“It sort of does,” Jasper says, arriving at my side.
“And it’s just us,” I say, then remember the guards camped out in their SUVs on the other side of the property, “well, almost.”
“We can go exploring tomorrow,” he says, although if he’d offered me his hand and said, “Let’s go, right now,” I would have taken it and run off with him to the mountains this very second.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I say, taking a long inhale of desert air. “I think this place is exactly what I—we needed.”
Somewhere far off I make out the distant call of a coyote. My mouth falls open half in shock, half amazement. I turn to Jasper and his eyebrow is arched as if to say,I know.
“Pretty wild, right?”
I nod and turn back to the view. The next couple of weeks are going to be perfect.
THE FIRST NIGHT
“What the fudge is that?!” I shriek, dropping the bedsheets and leaping backward.
Right smack bang in the middle of the bed is a scorpion, sitting with its tail raised, its black limbs all sharp and dangerous pressing into the mattress, two orbs on its head looking like demonic eyes.
“What is it?” Jasper says, appearing in the doorway in a tank top and boxers, his toothbrush shoved in his mouth.
I point an accusing finger at the intruder. “How did that get in here?” As if sharing a bed with Jasper for the first time since we officially became a thing wasn’t nerve-racking enough…now we’re contending with venomous critters?
“Oh, that little guy?” Jasper is nowhere near the right level of freaked the frick out.
“Yeah, that treacherous little bed-devil with the poison stinger.”
Jasper shoots me a look before disappearing back into the hall. I listen as he spits and runs the faucet, then he’s back, wiping his mouth with a facecloth. Much to my dismay he moves straight to the bed, reaching out both hands and scooping the scorpion up in them.
“This breed doesn’t have enough poison to do much damage to a werewolf—not with how quickly our healing ability counteracts the venom.”
He heads from the bedroom back to the living room and I follow, terrified he’s about to be stung and fall over dead before we’re one night into our vacation.
“Plus, they react to fear. If you’re stressed they get stressed,” he says, very unstressedly. “Do you mind?” He gestures from me to the door with his head.
“Huh? Oh sure.” I trot to the door, running through it as Jasper passes a little too closely with the scorpion in hand.
Crouching down, he gently shakes the death-bug off his hands and into the soil, then claps his hands together at a job well done.
“See?” he says, turning to grin at me all smuglike. “Nothing to worry about.”
I gulp, because now that the scorpion is dealt with, there’s no escaping that Jasper and I are about to share a bed.
“Ready for sleep?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah.”
I slip into the bathroom on the way back to the bedroom and shut the door behind me. The person staring back at me in the mirror looks different than I remember him. His hair is a little messier, his face a little more defined, his shoulders a little more square. He’s not unattractive, not by a long stretch, but still, his smile is sort of lopsided, his front two teeth are a little too large compared to the rest of his chompers. I run my hands down my chest and onto my stomach. It’s notnotflat but it’s not a rock-solid wall of muscle either, like I expect Jasper’s to be. Cringing, even at myself, I lift the bottom of my T-shirt and survey the state of my abdomen.
“You all right?” Jasper calls from the bedroom.
I sigh and drop my shirt. Guess I’ll have to do.
Back in our room, Jasper is sitting up in bed, leaning on the rattan headboard, holding a book. He’s lit by a single dim lamp, which accentuates his sharp jaw, his muscled arms. I gulp, suddenly aware of how incredibly quiet it is out here.
“What are you waiting for?” he asks, and I realize I’m lingering in the doorway like some weirdo.
“What are you reading?” I ask as I move to my side of the bed, lifting the sheets and slipping under.
