I nodded, cutting a slab of fudge off with that stupid little plastic knife they put in with it. “God help me if I’m wrong, but I trust her. I trust her to find a way to make it work and not kill me in the process. I want it to work.”

He fidgeted. “Have you considered this might be a knee-jerk reaction to Nick?” he said. “Are you trusting Ivy now because Nick hurt you and you simply want to trust somebody?”

I exhaled slowly. I’d already mulled that around in my head, trying it on and dismissing it. “I don’t think so,” I said softly.

Jenks reclined against the bench, pensive. Thoughtful myself, I put the bite of fudge in my mouth and let it dissolve. It was butterscotch in salute to Ivy’s new “allergy,” but I hardly tasted it. Silent, I handed him the box of candy.

“Well,” Jenks said, ignoring the knife and just breaking off a piece. “At least you aren’t doing this because of your oh-so-endearing need to mix danger with passion. At least it better not be, or I’ll pix you from here to the day you die for using Ivy like that.”

Endearing need… My neck throbbed when I jerked upright, choking as I swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”

He looked at me, eyebrows high and the sun glinting on his disguise-black hair. “You do the damnedest things in order to rile yourself up. Most people settle for doing it in an elevator, but not you. No, you have to make sure it’s a vampire you’re playing kissy-face with.”

Heat washed through me, pulled by anger and embarrassment. Ivy had said the same thing. “I do not!”

“Rache,” he cajoled, sitting up to match my posture. “Look at yourself. You’re an adrenaline junkie. You not only need danger to make good in the bedroom, you need it to get through your normal day.”

“Shut up!” I shouted, giving him a backhanded thwack on his shoulder. “I like adventure, that’s all.”

But he laughed at me, eyes dancing in delight as he broke off another chunk of fudge. “Adventure?” he said around his full mouth. “You keep making stupid decisions that will get you into just enough trouble that there might be the chance you can’t get yourself out of. Being your safety net has been more fun than all my years at the I.S.”

“I do not!” I protested again.

“Look at yourself,” he said, head bowed over the fudge box again. “Look at yourself right now. You’re half dead from blood loss, and you’re out shopping. These disguises look great, but that’s all they are: thin sheets of maybe standing between you and trouble.”

“It’s the Brimstone,” I protested, taking the box of fudge out of his hands and closing it up. “It makes you feel indestructible. Makes you do stupid things.”

He glanced from the white box to me. “Brimstone doesn’t have you out here,” he said. “It’s your recurring lame-decision patterns that have you out here. Living in a church with a vampire, Rache? Dating a guy who summons demons? Bumping uglies with a vampire? Those caps Kisten wears won’t mean crap if he loses control, and you know it. You’ve been flirting with being bitten for the last year, putting yourself in situation after situation where it might happen, and the first time you get Ivy out of Piscary’s influence, what do you do? Manipulate her into it. You’re an adrenaline addict, but at least you’re making money off it.”