“Do you think he’ll keep quiet?”

“I’ll have my people keep tabs on him. But I think you made your point.” A smile spreads across Jay’s face. “Now, why don’t we have some fun? It’s a party, after all. What would you like to do?”

“I was in the hot tub the other night with a couple of guys from school. It was pretty relaxing before Tom came by and ruined it. I think relaxing would be good for both of us.”

“Agreed.”

As we leave the library and navigate the crowded hall, Jay drapes his arm across my shoulders and leans down to my ear. “I guess I’m supposed to ignore the part where you were in a hot tub with two men?”

“Just some innocent fun.”

“Okay. Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m planning on some not-so-innocent fun with you in the hot tub.”

A flutter passes through my rib cage. I can’t find words to answer, but I look up at him with a small smile, so he’ll know I’m on board with that.

In the pool area, we change into swimsuits and slip into an unoccupied corner of the hot tub. Nobody in the immediate vicinity knows who Jay is, and I don’t recognize anyone either. It’s kind of nice, being incognito and unnoticed, with the heat of the bubbling pool pounding away the stress in our muscles. I’m starting to feel soft and melty, and very much affected by the glimmer of the hot tub lights on Jay’s wet skin. I scoot a little closer to him, along the bench under the water, and he wraps one arm around me. My head drops against his shoulder.

After a few minutes I tip my face up, and he’s watching me, his eyes so deeply shadowed they look black. His mouth is parted, just a little.

So, of course, I kiss it.

He makes a soft, blissful sound, angling his body toward mine, hauling me closer with a hand at my back. In the warm steam and the golden glow we kiss, again and again, until my whole world is alive with thrilling sensation, rippling through me from lips to toes. There’s so much of his body pressed against mine, but I want more. I want to be overwhelmed and enveloped by him. I want to soak him in until we are the same entity and can never be truly separated. It’s wild, way too sentimental, and violently true.

“Do you realize,” I say, breathless, “how lucky we are to be both best friends and also this intensely attracted to one another?”

“So damn lucky,” he whispers against my mouth.

“Not everyone finds this kind of thing.”

His teeth graze my lip. They feel sharper than normal. Longer, too. “Oh crap,” he hisses, pulling away. He hunches down in the hot tub, turning his face toward the edge. But people are passing by, humans with bare wrists and laughing faces, so he bends his face to mine to hide the fangs from them. He can’t close his mouth all the way when they’re elongated. He swears in a low voice, his chest heaving, and his slick shoulders tense.

I pull his wrist from the water and run my finger along the blood band. It lights up, the indicator hovering between yellow and orange. “Oh my god, Jay.”

“I know. I waited too long to feed. I need to find Henry. Or Lillian—but she’s probably gone home by now.”

I pull his hand to my chest, and he stills instantly, his eyes widening. “You don’t need to find either one of them. I’ll do it.”

He shakes his head. “I can hear how fast your heart is beating, Daisy. If it scares you, I don’t want you to do it.”

A shivery laugh breaks free. “I’m not scared.” I move closer, until his wet hair drips onto my cheek. “I’m excited. And, um, aroused.”

“That makes two of us, unfortunately,” he whispers back.

“I’ll get you a couple towels. One for your waist, and one you can drape over your head, to hide the…you know.” I nod at his teeth. “Then we can sneak out. Do you know a dark corner somewhere nearby?”

“It’s my house, sweetheart.” He grins, all fangs and flushed cheeks. “I know all the dark corners.”

21

Gatsby tells Hestia to let us into the maintenance room near the indoor pool. It’s like a glorified closet, full of wire shelving and the acrid smell of chemicals, but at the back there’s a tiny office with a desk and chair and a shiny new filing cabinet. We’re both still dripping everywhere, so I push the keyboard aside so no water gets flung into it. A pointless move, since Jay could easily afford to replace it. But frugal habits are hard to break.

He’s breathing heavier now, the white spirals in his eyes more dramatic.

“Why do your eyes do that?” I whisper.

“Some kind of temporary chromatic effect,” he says. “I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure it out, but there’s no comparison for it anywhere in the natural world that I can find.”

“What if it’s not scientifically explicable?” I say, dabbing at the soaked ends of my hair with the towel. “You vampires think you’re all science-y and stuff—a result of gene therapy or whatever. But this thing with me and my voice—turns out, it’s something else entirely. Like there’s actual magic involved—or if not magic, at least myth. Maybe your existence isn’t as straightforward as you think. Who knows what that research guy put into his original serum? Maybe he found something mystical that he added to the formula. I mean, science can’t explain how fast his original subjects developed fangs and extra organs, right?”

Jay stares at me. “You’re incredible, you know that?”

“It’s just common sense.”

“But I hadn’t thought of it that way. And you just opened up this whole new perspective on what we are and where we came from. A scary perspective that will require an ass-ton more research on my part, but still—incredible.”

“I’ll take the compliment. But, Jay, you’re kind of drooling.”

He snatches the towel from his head and wipes his mouth. “Damn it.”

“It’s okay.” I ease into his space, slipping my arms around his neck. He looks down at me, lips parted over the fangs, his eyes nearly white. His chest shifts against mine with each labored breath. Every muscle in his arms and torso has gone rock-hard, and his claws have extruded, dull black and sharp as death.

“Daisy.” My name is a plea, slurred through his mouthful of teeth.

I nod reassuringly. “Go ahead. It’s fine.”

“It’s easier if you’re asleep. No pain. I could get you the meds we use on the others.”

“I want to be awake for this.” My skin prickles with anticipation. Fear and lust swirl together in my chest until I can’t tell one from the other. “Just do it already. Where do you usually bite? Do you have, like, a favorite spot?”

“Cody likes the inner thigh. I usually do wrist or neck. Although with you, I might want to try a few other places sometime.”

Oh god, yes.

“Whatever you want,” I whisper.

He wraps one arm around me and delicately scrapes my wet hair off my neck with his claws.

My heart is throbbing so hard I think I might pass out. But I won’t pass out. I won’t.

“Breathe.” Jay’s teeth graze my skin. “Breathe, Daisy.”

“I am breathing.”

“I’m only going to take a little, since you just gave some to Cody. I won’t risk your health.”

“Okay.”

A moment of horrible suspension—Breathe, Daisy, breathe—and then his forehead sinks against my shoulder. “I can’t do it. I can’t hurt you.”