be an incredibly seductive look, I put on a pair of red high heels, too, with my mind wandering to the activities that might be happening in less than an hour. By the time I'd dried my hair and applied a little makeup, my mind wasn't so much wandering as it was fixating.
The ill-fated night of the drinks and my near-drunkenness, when I'd been sitting on Nick's lap, feeling his large erection beneath my seat, it had given me a unique and unexpected thrill to know that he was so large. Later, when we’d been having sex, this little thrill had turned into pure heaven to actually feel his large cock inside of me. Since then, I hadn't been able to stop thinking about the erotic thrill I'd gotten from the experience, and I'd decided that I wanted to experience it again, possibly in a different position this time. But this time, I wanted things to last a little longer. It had been my own fault that they hadn’t before.
When I heard a knock on my front door exactly at eight, I had to fight not to race over to answer it, possibly wiping out in my heels in the process. Instead, I simply walked at a brisk pace, despite a hundred butterflies in my stomach wanting me to run. Those butterflies suddenly seemed to turn into a thousand the moment I opened the door and saw Nick standing dressed in dark pants and a collared Oxford shirt, looking so incredibly handsome that the effect nearly took my breath away.
Trying not to grin like an idiot, I stepped aside so that he could enter the apartment. "Please, come in.”
Seeming like he was struggling not to grin like an idiot himself, Nick strolled inside and just looked at me for a brief moment before pulling me into his arms and speaking in a low voice near my ear. "I want you to tell me your deepest fantasy...what you want me to do, and what you want to do...and I want you to be very, very detailed."