“Depends on how you define loneliness, love. Do I get to wishing I had a group of well-meaning busybodies prying into my shadows and meddling in my life? Not on your life. Do I wish I had a pile of others depending on me to take care of them? No way in hell. Been there, done that. It’s far too much responsibility for any sane person to take on. I’m not up to the task, anyway. Do I sometimes crave a body besides my own in my bed? You bet I do. But that’s easily remedied. And friendship doesn’t have to enter into it.”
She didn’t imagine he’d ever had too much trouble finding willing women to share his bed. The man was hot. And just enough of a bad boy to whet any female’s appetite.
“Do you ever … just wish for someone to talk to? Someone who gave a damn what you had to say?”
He tilted his head. “Is that the kind of friends you have?
The kind who listen and give a damn what you have to say?”
She smiled. “Sure. But they’re also the kind who pry into my shadows and meddle in my life. I think it’s tough to get the one without the other.”
“I think you’re right there.” He sighed. “You have lots of them? Friends, I mean.”
“Mmm. Friends, family. Guardians and protectors. Mostly vampires, but some mortals, too.” She looked at him and suddenly smiled. “Hell, I have so many I can afford to share them with you.”
“Whoa, no thank you. I don’t need them.” He studied her face for a moment before turning his gaze back to the road. “Doesn’t look as if it’s been doing you much good. Not lately, at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been crying tonight.”
She ought to be used to the sharp observations of vampires, she supposed. The talent shouldn’t surprise her. And yet he had taken her off guard.
“The sick friend?” he asked.
She nodded.
“What’s wrong with him, exactly?”
Blinking, she frowned at him. “How do you know it’s a him?” She’d erected a shield around her thoughts from the instant she’d realized he was a vampire and able to read them. So he couldn’t be picking things up from her mind.
“Rarely see a pretty woman crying over a girl. This fellow in Salem—your lover?”
She smiled broadly. “No. More like a beloved older brother. He saved my life once.”
“Did he really? An ordinary mortal?”
“Will is probably the farthest thing from ordinary you’ll ever come across. He was a colonel in the Army. Special Forces. Captured in the desert, tortured until he escaped, and he never told them a thing.”
He lifted his brows, turning slowly to face her as she spoke. “Are you sure you’re not in love with him?”
“I’m sure.”
“Not even sleeping with him?”
“Never.”
“Never?”
“I meant I would never sleep with Willem.”
“Oh.” He grinned at her. “I thought you meant you were a virgin.”
She turned her head toward the window. “You’re getting a little personal for someone I only met an hour ago, Edge.”
“You let me drive your car. I figure that puts us on intimate terms.”
“You figure wrong.”
“So are you, then?”
She frowned at him.
“A virgin?”
“Why do you care?”
“Curious, is all.”
“Well, I’m not going to satisfy that curiosity. So stop asking.”
“Mysterious, aren’t you? I like that.” He reached across the seat, trailed a forefinger down her cheek, making her shiver. “I like a lot of things about you, Alby.”
She lowered her eyes, tried not to let her face turn red or her heart start racing, because he would hear it. But God, his touch sent a thrill through her, right to her bones.
“You never answered my question.”
She swung her eyes to him, shocked he was still asking.
“About your friend, I meant. Will. What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh.” She let her anger fade. “Cancer.”
“Terminal?”
She shrugged. “That’s what they’re saying. But I’m not ready to give up on him just yet.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“I don’t suppose … no, never mind.”
“No, go on. What were you going to say?”
He slanted his eyes toward her. When he looked at her, she could feel them touching her, and this time they slid from her face down to her neck, over her chest and hips and legs, all the way to the floor. “It’s just, well, you must have different—powers, for want of a better word—than the rest of us. Is healing fatal diseases one of them?”
“I don’t think so.”
He frowned at her, and she knew what he was asking. “I don’t know everything about myself, Edge. It’s not like there’s ever been anyone like me before, anyone I could ask.”
“Surely you’ve tested them. Are you immortal?”
“I think so.”
“But you age like a mortal?” “Used to.”
“Used to?”
She pursed her lips and said nothing.
He slid a hand over hers, where it rested on her leg. “Poor lamb, you’re rather lost, aren’t you? In spite of all your friends and their meddling?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“No, you’re not. You don’t even know who you are. Or who you want to be.”
She met his eyes. He held her gaze, smiled gently, and looked like a fallen angel. “Stick with me for a while, Alby. I’ll help you find yourself.”
She frowned, amazed at how her body responded to the touch of his hand, surprised that she let him turn her hand in
