Page 35 of Fangs with Benefits

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I glance at Dylan, who looks unhappy about the development, his lips pulled down into a thoughtful sort of frown. It occurs to me that I actually know nothing about the relationship between Elijah and Dylan. For all I know, they could be secret boyfriends. But by the looks of it, his displeased stare is on Luke, not Elijah. At any moment Luke or Elijah might glance over and see Dylan’s reaction giving away too much, so I slide the bottle to him, the glass tapping his shins. He snaps back to normal and blinks down at it, offering me a closed-lip smile before taking his turn.

He has to kiss the neighbour, and that kiss is much less steamy than the one the man shared with Reggie. Good sign for Reggie.

And then it’s my turn. I blink at the wine bottle while Devi shouts, ‘Pick me! Pick me! Molly never lets me kiss her!’

I can think of three occasions where she got drunk and pressed sloppy kisses on my cheeks after a trivia night or on the rare instances she’s pulled the birthday card to get me to go to the club with her.

Feeling about as nervous as I was when I played this fifteen years ago, I reach out and give the wine bottle a hearty spin, the bottle sliding a bit as it rotates, slowing until it lands pointing, indeed, at Devi.

Elijah’s eyes meet mine across the circle, mine skirting away instantly while Devi squeals and bounces on her knees. I’m distracted during the kiss, a short passionless thing that Devi punctuates with three more smooches on my cheeks, making me and everyone laugh. It’s just a game, after all, just a kiss.

But as I sit back down and the bottle passes on to Luke for his turn, I avoid one set of eyes while I reckon with a truth I was not expecting:

I wanted it to land on someone else. I wanted to kiss Elijah fucking Thorne.

Chapter 13

Elijah

Everyone having now taken a turn at spin the bottle to humour my lack of experience, the party moves back to the living room, where there will be chatting and drinking and more of the diverting music playing from two matching speakers.

Devi yells about another round of shots, and Molly escapes down the hall to the bathroom. I want to talk to her–I always want to talk to Molly–I want to ask her if she liked the sweet bread I saw her eating, want to ask her if she’d consider playing the game again but this time just with me because I might be addicted to the scent of her, the sight of her in that dress, and I want to taste her lips so, so badly.

‘Dude,’ Dylan says, thumping my bicep with his hand. ‘You like guys?’

‘Hm?’ I ask, confounded by where the question came from when my mind is solely on one blonde woman, so much so that I think it may have only ever been waiting to think of her for as many hundreds of years as I’ve lived.

‘You kissed Luke like you’ve done it before,’ Dylan clarifies. ‘Like I’ve kissed a man before?’

Dylan nods.

‘Of course I’ve kissed a man,’ I say. ‘I’ve kissed lots of men, Dylan, I’m four hundred years old.’

‘Immortality makes you bisexual?’

‘Well, I don’t know about that, but I think it helps,’ I say. I don’t know many vampires that haven’t been intimate with people of all genders, at least once, in their long existences.

Dylan nods, his arms crossed over his chest as he considers. After ten years of friendship, I’m shocked we haven’t covered these grounds before.

I narrow my eyes at him. ‘Though, I thought you were certain that Luke didn’t like guys.’

‘He doesn’t,’ Dylan says too quickly, but he’s watching Luke, who’s laughing in the kitchen. I keep quiet, a soft smile pulling up my lips.

Down the hall, the bathroom door opens, but instead of returning to the party, I watch Molly duck back into Devi’s room.

I shouldn’t go to her. If she wanted to hang out with me, she would have said so, or made any amount of interest in me apparent.

But my every impulse tonight has been to orbit around her like she’s the very sun, and maybe she is.

I pat Dylan on the shoulder, leaving him to stew about his human colleague as I walk to Devi’s room, steeling myself before pushing the door open.

Molly isn’t inside–not on the floor or the bed or the love-seat with the crooked leg. The window is open, though, and when I step further inside, I see that she’s sitting on a small balcony, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders.

I take a deep breath, not because I need to, but because it’s always steadied me, even when scents were overwhelming after I was changed.

I knock on the windowsill to get her attention. When she looks back at me, she nods in greeting.