Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(26)

“Go take a cold shower.” She gave him her back and pulled the sheet over herself.

He took several deep breaths of air, and after a few long seconds he said, “I didn’t mean … I was just going to kiss you. Shit,” he said, his voice filled with self-loathing. “I never meant to take advantage of the fact that—”

“You didn’t.” She closed her eyes. “Didn’t take advantage. I went there with you. But … we shouldn’t have … gone there.”

“To soon?” he asked.

“Too everything,” she answered. Too good. Too real. Too much like it meant something really special. Too much to have to deal with losing later on. “If you’re not going to shower, I am. We need to get back to Shadow Falls.”

She hated the anger in her tone and hoped he understood it wasn’t because of him. It was because of her. She simply couldn’t let herself go down this road again.

*

In the shower she heard a phone ring and listened as Steve told Burnett they would be back in a couple of hours. He took a shower after her, and thirty minutes later, they got into a hotel elevator, one she had no memory of coming up in.

Had he carried her? She hated not knowing something. Hated knowing she’d been that vulnerable.

Once they arrived in the crowded lobby, he led her into the hotel’s restaurant.

A complaint rested on her lips, but she remembered she’d eaten today and he hadn’t. So she shut up and followed the hostess when Steve told her they needed a table for two.

He ordered a steak and baked potato and some sweet tea. She ordered French onion soup, about the one thing she could actually enjoy, and a Diet Coke.

When the waitress left with their order, Steve looked at her, still wearing an apology in his eyes. Yup, he felt guilty for things getting out of hand. But she didn’t put all the blame on him. She could have stopped it. Should have stopped it.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.

She reached up and touched where she’d been stabbed. “Completely healed,” she said. Then she remembered something they’d talked about earlier. “Did you learn medicine from your mom?”

He nodded. “Sometimes she’d volunteer at different free clinics. I used to go with her on weekends. I’m a fast learner on some things.”

She suspected he was a fast learner in all things. She hadn’t seen it at first, but intelligence lingered in those big brown eyes. “And you don’t want to be a doctor?”

“I didn’t say I don’t want to be a doctor.”

“But you said … I mean I got the feeling when you talked about your parents that you didn’t want to do what they wanted you to do.”

“She wants me to go into medicine for humans because that’s where the money is. I want to train to treat supernaturals. That’s where my skills will be the most useful.”

She nodded. “I see.” The waitress dropped off their drinks. Della twirled a straw around her glass and watched the bubbles rise to the top. “My parents wanted me to be a doctor, too.”

“And you don’t want that?” he asked.

“Hell, no. I want to go into criminal justice.”

“A lawyer?”

“No. I don’t want to defend the law. I want to enforce it. Before I was turned, I was thinking FBI or CIA. Now I’m thinking FRU. Which is why I didn’t want Burnett to know I’d screwed up.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t screw up.”

“I got stabbed. That’s pretty screwed up.” She jabbed her straw into her drink.

“We were up against a whole gang of rogue vampires. The fact that we got out of there alive is a freaking miracle.”

She gave the straw another race around her glass. “But you’re the one who saved us. The one who came up with a plan, and then again with the werewolves.”

“Yeah, but you were a little busy trying not to let that rogue were/vampire kill you in the ring. And when the weres showed up you were already stabbed and bleeding like crazy, but you still stood up.”

“I didn’t do shit when they came,” she muttered, ashamed of herself.

“You stood up and faced them and let them know you weren’t ready to be their dinner.”

He looked down at his own glass for a second. “Honestly, I was totally impressed with you. The whole time, I’m freaking out inside. Hell, my knees were shaking and you were like this epitome of calm. I kept looking at you and thinking if you could do this, I could, too.”

She let go of a deep breath. “I wasn’t calm. I was freaking out, too.”

He smiled. “Well, that’s why you’re so good at this, Della. You didn’t seem scared. Not once. You can do this. I personally don’t like the thought of you putting yourself in danger, but don’t ever think you screwed up. You kicked ass in that ring.”

His compliment felt like a big hug. And as she constantly told Kylie and Miranda, she wasn’t much of a hugger.

Looking down at her drink again, the realization hit. She used to be a hugger, but now when anyone wrapped their warm arms around her it reminded her of how cold she was.

Suddenly, she realized when Steve had kissed her and touched her she’d forgotten she was cold. For the first time since she’d been turned, she’d felt normal again—felt … human. Damn that felt good.