reminded me.
“By the way, I'm not taking your name. It's nothing personal—”
“Not personal? It is my name.”
“—it's just how I was raised.”
“Your mother took your father's name and, even after he left her for the lethal flirtations of another woman, kept his name. Which is why, to this day, there are two Mrs. Taylors in town. So in fact, it is not how you were raised.”
I glared. He glared back, except his was more like a sneer. Since Sinclair looked like he was sneering even when he was unconscious, it was tough to tell. All I knew was, we were headed for yet another argument and thank goodness we were doing it in our bedroom, where one of the house's many live-?ins weren't likely to bother us. Or, even worse, rate us (Marc had given our last fight a 7.6—we started with an 8 based on volume alone, but he had taken four-?tenths of a point off for lack of originality in name-?calling).
We lived (and would presumably for the next thousand years—hope Jessica was paid up on her damage insurance) in a big old mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Me, Sinclair, my best friend Jessica, Marc, and a whole bunch of others I'm just too tired to list right now. I adored my friends, but sometimes I couldn't help wishing they'd all just disappear for the sake of some peace and quiet.
Retreating to the master suite, where we were currently arguing, was an acceptable substitute for actual solitude. I'd never seen a divine bathroom before, much less been in one, but after taking a bath in the eight-?foot-? long whirlpool tub, I'd come to believe God could act through bubbles.
The whole place was like a bed and breakfast—the fanciest, nicest one in the whole world, where the fridge was always full, the sheets were always fresh, and you never had to check out and go home. Even the closets were sublime, with more scrollwork than you could shake a stick at. Having come from a long line of tract housing families, I'd resisted the move here last year. But now I loved it. I still couldn't believe I actually lived in a mansion of all things. Some of the rooms were so big, I hardly noticed Sinclair.
Okay, that was a lie. Eric Sinclair filled every room he was in, even if he was just sitting in the corner reading a newspaper. Big—well over six feet—with the build of a farmer (which he had been) who kept in shape (which he did): wide, heavily muscled shoulders, long legs, narrow waist, flat stomach, big hands, big teeth, big dick. Alpha male all the way. And he was mine. Mine, I tell you!
Sinclair was seventy-?something—I was vague on the details, and he rarely volunteered autobiographical info—but had died in his thirties, so his black hair was unmarked by gray; his broad, handsome face was without so much as a sun wrinkle. He had a grin that made Tom Cruise look like a snaggle-?toothed octogenarian.
He was dynamite in bed—ooh, boy, was he! He was rich (possibly richer than Jessica, who had arranged for the purchase of this mansion). He was strong—I'd seen him pull a man's arm off his body like you or I would pull a chicken wing apart. And I mentioned the vampire part, right? That he was the king of the vampires?
And I was the queen. His queen.
Never mind what the Book of the Dead said, never mind that he'd tricked me into the queen gig, never mind what other vampires said; shit, never mind what my mom said. I loved Eric (when he wasn't being a pud), and he loved me (I was almost positive); and in my book (which wasn't bound in human skin and written in blood, thank you very much) that meant we collared a justice of the peace and got him to say “Husband and Wife.”
Two years ago, I would have said a minister. But if a man of God said a blessing over Eric Sinclair, sprinkled him with holy water, or handed him a collection plate, my darling groom would go up in flames, and it'd be really awkward.
Anyway, that was the way I wanted things. The way I needed them. And really, it seemed a small enough thing to ask. Especially when you look at all the shit I had put up with since rising from the dead. Frankly, if the king of the vampires didn't like it, he could take a flying fuck at a rolling garter belt.
“If you don't like it,” I said, “you can take a flying fuck at a rolling garter belt.”
“Is that another of your tribe's charming post-?ceremony activities?”
“What is this 'my tribe' crapola?” I'd given up on the announcements and had started folding my T-?shirts— the basket had been silently condemning me for almost a week. Jessica had hired plenty of servants, but we all insisted on doing our own laundry. Except Sinclair. I think Tina (his super-?butler/major domo/assistant) did his. He could hold his damned breath waiting for me to step up.
I dropped the fresh, clean T-?shirt so I could put my hands on my hips and really give him the glare. “Your dad was a Minnesota farmer. This I'm-?an-?aristocrat-?and-?you're-?a-?peasant schtick stinks like a rotten apple.”
Sinclair, working at the desk in the corner (in a black suit, on a Tuesday night—it was the equivalent of a guy getting up on his day off and immediately putting on a Kenneth Cole before so much as eating a bowl of cornflakes), simply shrugged and did not look up. That was his way: to taunt, to make an irritating observation, and then refuse to engage. He swore it was proof of his love, that he'd have killed anyone else months ago.
“I am just so sick of you acting like this wedding thing is all me and has nothing to do with you.”
He didn't look up, and he didn't put his pen down. “This wedding thing is all you and has nothing to do with me.”
'I'll bet you haven't even worked on your vows yet.”
“I certainly have.”
“Fine, smart-?ass. Let's hear it.”
He laid his pen down, closed his eyes, licked his lips, and took a deep breath. “Alas, the penis is such a ridiculous petitioner. It is so unreliable, though everything depends on it—the world is balanced on it like a ball on a seal's nose. It is so easily teased, insulted, betrayed, abandoned; yet it must pretend to be invulnerable, a weapon which confers magical powers upon its possessor; consequently this muscle-?less inchworm must try to swagger through temples and pull apart thighs like the hairiest Samson, the mightiest ram.” Opening his eyes and taking in my horrified expression, he added, “William Gass, 'Metaphor and Measurement'.”
Then he picked up his pen and returned to his work. With a shriek of rage, I yanked my engagement ring off my finger, yelped (it stuck to my second knuckle), and threw it at him, hard.
He snatched it out of the air without looking and tossed it back at me. I flailed at it, juggled it madly, then finally clenched it in my cold fist.
“Oh no you don't, love. You insisted on a gauche representation of my feelings and you will wear it. And if you throw it at me again,” he continued absently, turning crumbling sheets of parchments, never looking up, “I will make you eat it.”
'Eat this!' I flipped him the bird. I could actually feel my blood pressure climbing. Not that I had blood pressure. But I knew what it felt like. And I knew I was acting like a brat. But what was the matter with him? Why was he being so cold, so distant, so—so Sinclair? We hadn't even made love since. . . I started I counting on my fingers and gave up after I'd reached last Thursday. Instead we were sharing blood without sex—a first for us. It was like—like being used like a Kleenex and tossed accordingly.
What was wrong with him? What was wrong with me? I was getting everything I ever wanted. Since I woke up dead, right? Right?
I was so caught up in my mental bitching I hadn't noticed that Sinclair had advanced on me like a cat on a rat.
“Put your trinket on, darling, lest you lose it again.”
I ignored the urge to pierce his left nostril with it. He was soooo lucky I liked rubies.
I managed (barely) to evade his kiss. 'What? You think we're going to have sex now?'
“I had hopes,” he admitted, dodging a fist.
“Don't we have to make up before the makeup sex?”
“I don't see why,” he said, pressing me down onto the bed.
I grumbled, but his hands felt fine, and I figured it was just as well to let him think he was in charge. (He did only think that, right?) His mouth was on mine, then on my neck, his hands were under my shirt, then tugging and pulling on my pants. I felt his teeth pierce my throat, felt the dizzying sensation of being taken, being used, as he sipped my cool blood. His hands were on my ass, pulling me toward him, and then he was sliding into me, and that was that, the fight was over. Or at least on hold.
We rocked together for a fine time, and I counted my orgasms like fireworks going off in my brain: one, two, three!
(Elizabeth, my own, my queen, my. . . bride.)
