“It served its purpose.” Wolfe smacked Eric’s ass lightly. “Come to our blow-up bed, darling.”
“Beloved,” Eric insisted, letting Wolfe pull him up.
“Come to our blow-up bed, beloved.”
They woketo the pale morning light cresting over their tent, and the bizarre sound of applause.
Eric rose on his forearms, blinking bleary eyes. “Why is everyone clapping outside our tent?”
Wolfe’s arm tightened around his middle. “Perhaps they heard our performance last night after all?”
Eric rolled his eyes and squirmed out of Wolfe’s hold, unzipping the tent to find everyone standing at the edge of the pond, watching Jay paddle around in the water. “What’s the clapping for?” he asked, poking his head out.
“Jay learned to swim,” Alexei explained, looking proud as hell as he watched his mate. “He’s demonstrating.”
“Oh.” Eric gave a few claps of his own, watching Jay play in the water. He didn’t seem to be using any discernible stroke, just twisting and floating and somehow traveling from one side of the pond to the other. But yeah, he wasn’t drowning, so there was that.
Eric turned back to Wolfe. “Sometimes I think we’re not very good vampires,” he murmured. Like, shouldn’t they be having blood raves or creepy sex dungeon parties or something else appropriately gothic? Not cavorting in nature and applauding each other’s milestones?
Wolfe made a humming sound that sounded a bit too much like agreement.
Eric narrowed his eyes. “Do you thinkI’ma good vampire?”
“You’re perfect,” Wolfe insisted, sitting up and digging through their bag. “Your friends, on the other hand…”
“You know, the fanged otter everyone’s applauding right now isyourfriend, actually.”
Wolfe pulled out a shirt, tossing it on and buttoning up the most casual item Eric had ever seen him in outside the home, a linen-looking short-sleeved number. It was weirdly risqué, his bare arms out for the world to see. They were really nice arms too, perfect for holding Eric in place while he—
“Are you going to come fish, Eric?” Jay called out, pulling Eric from the pervy path of his thoughts.
Eric poked his head back out of the tent. “Um, when you’re done swimming.” He didn’t have the heart to tell the little vampire his splashing had probably scared away all the fish, but Alexei shot him a grateful smile, like he knew he’d restrained himself.
Eric stretched, assessing himself. No headache, no nausea, no other signs of an imminent hangover. A vampire metabolism was pretty okay, sometimes. “Let’s grab the tackle from the car anyway,” he said to Wolfe.
He did fish in the end, once Jay had had his fill of playing in the pond and he and the others returned to the campsite. It was impossible to resist, with the soft morning light, and Wolfe parked happily in a camping chair on the shore, watching Eric with unblinking eyes.
“You don’t even want a book or anything?” Eric asked him for the tenth time, just to be sure.
“I’m content as I am.”
“You’ve really got it bad for me, don’t you?” Eric teased, smiling when Wolfe didn’t correct him.
Eric was happily surprised when he caught a decent-sized one, and he made Wolfe walk back to the clearing with him to show it off.
“What do you all think?” he asked, feeling suddenly shy showing off something so silly, but he was awarded with his own smattering of applause that made his cheeks heat. “We’ll go gut it and then we can all taste a little baked fish for breakfast?”
Jay looked up from the little camping table he was at, battling Danny at cards. “Gut it? Do we have to? Can’t we put it back?”
Eric glanced at the clearly dead fish he was holding. “Um, it’s a little late for that. Sorry.”
Soren shot him a surprisingly kind look of reassurance before turning to Jay. “Jaybird, where do you think the bacon Alexei makes for you comes from?”
Jay bit at his lip. “The store.”
“And before that?”
Jay huffed at him. “I’m not stupid. I grew up on a farm. It’s just—”
