“You can’t have any more secrets from me, and I’ll fight you if I think you’re doing something wrong, and I won’t share you with anyone, ever.”

“Anything, everything, whatever you want,” he said as he put his arms around me. “No other men for you, either. No running back to Oswald, or tormenting me with liaisons.”

“What about flirting?”

“That’s like asking, what about breathing?” His teeth nipped my skin and my blood rose up, wanting release, wanting him.

“Yes, Ian Ducharme, I’ll marry you.”

I put my arms around him and smelled his skin, warm and spicy, and felt the heat of his breath on my ear as he whispered, “I shall tell you everything, such extraordinary things, my own girl.”

He pulled me down to the sleeping bag with him, and I looked into his face and asked, “Do you remember the first time we made love?”

“Vividly. You were a revelation.”

I pulled off his sweater, and thought, He is mine, thrilling at his broad chest, the dark hair that ran down to his belly button and farther.

“You were so delectable.” His hands went to the hem of my shirt, and he lifted it over my head. He grazed my collarbone with his fingers, making me ache with want.

I took his hand and brought it to my mouth, biting until my teeth broke his skin. The rich, salty, intoxicating blood that flowed into my mouth made me shudder with pleasure, and while my mouth was on him, Ian was kissing my shoulder, my arm, my breast.

When I released his hand from my mouth, I gasped, “I’ve never liked that kitchen table.”

He was strong and I was strong.

twenty

Get Me to the Club on Time

A great playwright once said that if you introduce a Margaritanator 3000 in the first act, there will be strawberry margaritas by the third act. And so it was that my frozen drink maker was commissioned by the My Dive bartenders to augment their own equipment on my wedding day.

Mercedes, dressed in a simple navy suit, seemed unusually nervous as she paced in the lobby of her nightclub.

“Chillax, cutie,” I said, although I was fidgeting with the bouquet of ivory roses from my garden at Casa Dracula.

“I can’t. I keep thinking of all the trouble you’ll cause here now that you’re going to have part ownership.”

“Oh, my God, I hadn’t thought of that! Now do you regret asking Ian to stop me from leaving?”

“A little,” she said with a smile. “But I’m selfish. I couldn’t stand the idea of you inflicting your craziness on other people.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Pepper, resplendent in a navy blazer, kilt, and biker boots, came in the lobby and said, “You ready?”