He smiles. “There are some benefits to being me. Is that a yes?”

I pause for sense to return. “Aiden, that’s really thoughtful, but no, I can’t let you do that. It will cost a fortune. Let’s just go hear him. I’ll enjoy it just as much, especially with you there.”

His shoulders are still tense. “I won’t even feel the cost for this. I’d like to do this for you. And for myself because quite frankly, I’m not waiting in line or standing in a crowd.” His voice is harder for some reason.

“But it’s too much.”

He sighs and pulls out his phone from his back pocket.

“Aiden, what are you doing?”

“Saving the day.” He presses one button and before I can blink, someone answers.

“Benson, find the PR for a Nigel Fleming and arrange to extend his talk at Powell’s today for a private audience… Yes… ASAP… Then reserve Powell’s for the afternoon… All of it… Top, of course… Thank you. Call me with details.” He hangs up and looks at me as though he does this every day.

I try to remember English, blinking, breathing or anything in between but cannot. Bloody hell, he just rented Fleming and two enormous city blocks! Why? I won’t lie, it has been a fantasy to have Powell’s all to myself but this is madness. Who does this just to avoid waiting in line?

“Breathe, Elisa,” he chuckles, blowing gently on my face.

The cinnamon scent brings me back to my senses. “Aiden, thank you. Truly. But I think you’re barking mad.”

He chuckles again. “You’re more right than you know. Now, will that suffice or do we need a psychoanalysis session about all the reasons that led me to that decision?”

He is smiling with his dimple, knowing he has won. Helpless to reverse what just happened, or to resist his smile, I give in and kiss his cheek.

“I’m a chemist, not a psychoanalyst, which means I notice facts. And now I know you like lip biting, eternity and the night, but you don’t like going outside or being around people. Therefore, I conclude you’re a vampire.”

His laugh echoes in the room. “I won’t tell Denton or Fleming about this lapse in scientific judgment. But you’re right, I do like biting you.”

He starts kissing me in a way that stops all thought. His fingertips travel up my thighs. At his taste, the morning’s contradictions dissolve and the rest of the world disappears. My body comes alive. New though everything is, I remember him as if from a different time. Not from the past. Maybe from the future. I get lost in his lips, his tongue, his fingers flying over my skin. Higher. Higher. He slides my knickers to the side, running a single finger there, and sighs. I press myself eagerly against him. Another finger joins the torment like he is playing the piano.

“Does this hurt?” he whispers.

My legs begin to shake and the only sound I can produce is a moan.

“Apparently not.”

He unzips his fly, keeping his eyes on me as he produces a condom from his back pocket and rolls it over himself. His arm snakes around my hips. I close my eyes, waiting to see whether the feeling will be as otherworldly as it was yesterday. But he doesn’t move. I open my eyes and he smiles.

“That’s better.” He lowers me onto him. A hiss whooshes out of me. It is just as otherworldly. In fact better.

“Ah you,” he sighs and leans me back on the piano. He moves slowly at first, then his tempo changes, faster, rhythmic. I grip the ivory and roll my hips with his. I focus only on the way he pulses inside me and on the off-key piano prelude that at least to me sounds better than Beethoven.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Wonder

I storm through my apartment like ICE is chasing me while Aiden and Benson wait in the Aston Martin to take us to Powell’s. Reagan is still at Hotel Lucia with her parents. I shower in seconds, strangely relishing the way the hot water stings against Aiden’s love bites. Then I skip to my room for my first shag pack ever. I put on my mum’s 1950s peridot dress. She was wearing this the day she met my dad. I’ve always wanted to wear it but no occasion ever felt right. I throw my new graduation camera around my neck, leave a note for Reagan and run out to meet Aiden, tripping twice.

I slide next to him in the backseat. His posture is tenser than I’ve ever seen it. As though all his muscle bands are pulled taut by his very blood. His eyes are tight but the moment he sees me, they relax a fraction.

“You know, I could have bought you some clothes, Elisa, and avoided all this shuttling.”

“And have you spend more money on me? No, thank you.”

He skims my arm with his fingers. “And I probably couldn’t have bested this dress. You look beautiful.”

“Thanks. This was my mum’s.” I fluff the full, twirling skirt. “I thought it would be fun for dinner, although vampire that you are, you probably don’t eat.”

He leans in my ear and whispers. “Oh, I eat. We can go home right now and have a thorough study of my dietary preferences.”

Oh my God, he cannot be talking about that right now. “Anything to get out of going places, Aiden.”

“Anything.” His fingertips skim along my hemline, lingering on my thigh. I start reciting the periodic table to distract myself from the tightening in my belly and the treacherous moisture in my knickers. Lucky for my faculties, Benson starts driving. Instantly, Aiden’s hand turns into a tight fist and rests on his knee. The deeper we get into the heart of downtown, the more rigid he becomes. His fist never relaxes.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“Peachy,” he says in a tone that can only mean “no”. He turns to Benson. “Benson, we have Elisa in the car. Let’s watch where we’re going here. That asshole in the white van is driving in two lanes.”

“Yes, sir,” poor Benson answers, staying firmly in his own lane.

“And Blondie over there is texting. Stay on the left.”

“Yes, sir.” Benson looks like he’d rather be riding with Blondie.

I’ve never heard Aiden so abrupt with Benson. Usually this dragon-speak is reserved for graduates in absentia. Feeling responsible for Benson’s day taking a turn for the worse from the moment he was tasked with finding an ivory centifolia rose, I decide to put my new camera to work and distract Aiden.

I snap a picture of his sharp profile, his eyes scanning the world as though he looks past it to the very edge. The moment the camera flashes, his head whips toward me. Hypervigilance glints in his eyes for an instant, then they relax. It’s so quick I can’t be sure I really saw it. I lower the camera slowly but he smiles.

“Are you checking to see if I can be photographed?”

“Definitely.”

My favorite dimply smile returns, and I take another picture. He shakes his head. I keep snapping, his expression changing from smile to laughter to a raised eyebrow that says plainly “enough or else”. By the time we reach Burnside Street, I have lost my camera privileges. But at least now I have parts of him for posterity. I gasp as I realize that, apparently, I want the same thing as he does: an image for always.

Every ounce of warmth leaves my body as the world outside dissolves into the image of PDX from my nightmare. End this. End this now if you want to survive in twenty-nine days, that small voice wails like a harpy. Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium 4.003. Lithium 6.94…

“We’re here.” Aiden caresses my knee, drowning the voice. The heat of his hand thaws the ice.

“Are you okay?” he asks, the deep V folding between his eyebrows.

I nod, burying my face in his neck, his scent calming me more than the periodic table. He wraps his arm around me and tilts my face up.

“What’s wrong?” he says, his sentient eyes scanning mine.

I kiss his cheek. “Not yet, please.”

He whispers in my ear. “You promised you would tell me.”

“And I will. But right now, I want to enjoy this very expensive day you bought for us. And take more pictures.”