Amethyst falls silent. I open my eyes and steal a glance at her. She’s staring at the horizon, blinking.
“Do you smell any of those?” I ask lightly, even though I know the answer.
She gives me a loaded look through her thick lashes. “Uh, no. I don’t.”
“Do you want to try another sense? This is kind of fun.”
She glares at me. “And you want me to go for a walk with you when you’re going to be Johnny Nature Boy, pointing out each and every earthworm underfoot, probably telling me their names and date of birth?”
Fuck. I’ll be anything she wants me to be. I get to my feet and hold out my hands. “Come on.”
She stares at my hands, then finishes her drink, the ice cubes rattling as she puts the glass down, and puts her hands in mine. They’re so small, delicate, warm, that it turns on the protective switch inside me.
The lengths I would go to for this woman.
“Fine,” she says, and I can tell she wants to pull her hands away but I keep my grip strong. “Are we going to the beach?”
That would be the nice, normal, even romantic thing to do in this location, the most secluded coastline in California, but I’m not normal. I’m drawn to the dark.
“The woods,” I tell her.
“Ah, that figures,” she says, but she shoots me a smile letting me know she’s okay with it.
I drop one hand but I keep hold of the other and we start walking down the long gravel driveway toward the main gate, through the pedestrian gate, and onto the road. When we come to a faint trailhead, the kind that only a local would know to look for, I drop her other hand and we start walking uphill along a dirt path strewn with roots and framed by ferns. The further up we go, the taller the redwoods get, the more they blot out the sun.
“You sure you shouldn’t walk in front of me?” Amethyst asks, glancing at me over her shoulder, already pink-faced from the exercise. I can smell her sweat, her pheromones in high gear from last night, and I’m fucking hard when I shouldn’t be.
“And trade-in this view?” I ask, gesturing at her ass in her leggings.
She doesn’t look too impressed. She huffs and puffs. “I mean, I feel like I’m holding you back.”
I grin at her. “You’ll be holding me back no matter what you do.”
She flinches, her brow furrowed though she’s smiling. “Thanks buddy.”
“Buddy,” I repeat. “Thought we were past that stage by now.”
She mutters underneath her breath, something no one else would hear except me. “I think we’re way past every stage.”
Of course, she’s wrong about that.
“Tell me something,” I say to her.
“Please don’t let it be about what I smell right now because I’m pretty sure a dog took a huge dump somewhere.”
“A bear,” I correct her.
She stops dead in her tracks. “Are you serious?”
I shake my head, though I am. There are a lot of black bears in this region, and we definitely passed by an area where one was a day ago.
“When did your father leave you?” I ask, and I brace for impact because I have no idea how she’s going to take that question.
She doesn’t move, just blinks at the trees, as if trying to make sense of the question. Then she starts walking again. “I was nine. Is this punishment for making you talk about your past yesterday?”
I can’t help but feel offended. “It’s not punishment.”
She shoots me another glance and notes the look on my face. “Okay. So, what do you want to know?”
“You never talk about it. I’ve only gotten bits and pieces from your mother.”
She scoffs in disbelief, brow raised in profile. “You’ve talked to my mother about it?”
“Of course,” I say simply. “Your mother is as important to me as you are. You’re both an integral part of my life.”
She mulls over that for a moment and my attention goes back to her ass, moving and flexing in front of me. It’s not helping my hard-on.
“Integral,” she eventually says. “That’s a big word for a vampire.”
“Shut up.”
She laughs. “Okay, how about I’ll talk about whatever you want, as long as you tell me I won’t have to hike for much longer. Because this is a hike, Wolf. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the type of girl to go hoofing it into the wilderness. Stroll along a meadow, maybe, walk through a city park and avoid the pigeons. But that’s about it.”
“It’s not much further.”
“To where? Have you even been on this hike before?”
“Just keep going,” I tell her. I haven’t, but I’ll know when it’s time to turn around. Besides, it’s slightly warmer beneath the redwoods than it is by the house, and her body temperature has been all over the place today. Another thing that I can pick up on and she can’t, though I don’t dare rub that in her face.