“Pack,” he said, doom lacing his tone. “You’re coming with me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“You’re coming with me.” Jonas gave Ginny’s legs one last, longing look and stood. “I can’t and won’t leave you here alone while your safety is in jeopardy—and I can’t stay.”
“There are no windows in the basement. You could stay there.”
“With the other corpses, you mean?” he drawled. “I suppose I could stay down there during the day, but you’ll have to remain there with me where I can protect you.”
“The daytime is Larissa’s shift.”
“Can you swap?”
“No, she’ll refuse. She thinks the morgue is scarier at night, which doesn’t really track, because there are no windows. It could be noon or midnight and you’d never be able to tell.”
“Then we have our answer.” He strode to the window, clenching and unclenching his hands while scanning the street below. “Please get packing.”
Ginny shot to her feet and whirled around, wincing inwardly when her Achilles protested. “Who exactly do you think is going to run this place?”
He turned with a regal eyebrow raised. “Are there any bodies downstairs waiting for you?”
“It’s been a slow week,” she responded, feeling kind of defensive. “Fall is upon us. People tend to try and stick it out through the holidays.”
Jonas’s sigh was weary and amused, all at once. “So help me God, Ginny…” His throat worked. “It will forever be one of the universe’s greatest mysteries that you’ve remained here for twenty-four years without turning every male you meet into a lovesick fool who worships at your feet.”
“That sounds horrible,” she whispered, shaken. “I hate clutter.”
His laugh was somehow adoring and sad at the same time.
Ginny looked down at her hands. What was she supposed to be doing again?
Packing. Leaving. To go live with the vampires. Right.
“Um. I can leave a note for Larissa about spending the night with a friend. She won’t believe it. It’s only slightly more plausible than being targeted for death by a formidable vampire. But it will have to do.” She turned in a circle, trying to remember where she kept her overnight bag. Did she even own one? “I will need to come back tomorrow night and work, though. I can’t neglect this place.”
“I know your father’s legacy is important to you, Ginny.”
Knowing he’d listened and committed her worries to memory made wings flap beneath her breastbone. “Yes. It is.” She unearthed a small, dusty suitcase from the back of her closet and piled essentials inside, including a dress for tomorrow, her hairbrush and a bottle of perfume. Before she opened her underwear drawer, she gave Jonas a pointed look and he turned his back like a gentleman.
Satisfied he wasn’t watching her dig through her abundance of sensible, full coverage panties, Ginny began to sift. Instead of taking out a perfectly functional white cotton pair, something rebellious lit inside of her—probably sparked by Roksana—and she opened a pack of midnight blue bikini-cut panties she’d never worn once. Some had glittery stars and moons all over them, others were sunshine and clouds. She’d bought them on sale at Kohl’s after too much coffee and was grateful for them now. Jonas might never set eyes on them, but maybe they’d make her feel more in control, the way her dresses did.
Feeling herself flush, she quickly stuffed them in her bag. “I’ll just get my toothbrush—”
A rumble of air blew hair across her face and then Jonas was standing in front of her with the toothbrush in his hand. “I’d really like to get you somewhere safe,” he said, dropping the item into her bag. “Quickly.”
“How do you know that’s mine and not Larissa’s?”
“The other one was electric. You’d never use one of those.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“The girl who loves old movies, talks to corpses and doesn’t want me to see her underwear? No, I don’t think so.”
“Does that mean you think I’m boring?”
His lips twisted. “It means I think you’re an original. And that you probably like to daydream while you’re brushing your teeth and the buzzing sound would deter you.”
Pleasure speared her. “You’ve given this some thought.”
“Yes.” He gave her his princely profile while zipping her suitcase and picking it up by the handle. “More than I should have.”
Ginny followed him to the door of her bedroom and out into the hallway. “Where do you live?”
He sighed. “I can’t tell you that, Ginny.”
They stopped side by side on the staircase landing. “How are you going to bring me there without telling me…” She trailed off when he took something out of his pocket. “Is that a blindfold? You can’t be serious.”
“It’s for your own safety. The world I live in is a volatile place. You knowing where three vampires live makes you vulnerable.”
“You’re planning on erasing that information from my head, remember?”
“Remember? I think about it constantly,” he enunciated, stepping closer. “Like I said, the longer I allow you to keep your memories, the harder it’ll be to erase them accurately. I don’t want to take chances.”
Ginny threw back her shoulders and sailed down the stairs, leaving Jonas to follow behind her with the suitcase. For one fantastical moment, she pretended to be Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. A rich debutante with a handsome manservant, preparing to depart for Paris. She wished desperately for a pair of white, silk gloves so she could whip them out and don them while looking annoyed. “Now then,” she murmured when Jonas stopped beside her at the bottom of the staircase. “Have the driver bring my car around.”
“What was that?” Jonas asked, his tone verging on amusement.
“N-nothing.”
He tucked his tongue into his cheek and herded her down the hallway, toward the back door. “As luck would have it, we do have a driver.”
“Who is it?”
Jonas hesitated with a hand on the doorknob. “One of my roommates, Tucker. Prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
He opened his mouth to answer, closed it and pushed open the door instead. She heard the low pump of bass before the black Impala slid into view at the curb, idling for a moment, before the passenger side window rolled down—and smoke billowed out into the night air. It cleared to reveal a Cheshire smile with a cigar clamped somewhere in its midst. The smile belonged to a man who was more like a mountain, a gold chain draped around his thick neck.
Brightly colored tattoos were the only thing covering him, as he was decidedly shirtless, his coloring reminding Ginny of a slightly sunburned Irishman she’d once worked on in the morgue who’d died while on vacation.
“Jonas,” called Tucker, taking the cigar out of his mouth slowly. “That’s a human girl.”
“I’m well aware of what she is. Put out the cigar.”