Maura, Natalie and I were just admiring that beautiful dress. Wherever did you find it?"
She was grateful for a reason to shift her focus from Nick. "Oh, this old thing?" she cracked, lifting and sweeping the skirt around like a five-year-old. "Janette had her dressmaker sew it for me. Janette designed it. I suppose I'm lucky I intervened when I did, or I'd be tripping over the skirt and falling out of the neckline!"
"What a stunning necklace," Natalie was clearly mesmerized by the garnet rose.
"It's not mine, but I wish it were! Janette insisted I borrow it. It's carved from solid garnet, she got it from," and there she managed to stop herself. It had all sounded so matter of fact when Janette had told her, and she had a hard time thinking of it otherwise. Her near-slip gave Nick a turn; she felt his thumb press hard into her back. Shifting away she finished, "She got it from a friend in England. A poet, I think."
Natalie appeared relieved to hear it wasn't a gift from Nick. Or maybe that was just Maura's imagination.
"I forgot to congratulate you, Detective Above and Beyond," Natalie exclaimed, embracing Nick and kissing his cheek. "But I know you hate this kind of thing," she gestured around the room.
"It's not so bad," he responded a little vaguely, "I'm enjoying myself actually." He was, in fact. And he knew it wasn't just because Maura was there, as she knew as well, but she was responsible for giving him an "excuse".
"To be honest," Maura told Grace and Natalie, "he had a hard time convincing me to come. I'm not much for big parties and meeting bunches of new people."
"Well, we're not all new," Natalie assured her, and Maura detected genuine warmth in her voice. "Grace, this is Maura Logue. She's pretty new to Toronto. She's been living with Nick for a couple of months."
Grace smiled widely and shook Maura's hand and teased Nick, "Well, well, so much for the department's most eligible bachelor."
Maura fidgeted a little. "Well I didn't marry him or anything."
"So, did you and Nick know each other before?" A natural enough question since Natalie had just said she was new in town. Nick rescued Maura, who was struggling to find a plausible answer.
"Maura works at Raven for my old friend Janette." Grace knew who Janette was and that she and Nick went "way back".
"And Janette played matchmaker?"
"Pretty much," Nick agreed and changed the subject to a current case. Bored by the shop talk, Maura wandered off after telling them, "Be proud of me, I'm gonna mingle."
She didn't get very far, daunted by the prospect of conjuring a conversation from thin air. She'd never been very good at that, and it wasn't because of the wariness that had been sharpened over the years. She was just not able to start from zero with a stranger. She wound up drifting over to Schanke, whose wife was dancing with the obviously single Captain Stonetree.
"Mind if I join you?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"Nah. Myra's found another dance partner, thank god." But his expression was full of affection. It was a new face Maura was seeing, no longer the smartass poser.
"Myra seems quite a woman," she observed.
"Sometimes I wonder how she wound up with me," he confessed, apparently without meaning to. Maura ignored the comment and he shook it off, shifting the focus as Nick had moments earlier. "So is it as scary as you expected?"
She shook her head with a smile. "Nope. You're all very nice. I'm just well, out of practice being sociable."
Schanke regarded her with a knowing expression. "Yeah, well, you two have plenty in common right there. Nick's a regular hermit. Some people at work think he's a snob, but I don't think it's that. It's like he's, not shy exactly, but not sure how to act. Like his life's easier to manage if he keeps it to himself."
"You're very astute, detective." She was stunned by his accurate assessment. The demeanor she'd seen before tonight had seemed self-centered, and prone to false conclusions. It never occurred to her that he, too, might not be what he seemed. Which gave all three of them plenty in common.
"Don. Call me Don. Look I know I everyone thinks I'm loud and tacky, but Nick is the guy who watches my back at work, like I watch his, and you watch his back at home like Myra watches mine. So I figure that kind of makes us all partners, not to get too deep and meaningful," he rolled his eyes in familiar fashion.
"I get it, Don. I guess it's important to all of us that we're doing right by each other." He nodded.
"'Nuff said," he concluded simply. "I rag on Nick a lot, but anyone says he's not a good guy and a good cop has to deal with me. But we both know he is not, uh, ordinary." Maura laughed in agreement as Schanke continued.
"Nick's one of the best and most honest guys I've met, always ready to help somebody, always putting himself second. But he always had his own personal cloud over his head, no matter how nice he was being and no matter how much he smiled everyone was always waiting for it to rain. Since you showed up the weather's a little better. Still partly cloudy, but better. I just thought you might like to know." These were the most serious words she'd ever heard him utter in a row.
"Well thanks, Don, yeah it is nice to know I haven't joined his angst parade. I do what I can." Both of them looked over to where Nick was chatting amiably with Grace and Natalie. It seemed those clouds were dispelling, too. Then the serious mood evaporated.
"Now if you can just get him to start eating normal food," Schanke urged. She threw her head back and laughed out loud. Across the room, Nick felt the hair on the back of his neck rise in a delicious shiver.
"You okay?" Grace wanted to know. Natalie had seen, and understood immediately.
"Fine. Just a chill, I guess."
"Comes with anemia," Natalie "reminded" Grace. She'd helped to establish that Nick had an unusual blood deficiency to justify her continuing lab work with him. It certainly wasn't far from the truth. Suddenly Maura appeared at Nick's side, with an odd smile.
"What were you and Schanke talking so earnestly about?" Natalie asked. Nick hadn't seen, his back being to the room, and his eyebrows went up.
"Yeah, what so earnestly?" he echoed. She responded with a shrug.
"Stuff. Quantum physics, cultural evolution, the weather. Stuff."
One of Nick's eyebrows dropped and he looked at her suspiciously. "Stuff."
"Yeah," she leaned up into his face and insisted, "stuff." Their eyes locked and for a moment both Grace and Natalie were convinced they were about to see a full-bore PDA. But the look ended in a mutual smirk.
"Fine."
"Fine."
Suddenly Maura stifled a yawn, and dissolved in embarrassment at the laughter it triggered. "No, really, it's not the company! It's just been a long evening, you know? All this heavy social lifting I'm not used to."
"I'd say you did fine," Nick reassured her, stepping closer and resting his hand on her waist. He was falling into this "couple" role a lot more easily than he'd expected.
"I'd say you both did," Schanke announced to all. He and Myra were preparing to leave. "What do you think, Nick and Maura did okay venturing out of their natural habitat which would be, the living room right?" The targets of his joke smirked in unison.
"Go ahead, gimme a reason never to 'venture out' again," Maura invited. Myra Schanke poked her husband in the ribs, and not too gently.
"Never mind about the Great Social Commentator. It was lovely to meet you, Maura, and to see you again Nick. Maybe the four of us can get together sometime soon."
"Yeah, I think I'd like that," Maura replied without looking at Nick, who didn't look as if he entirely agreed.
"Well maybe you ladies could get together and threaten Toronto," he suggested, indicating Grace, Natalie, Myra and Maura, "but I think Schanke and I spend quite enough time together as it is."
Schanke affected a nervous expression. "I dunno, partner, are you sure we want to unleash this crew on the city? Our job is hard enough as it is."
Now the four women in attendance united indignantly, but before they could reply as one a voice drifted out from the bandstand: "Luna! Hey Luna, come on up for one!"
Maura's head whipped around. Even Nick didn't know how she occasionally sang with the band during their last set at the club. Nothing too professional, but she could carry a tune and they had a blast.
"Who's Luna?" Myra asked. By this time Derek, the lead guitarist, had rushed to her side and taken her arm.
"Come on, babe, this crowd wants to rock and we know you know how!"
Maura turned a bit sheepishly to her company. "Uh, 'Luna' is, er, moi. Luna Noir, sort-of French for Dark Moon." Puzzled looks from all except Nick and Natalie, who managed to feign blank stares. "Don't ask. It's just a silly nickname." Derek pulled on her arm.
"C'mon, let's liven up these stiffs." Maura choked back laughter... Derek was a vampire.
"Okay, then," she agreed, her sleepiness burned off in a flash, and she ran with Derek to the stage.
"How about..." she pondered the possibilities.
"Fire Down Below?" suggested Dryden, their bass player and they all exchanged wicked smiles as they dared Maura to crank it up. She seized the mike from the stand and slid into a Bette Midler strut and grind that surprised everyone present except those on stage. "This one's for all you frustrated vice cops... and you know who you are," she pointed dead at Schanke, who with Myra and Nick had ventured near the band stand. Then they tore it up for the next ten minutes including an extended guitar break that had her doing a dirty boogie behind Derek and Dryden in turn, then sandwiched between the two. By the time the last chord wailed out there was not a closed mouth in the house.
"Jesus, Knight, that is one wild woman you got there. I had no idea." Schanke was stunned.
"Neither did I," he muttered in disbelief.
Maura leapt off the stage and minced up to Nick like an animated Barbie doll. "So, did I do okay?" she asked innocently.
Nick slapped a neutral expression on his face and shrugged. "I've seen worse." She shoved him hard.
"Thanks a heap." Suddenly she covered an extravagant yawn. "Now I'm really tired." She turned to Nick and asked almost plaintively, "Can we go home now? No offense," she added to their companions.
"Well to be honest, it's way past my bedtime," Myra confessed. "Come on, Superhero, let's go home." She and Schanke said their goodbyes and started to go, but not before Schanke turned and declared, "Well I'd say tonight was a success, huh Maura?" And with a wink they were gone.
"Congratulations, Nick, you guys really earned this," Natalie hugged Nick and kissed his cheek. "I gotta take off too." She even hugged Maura. "See, we don't bite. Well most of us anyway." She and Grace exited together, leaving Nick and Maura standing alone amid the departures of his colleagues, many of whom stopped to shake hands and offer congratulations. Finally Maura took Nick's arm and dropped her forehead to his shoulder.
"I'm beat. Let's fly away home."
He arched an eyebrow. "How about the usual ride?"
"Oh, all right. But you still gotta take me sometime."
Nick draped an arm around her shoulders as they left the convention center. "When's your birthday?"
"16 July."
"It's a date."
When they got home Nick went straight for the fridge and grabbed two bottles, tearing the cork out of the first with his teeth and spitting it onto the counter unceremoniously before guzzling.
"You must be starving," Maura sympathized. He finished off the first bottle and started on the second, reaching into the fridge for a third. What she didn't know was that her final performance had triggered a bit of vampire lust in Nick, that sort of horny/thirsty burn that made him feel a little dangerous when she got too close. After killing two and a half bottles the thirst was beaten back but the horny remained. He reached over and pulled her to him.
"You know, you really set that place on fire tonight," he told her. She could see the faintest throb of gold in his eyes.
"Uh-oh, pushed some buttons..." But she slipped an arm around his waist and leaned into him. God, he was burning up. He kissed her then, for some reason a spark of anger mixing with the more sensual fire. Sometimes she showed a smugness, a knowing attitude that pissed him off, and the fact he was capable of the same himself didn't seem to register. He knew she didn't push him on purpose but when she found out it had happened she could respond like a beautiful woman who knows she's triggered a world class hard-on.
"Just a few," he muttered when he let her up for air. She jumped as he buried his face in her neck, leaving his parted teeth pressed into her as if he were making up his mind.
She tightened her hand at the back of his head and held her breath. This wasn't the first such surge of physical heat Nick had displayed. The last time was almost a month ago, and couldn't be blamed on the new moon any more than this time could.
It was late, and Nick had returned home from a hideous shift. He'd had to go with Schanke and notify the parents of yet another victim of the serial rapist-murderer, accompany them to the morgue for the i.d. At that time the case seemed like the myth of Sisyphus, rolling the rock up to have it roll back down over them. Tired, frustrated, and beginning to suffer from the anguish projected by the victims' families, he had swilled down three bottles before dragging up to bed. His careless slamming about woke Maura, who immediately realized the trouble.
"Let it go, Nick, just for a little while you have to let it go, or it's gonna ruin you," she'd told him as he collapsed into bed. He lay on his back with one arm flung across his eyes, as if that could shut out the most recent mother's face.
"I can't, okay?" he snapped. "It's not like you and the club, I can't just walk out the door and forget it happened. I'm not like you, I can't throw it all out with the empties."
It hurt her that he felt she took these things so lightly. "I don't 'throw it all out'. Not the important stuff, not stuff like this. I just know when to put it in the corner for later. Jesus, Nick, do you really think you're the only one who takes it seriously? It's one thing to care about it, to stay focused to solve the case, it's another thing to let it consume you so there's nothing left to reason with. That's all I'm saying. But don't worry, there's not much chance you'll end up 'like me'." She rolled on her side, facing away, and shut her eyes. In a moment she felt his arm reach around her waist, pulling her onto her back. He was so warm.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. You're right, this case is eating me up. It's going so slowly, no matter what we do, and every day that goes by we hold our breath waiting for another family to destroy." She saw his face close to hers in the flicker of the candle that he always lit next to the bed. More than disturbed or weary, there was a sadness there that went deeper than any she could imagine. He knew what was what, he knew how it went, but it didn't help.
"You're not destroying them," she tried to assure him, tracing light fingers along his cheek. The light scruff of beard that would feel like sandpaper on a mortal was like velvet on a vampire.
"You wouldn't be so certain if you were with them at the i.d." She knew there was no answer to that, because it was true. So she said, "Just rest now, okay? Just hand some of it over, just for a little while, you know I'm strong enough to keep some of it for you, just long enough for you to rest a bit."
She tried to pull his head to her shoulder, the only thing she could think of to do for him, but he resisted and looked into her eyes for a minute more before lowering his mouth to hers. Different this time, not just his usual closeness, there was a need she recognized as mortal. He felt mortal to her, warm and passionate in a way that had nothing to do with magic or blood or the phase of the moon. She reached her arms around him, wanting him now in a way she'd resisted or ignored in the many nights she'd shared his home and bed. Different, they were different and they knew it, their connection had no analog in mortal terms, but right now in this moment he felt no different to her than any man she'd known except she trusted and cared for him more. When he raised his head for a moment she covered his face with kisses, "Okay, Nick, it's okay," and pulled his mouth to hers again, now letting her hands roam the heat of his body, almost forgetting it would fade before too long. She knew who and what he was, but she also knew his kind was able to make love in the mortal sense, though she hadn't experienced it herself. And because she hadn't, she believed such things merely ebbed and flowed differently in his kind, but otherwise were similar. She had no way of knowing she was wrong.
A growl rumbled in Nick's throat, he embraced her roughly, gripping and caressing her in a way she hadn't expected from someone so typically gentle. It was as if he wanted to consume her physically in the same way his torment was consuming him emotionally. He nipped her neck and shoulders, kissed and bit (but drew no blood) and clutched at her with growing strength. It didn't exactly frighten her, but in the back of her mind she knew something wasn't quite as she expected. Still, the added heat he threw off loosened something in Maura she hadn't felt in so long, she could barely remember ever feeling it. With a power that surprised her she dragged his face back to hers and fastened onto his mouth as if she were the vampire and he her prey, sliding her hands inside his t shirt and sweatpants, reaching for him as she'd reach for anyone she wanted so much. And suddenly, he was gone.
After a second of shock she gasped "Nick? Nick, what," and then she saw him, standing across the room, seeming to have appeared from vapor. His mouth was parted, fang-tips showing. But what jarred Maura were his eyes. They glowed blood-red, like some mad animal. And for the first time, she was afraid of him. She half-rose in bed, then froze as he seemed to focus on her with grumbling snarl. This was nobody she knew. He flew to the door without touching the rug. He uttered just two words as he left, and they echoed from him as if from a deep cave, a voice Maura had never heard to match the eyes she had never seen.
"Not you," he boomed as he slammed the door behind him.
Maura fell back in bed, barely breathing. What was this transformation? She knew from her years living with vampires that they could and did make love with each other in the "conventional way" and with mortals as well. Nobody had ever mentioned this, not even the ones who made much of their changeable forms. The fear in her was a new thing, and she didn't like it. It felt to her like a betrayal of someone she trusted with her life. It was almost as if he were protecting her from something in him, something totally unfamiliar. They had told each other so much, she had been among his kind so long, she fancied herself intimately knowledgeable of all aspects of his life and being. And now she knew she'd been wrong. Still, she didn't dare pursue him to ask. To wait seemed wiser, and safer. For both of them.
When she woke from a bare few hours' sleep Nick was sitting on the bed looking at her. Without meaning to she flinched back, and his pained reaction stung her.
"We need to talk," he said quietly. "You need to understand something, something we've never talked about."
She sat up against the headboard, not wanting to say anything yet, but looked him calmly in the eye. More calmly than she felt.
"I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry I hurt you, don't bother saying I didn't." Just now she was aware of the pain in the places he'd gripped her so hard last night. When she reached up to move her hair back from her face she saw the angry purple marks on her forearm. There had to be more. She could feel them.
"You have to know that passion is different for a vampire than a mortal. We've been there, the connection that has no parallel in mortal experience. But you've lived among us so long, you know we haven't forgotten about mortal, physical passion. You know we experience it with each other, and with mortals as well. And you think because we can still make love that it's pretty much the same thing. Only more so."
She almost blushed. He was exactly right. She'd heard the stories, of vampire sexual prowess, though never from anyone describing his own behavior. Like herself, they were legends based in someone else's experience. He saw her color change, and in spite of everything had to resist a smile before continuing.
"Vampire passion is savage, when we come together it's a form of madness. It has to be to transcend an everyday existence where power and sense are limitless."
He couldn't be serious. "So you're saying it would be dangerous for me to do it with you?" It was her turn to fight a smile. He caught on immediately and answered her with a sharpness that brought her wit up short.
"Don't equate this with some mortal male delusion of prowess. You know I've had many lovers, though not as many as you probably imagine. But I haven't 'done it' with a mortal woman in nearly a century." He didn't elaborate, but light was beginning to dawn.
"And you haven't killed in that long, have you?" His silence told her she was right. "So sex was part of the kill?"
His expression was haunted. "Sometimes. Often. Rape, plain and simple, and if I didn't kill the lady in question I brought her across. Though I was much more selective in those cases." There was a bitter sarcasm in the last statement.
"Not you," she murmured almost to herself, and the meaning became clear in a rush. She couldn't be brought across, being who she was, and so the only alternative he saw was death. But this understanding was swept aside as all at once she felt like she'd been punched in the stomach with realization. "Oh god, Nick, no wonder this case is tearing you up." The vampire as penultimate serial rapist/killer.
"I'll be all right. You living here with me helps me be all right, even when it seems like I'm not. You can't imagine what I was like before when something like this was going on. But I wanted you to understand how careful I have to be. What's between us is powerful, and there's a danger in it that you refuse to recognize. You saw it last night."
"I saw someone I'd never seen before," she admitted, "but now that I know why, it's not so dangerous is it?"
Nick shook his head. "Understanding isn't safety.'
"No. You are." She scooted closer to him and kissed his cheek. "I'm not afraid of you, Just Nick, and I'm not afraid of us. But I won't make life harder for you, especially not now." From then on she'd stayed within their established parameters, regardless of what feelings were raging in her. No, she wasn't afraid of making love with him. What terrified her was something else, something she could sense growing in their connection, against which she had no defense at all.
And now they stood in the kitchen after enjoying being together all evening, and in that single held breath all of it replayed in her mind. When he pulled himself away from her, she frowned.
"I got carried away, I'm sorry."
"I wish you'd stop being sorry. You know, you hadn't had human blood for a hundred years until you met me, and the sky didn't fall."
He smiled gently. "Yeah it did."
"You know what I mean," she followed him into the living room. "Can't we talk about this some more?"
Nick looked amused as he flopped on the sofa. "You sound like a horny prom date."
"Don't do that!" she shouted, standing angrily over him. His smile disappeared. "Don't make fun of me! We share a life, we sleep in the same bed, we practically read each other's thoughts. Be with me or not," and both understood what she meant, "but let it be because it's what you want, or don't want, not because you're afraid. If you wanna save me from something, let me tell you that 'sex and the single vampire' isn't at the top of the list."
Suddenly he remembered what she'd said when they were dancing, about being headed for trouble.
"Maura, I," he began, rising to follow her to the stairs. She whirled on him in a rage.
"If you say 'I'm sorry" I'll drive a table leg through your fucking heart!"
He stopped, hands dropped to his sides. "What do you want me to say, then?"
Her fury screeched to a halt. "I don't know," she said simply and sat down abruptly on the stairs. He knelt in front of her, looking her straight in the eye with the familiar, knowing expression.
"Yes you do." He arranged the velvet skirt around her feet, rested his hands on her knees. "I do love you, Maura, after only two months, in every way you could think of. I love your courage and your wit, and your kindness. I love your laugh as rich as sweet wine, the fire in your green eyes that even the worst of my kind hasn't put out. And I love how you tell me over and over I'm nobody I shouldn't be. When you say it like that, so certain, I can almost believe it myself."
"Well it's true. Why can't you just trust me?"
"Come on. How could I tell you all this if I didn't trust you?"
She considered this. "I guess you're right. But have we got anything figured out? I'd hate to have missed it if we did."
He shook his head. "Probably not. But do you still think you're 'headed for trouble'?"
She nodded, eyes wide and filling with tears. "Yeah. I still think so. Because you're never gonna believe like I do. There's always gonna be one last part of you thinking you're doing the world a favor by holding back, that it might even be a better place without you, and thinking you have to wait for some magic critical mass of good deeds before they actually begin to count. Like you're too evil for anything you do to be really good and honest." As always, she used the word evil as if it were someone else's idea. "You hurt people more by believing that than you ever could by just being who you are." She wasn't just thinking of herself now, but Natalie, and even Schanke. All the people who cared about Nick but were held at arm's length "for their own good". "It's not right Nick, and it's not fair, not to any of us. You know what I want to hear more than anything?" and now tears were running down, something he'd never seen from her, and something she hadn't done for years, "Tell me what's done is done, and you've given up trying to pay for the past." He moved closer, wiping at her tears with his fingers. "Tell me," she insisted, "tell me you don't hate yourself anymore. How can you love anyone when you hate yourself?" When he took her in his arms she cried into his shoulder as if her heart were breaking. She didn't want to love him, he was so screwed up and conflicted that even as he held her she swore she could feel the knots twisting inside him. And he knew it, he could tell because he could read her as he read himself. Her blood told him everything.
"Sssh, don't cry, it's not that bad," he kissed and petted her as he knelt on the stairs and she cried her every fear and hurt for him into his fading warmth. "Don't you know," he whispered, "don't you know, that's not what I want anymore, it's not what I need. It's an old habit, though, and I have to learn to break it. I'm learning, Maura, really, I'm learning to let the past go, but I have so much more of it than you do. Don't let it hurt you so much, Sweet, don't. I know you love me, I won't let that hurt you either, I swear I won't." She hugged tight to him for a moment longer then pulled back, hands in her lap.
"I'm such a neurotic baby."
"No. You're the best surprise that could have happened to me, and I love you." He rested his forehead against hers. Maura knew he meant what he said, in more ways than any mortal could describe or imagine, but she understood them all. She rose and went up to the bedroom, with Nick trailing behind holding her skirt like a train.
"I love this dress so much, I hate to take it off."
Nick was in his dressing room getting into the black silk pajamas he wore when he tired of the t-shirt-and-sweatpants routine. Drama aside, it had been a good night and Maura had really enjoyed herself out in the "real" world.
"Then don't. I won't tell Janette."
"You won't have to," Maura laughed. "You two have a telepathy that makes ours look like smoke signals. On a windy day." She changed into flannel pj's while Nick busied himself hanging things up and putting things away. He didn't exactly turn his back and close his eyes, but there was an implicit privacy he afforded her even when he was in the room. Funny, really, considering the intimacy of their lives. She was bundled under the covers by the time he finished tidying up.
"You're cold, aren't you," Nick observed as he pulled up the extra silk comforter to cover her.
"Yeah you know how it kicks in more when I'm tired." She felt on the edge of not quite warm enough at the best of times, a function of her "condition". "Don't go downstairs, I'll be fine." Nick often slept on the sofa when he was concerned for her comfort. No matter how much he drank before retiring, by sunrise his temperature usually dropped to the point where he radiated cold as if it were heat. Maura would scrooch to the far side of the bed and wrap as many covers around her as she could, but sometimes the only thing that would save her was his departure to the other room.
"You'll thank me come summer," he'd promised her one night.
Tonight, though, she didn't want him away from her. Not after the things they'd said. She so enjoyed being close to him all evening, nothing to hide and surprisingly little to explain, that she was loath to lose the feeling so soon.
"Okay, but if you start to freeze don't blame me." She knew he'd never wake before he was ready, not if she shook the whole bed apart. But the blood he'd drunk still burned within him, and Maura moved close as he got into bed.
"You're hotter than me, right now."
Nick laughed quietly. "I always was."
"Well don't keep it to yourself, okay?" Maura yawned and snuggled so close Nick was forced either to put his arms around her or back away. He chose the former.
She sensed his hesitation. "Don't be such a wuss, Just Nick." She was looking him earnestly in the eye, head next to his on his pillow. "I love you too, y'know. Can we just not make this all a big dramatic thing?"
Nick started to laugh. He couldn't help it. The absurdity of their relationship coupled with her casual "so what" attitude struck him as funny. "Okay. You're mortal and I'm a vampire, and we've got intimacy without sex and love without romance. But no drama. I think I got it." She stifled a giggle.
"Yeah we are a fucked up pair."
"Uh-uh, none of that." He mirrored her grave expression, then kissed her gently. "Go to sleep, Luna Noir. Some things are better not figured out." He tucked her head under his chin. "I'll keep you warm as long as I can."
She tried to stay with him, she really did. But as he predicted his falling temperature forced her to pull away hours later. Only once before did he truly wrap her up against him, unable to pull away, as they both went to sleep. It was a dreadful mistake. What began as closeness and security ended with her clasped in frigid, inert arms. Asleep he was nothing like himself, cold, corpse-like. Maura was miserable, cold and alone. Nothing could waken him, she knew, it was like being trapped by rigor mortis. When he woke she was nervous and upset, not having slept at all, so cold she had to wrap herself in three fat silk comforters and still she trembled for ages afterwards. Tonight she just smiled and kissed him once more before settling on his shoulder, his arms resting loosely around her.