Part 12 (1/2)

”It takes two seconds to say, *Nina, I have f.u.c.king Alzheimer's.'”

”Okay. You count. Ready, set, go. Nina, I have Alzheimer's.”

”Not funny, Forgetful Barbie. Not even a little.”

Fine. Not funny. Phoebe softened just a little, allowing one of her biggest concerns to fly freely from her lips. ”I didn't want to start a relations.h.i.+p with you thinking I needed your pity. I also didn't want it to be the only reason you agreed to let me into your life-because you wouldn't have been in it for long before I didn't know who you were anyway.” Jesus. That stung to say out loud. But it was the absolute truth.

Much like everything else, Nina made her regret opening up. ”But you found me because you were afraid you wouldn't be able to look for me when your brain turned to oatmeal. So no matter when I found out, there sure as s.h.i.+t was going to be pity involved, shortcake.”

She had no reb.u.t.tal for that. Yes, of course she'd intended to tell Nina, and still, there was even more to tell, but not before they'd at least found a way to connect. As of right now, they'd missed the connection mark by a planetary system. She'd had no idea her disease could affect anything vampiric, and since this had all begun, she most definitely hadn't wanted it to hinder their search for answers. In guilt, she averted her eyes.

But Nina wasn't going to let her off the hook. She cupped Phoebe's jaw, forcing her to gaze into her dark, menacing eyes. Nina's jaw was tight, her teeth clenched together. ”Here's the score, cupcake. I'm not a nice person. I know it-everyone else knows it, too. I call it as I see it because life was once too short to f.u.c.k around. When you're a total b.i.t.c.h, it tends to weed out the people who'll conveniently forget to have your back when the s.h.i.+t flies. Now that my life's not so short, it's too long to f.u.c.k around, playing games and pretending things are something they're really not. I'm rude. I'm cra.s.s. I'm impatient. I'm so f.u.c.king honest some call me brutal. I also have a nasty-a.s.s tongue I sharpen with a straight razor every day, and I don't like a lot of people. Some foolishly mistake me for being angry with them. The only thing I'm angry about is that people spend so much time being a.s.shats on my life-dime. I just point that s.h.i.+t out to them-and, yeah, I do it with glee. But get this much straight. I'm not so much of a b.i.t.c.h I'd wish that special Alzheimer's kind of h.e.l.l on anyone. Anyone.”

Phoebe's throat was tight to the point of uncomfortable. Yes. Nina was all of those things. To a lesser degree, so was she, but she'd had a strong female presence in her life to soften her impatient edges.

Nina'd had only their father, which had left her with some very crude, and lacking, self-expression. ”I was hoping by the time I was forced to tell you, we'd have been well on our way to establis.h.i.+ng some sort of bond. Utter fool was I.”

Nina chucked her under the chin with a sly grin. ”You're not a fool because you have some disease you have no control over, Phoebes. You were dealt a s.h.i.+tty hand at such a young age, and that so sucks. But you're definitely a f.u.c.king fool.” She rolled her tongue along the inside of her cheek. ”Wanna know why?”

Just when she'd thought they were gearing up to have a squishy moment, Nina had a big pin at the ready to pop her bubble. ”Oh, please. I'm sure you have a laundry list of reasons. Give them allll to me. Every last one.”

”Because if you'd told me, I might not have been able to ease your mind about what could go down if we don't find some way to help you and Sam, but I could have at least lifted one burden off your designer shoulders.”

Phoebe glanced at her pink nail polish, affecting a bored look. ”My designer shoulders await.”

”You don't have f.u.c.king Alzheimer's anymore, dingbat. You got a lot of other s.h.i.+t going on, but losing your brain matter ain't one of 'em. When you become a vampire, any illness, disease, what-the-f.u.c.k-ever, is cured. You can have unprotected s.e.x until your vajajay shrivels up, because no disease can kill you, but you can't ever have kids. You age at the rate of ketchup dripping, so you're gonna be thirty-three for a really long time, and just like you don't have a beating heart or working kidneys, vampirism means whatever was eating your brain has stopped cold. But that's just the tip of the vampire iceberg. And that's why you should have told me.” With that, Nina turned on her heel and stormed out of the bedroom, kicking Sam's jogging shoes on the way.

Oh. Sure. Put it all on her. Like it was her fault she had no clue she'd been cured of not just a long, agonizing, eventual death, but of, say, her period.

Phoebe's head shot up.

Hold up.

No more tampon shopping + getting her deposit back on the cremation she'd purchased + no more expensive neurological tests + the spared expense of anti-aging creams = jackpot, b.i.t.c.h! And maybe a quick vacay somewhere dark and sunless.

Score!

This was epic. Everything had changed in just a matter of seconds. With just one fang. G.o.d, the tears she'd silently wept each night since her diagnosis for the things she was destined to never experience.

Like Paris during fas.h.i.+on week. Venice in a gondola on a warm Italian evening. Buying her own home. A vegetable garden with fat, ripe tomatoes she'd make toasted cheese sandwiches with. Learning to sew. True love. Marriage. Wrinkles. Rocking chairs on a big front porch. Sitting in the b.u.t.tery suns.h.i.+ne when she was seventy.

That was all gone now. Just gone-well, most of it anyway. Because of Nina. In essence, Nina had saved her from a death so callous and cruel, she couldn't fathom finding the right words to thank her.

”Phoebe?”

She turned to find Sam, strong, tall, and so breathtakingly handsome, in the doorway; if air still escaped her lungs, it would have done so on a wistful sigh.

Call it impulse or the rush of life that swelled through her literally undead body, or just call it plain old l.u.s.t, Phoebe threw herself at him and planted a kiss on the lips that, when she hadn't been fearing for their lives, she couldn't stop thinking about since she'd found out they were straight.

And they were worthy of every sinful moment she'd dedicated to them. Soft but firm, lush and cool. Nom-nom.

Yet, the kiss that was supposed to be a simple peck, turned to something else altogether when Sam's tongue scoured the inside of her mouth, forcing her own tongue to taste his until she thought she'd faint from the delicious silky slide. The s.h.i.+ver he evoked from her body from the mere press of his lips was hot and hard, making her shudder against him, melt into him, arch her back with an almost feline growl. Her fingers clenched in surprise just as her legs turned to jelly.

And there it was.

The kind of kiss she'd sought for thirty-three years of her life, and until these last moments, thought she'd never have the chance to experience.

The kind of kiss that had Whitney Houston singing while Boyz II Men and 98 Degrees did the backup vocals in her head. The brand of kiss that left burning mental images of freshly fallen snow and windswept fields of wildflowers floating around in her brain.

There were clouds, too, white and puffy, drifting beneath their bottoms like cus.h.i.+ony chairs. Angels waved and smiled their fond approval at them as they floated by, still attached by their needy lips.

Harps played and rainbows appeared like a long stretch of colorful hills just waiting for her to skip to the end of them on winged feet.

The only thing missing was a unicorn.

CHAPTER 9.

Oh. But wait. There it was. The unicorn. Just past the rainbow hills and windswept fields of multicolored flowers, his long, lovely mane lifting in the warm breeze, his majestic posture proud and regal.

”Phoebe?” Sam said against her lips, putting his hands on her forearms, forearms that had suspiciously crept up around his neck.

”Don't speak,” she ordered in a dreamy state, letting her eyes slide closed again to recapture the bliss of the unicorn and harps. Her fingers twisted in his hair, the silken strands soft against her skin. She pulled his lips back toward hers, desperate for him to consume her, relis.h.i.+ng the idea of his tongue in her mouth again.

It was in that desperate achy need that she made a decision.

Just this once, she was going to live in the moment-celebrate the joy of simply being alive.

Or undead alive. Whatever. Her thoughts were reckless and impulsive and headed to a place she didn't usually go without some cautionary thinking. Yet, this gift was to be celebrated-and celebrate she would. If Sam would just break out the party hats and horns with her ...

But Sam lifted one corner of his mouth from hers, making her release a forbidden moan. Clearly, he wanted to shroud that moment in stupid morality and gentlemanly behavior. ”If I don't speak, you won't be able to hear my misgivings.”

She tamped down her inward groan, wanting to appreciate his integrity but hoping she could persuade him to join her in Inner s.l.u.tville where, if he'd just dip his toe in, the water was just fine. ”Then that's a perfect reason not to speak.”

”What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't voice those to you, Phoebe?”

What kind of wh.o.r.e would she be if she just steamrolled his mouth shut with her lips and had her way with him?

And hey. Hang on there. Weren't his lax morals the reason he was a vampire to begin with? ”Who said you have to be a gentleman?” she teased, pressing her hips to his and fighting the hot moan of need she experienced when she realized he was as aroused as she was. The fierce ridge of his c.o.c.k drove against her, then pulled away, making her fight a squirm of antic.i.p.ation.

”I said.” Yet, Sam's palms continued to caress circles over her spine, making her arch against the hard shelter of his chest while she reveled in the magnified sensation of tingles he was creating.

His touch burned her, though his fingers were cool. His lips set hers on fire, though they were as chilled as the rest of him, and even though her senses were technically dead, the slightest graze of his flesh against hers felt like a million fingers touching her. It was the most intense brush of skin on skin she'd ever encountered. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled against his chest, unbearably achy. ”What do you know?”

Sam's hands slid down her back, grazing her a.s.s before returning to rest at her waist and tighten into a fist of restraint. ”I know that you're experiencing an adrenaline rush. Your adrenal gland is releasing epinephrine-it's a fight-or-flight reaction to finding out you no longer have Alzheimer's.”

She let her lips move away from his for a moment and c.o.c.ked her eyebrow upward. ”Thank G.o.d you explained the science of that. I don't know that I would have ever vampire slept again if you didn't tell me why and how my adrenal glands were in overdrive. It completely adds to the atmosphere, too.”