I nodded.
He kept glancing at me, with a concerned expression, and it seemed a withheld comment, or an unanswered question, settled on his lips. He stared straight ahead, his fingers gripped tightly to the wheel, his Adam’s apple raked up and down his throat.
Inside, I clenched. “What now?”
He shifted his gaze from the road to me, he was frowning. “Ethan is like a brother to me, but you need to know that when he decides he likes someone, he makes them feel like they are the most important thing in world, and when they fall in love with him, he cheats, or runs, or both, leaving them devastated. He does it every time,” he said bitterly.
The bitterness in his voice was a prelude to the fact that, at some point, someone Karson cared about was hurt by Ethan.
“Did he hurt someone you cared about?” I asked.
“Yes, and she never got over it. She went off the rails. It did not end well.”
“What happened?”
“It does not matter.” Conversation dismissed.
We pulled up outside the Italian restaurant. Outside, a couple scurried up the pavement, jackets pulled over their heads, bodies hunched into the rain, they flung the restaurant door open and rushed inside.
“If it doesn’t matter, why did you feel the need to tell me, Karson?”
He looked puzzled. It hit me like a smart slap. “Wait—you think we’ve been together, don’t you?” I said before he could answer.
With lingering puzzlement, he said, “Have you not been in his bed?”
“No.” I reeled back. “We’re just friends, what on earth made you think that?”
“He’s a vampire after all, Amelia, your kind find us hard to resist.” He switched off the headlights, only the faint glow of a streetlight managed to breach both the darkness and the plummeting rain, casting a glow behind his head like a crown.
“No shit,” I murmured under my breath, immediately realizing, as he smiled, he’d heard me. “That’s it, seriously. You think I’m so pathetically weak I couldn’t possibly resist him?Michael is vampire, do I look like I want to jump in bed with him too?”
“You said he had seen you in less and then you offered to let him . . . feed off you,” he sounded and looked appalled.
“Give me some credit, to Ethan I’m a game, like every other woman out there. A challenge, as he said, or I used to be. We have moved way beyond that, we are friends, that’s it, and I am not as weak as you think.” I lowered my voice and sighed, “I offered that because I trust him, I wanted to help him.”
He sat unmoving, staring out into the night, deep in thought, absorbing the news as if I had provided some high-grade information. He opened his mouth, turned to me like he was about to speak, and then shut it again. When it became obvious whatever he wanted to say wasn’t coming, I reached for the door handle.
“Where do you think you are going?” he demanded.
“To grab dinner.”
“I am not allowing you out in this weather. Stay in the car, I’ll get it.”
I frowned and opened my mouth to argue, but he was out, door closed. I heard the click of the lock as the taillights winked feebly into the dark.
“You get it then,” I muttered. I rested my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. It seemed no time had passed at all and the door opening woke my body with a jolt.
“I did not mean to scare you,” he said, handing me the container, and a pizza box. “It’s vegetarian.” His hair was soaked from the rain. He ran his fingers through it; a few drops fell down his face. He wiped them off with the back of his hand. He looked devastatingly handsome with wet hair and a soaked t-shirt that clung to a body rippled with muscles. A few drops formed again on his forehead, I was tempted to reach across and wipe them away. Instead I sat the warm cardboard box on mylap and held onto it like we were about to embark on a bumpy ride. The smell of the pizza made my belly growl with a barren ferocity. He started the car, a purr so soft I didn’t know it was going until we pulled away from the curb.
“Eat, Amelia.”
“I will wait until we get home.”
“Don’t be silly, eat. God knows you could do with some meat on your bones.” He glanced at my legs as if my limbs brought him displeasure.
I looked at my lap. I didn’t want to tell him I was possibly the world’s most ineloquent eater and pasta in a car, especially a car this nice, wasn’t a good combination.
“No, I would prefer to wait, we’ll eat together when we get home . . . that’s if you’re staying for dinner?”
