Chapter Eleven

ELEVEN

Diary entry of Mr. Frederick J. Fitzwilliam, dated November 4

Cassie went to bed two hours ago.

Every time I close my eyes I can still see her—beaming up at the camera in that flimsy excuse for clothing, her hair a golden halo around her head, her body backlit and glorious.

I am filled with rage.

At the photographer for taking that picture.

At Cassie for allowing so many others to see her practically naked.

At all seven billion people on this planet who have the theoretical ability to see that picture of her with a few simple clicks of a button.

At myself.

As I sit hunched over my desk I try desperately to ignore the urgent, now-familiar ache in my loins. As Cassie sleeps innocently, unknowingly in the next room, I clutch at what remains of my sanity and of my self-control.

Because God’s thumbs—when I saw that picture of her all I could think was how badly I want Cassie to wear that “bathing suit” of hers for me.

If I had been there when it was taken, it would have been all I could do to keep myself from easing those delicate little straps of fabric off her shoulders and baring the rest of her beautiful body to my eyes.

I am a reprehensible creature.

Cassie is a young, vibrant, human woman who does not deserve to be the object of my lustful imaginings. Tomorrow, she is taking me shopping to help me pick out what she insists will be more suitable casual clothing than my current wardrobe. I expect this will involve her evaluating my body and the way it looks in various outfits. What if she needs to touch me as part of this process? I am harder than a rock just imagining it.

If I were not already damned for all eternity I certainly would be now.

I am, as Reginald might say, in way over my head.

FJF

The mall was crowded, full of noisy suburban teenagers and frazzled parents with kids in tow. I proposed Frederick meet me there on a Tuesday evening because I’d assumed the mall would be relatively quiet and empty midweek. But ten minutes earlier I was nearly run over by a woman pushing a stroller, and I realized a person like me who rarely went to malls had no basis for making assumptions.

In truth, Sam didn’t know more about men’s fashion than many people. His approach to clothes hadn’t really evolved past what he’d worn in college, except for the suits he wore to work. I mostly asked Sam to join us at the last minute in the hopes he’d serve as a buffer between Frederick and me as we picked out clothes and he tried them on. Because now that I was at the mall, I realized it was one thing to tell your extremely handsome, off-limits, vampire roommate that he needed to dress differently—and an entirely different thing to actually take your extremely handsome, off-limits, vampire roommate to the mall, help him pick out clothes, and then evaluate how they all looked on his gorgeous body as you helped him make decisions.

Especially given how our Instagram lesson had ended.

It had been two days, and I still wasn’t certain what his reaction to my bikini picture meant. Not for lack of thinking about it endlessly from every possible angle, of course.

I’d thought about it at work. While trying to work on my submission for the art show. While trying to fall asleep at night, hyper-aware that he was awake and in the next room over from me, going about his nightly routine.

I’d spent more time than I wanted to admit to myself reliving exactly how he’d looked at me before storming out of the room—his eyes flashing with, what? Anger? Jealousy? Or something else?

We hadn’t spoken since then, save for a handful of notes back and forth coordinating this shopping trip. If I was going to survive two hours of looking at Frederick in jeans and Henleys, I needed my best friend with me.

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment over the situation and mild annoyance with my friend. “He does. He is. But . . .” I bit my lip, trying to think through how to describe Frederick’s dresses-like-he-lived-one-hundred-years-ago problem without also outing him as a vampire.

And then Frederick chose that moment to stride into view, sparing me from having to say anything at all. As always, he was dressed like he was on his way to meet Jane Austen, with an expensive-looking dark gray three-piece wool suit and black shoes that had been polished to a shine.

He’d left the cravat at home, which was a good thing. But I’d been hoping he’d leave his suit jacket at home for this errand, too. It would only get in the way when he tried things on. That said, he looked incredible—even if more out of place than ever at this suburban mall.

One glance at Sam told me he agreed with my conclusion. Frederick looked good. It was the first time he’d ever seen Frederick in person, and I could all but feel my best friend warring with himself as he fought to keep his eyes trained on Frederick’s perfect, chiseled face, rather than let them trail over his broad shoulders and at the way his perfectly tailored clothing fit his body.

Frederick nimbly stepped around a clutch of teenagers chatting animatedly to one another with an ease I wouldn’t have expected of him, and then joined us where we stood by the mall floor plan. He looked at Sam, stopping just short of turning his back on me completely. The heated intensity in his eyes from the other night was gone, replaced with a pleasant, blank expression. To see him, you’d never imagine that two nights ago he’d completely lost his shit at a picture of me in a bikini.

He had, though.

If the way he was standing there, avoiding my gaze, was any guide, he didn’t want to unpack what any of that meant just then.

Come to think of it—neither did I.

Sam took it eagerly. I had to stifle a laugh in my palm. Who was this person, and what did he do with my friend who’d been so opposed to me moving back in with Frederick?

By this point Sam had completely lost the battle on checking out the way Frederick filled out his suit. He was openly staring at him now. He swallowed hard, then rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, I’m sure you know . . . some things.”

Frederick sighed and shook his head. “As it happens, I wear this exact suit to take out the garbage every Wednesday evening.”

I raised my eyebrows meaningfully, so he’d know that be more comfortable was code for less like a centuries-old vampire. “You’re right.” Frederick’s look of resigned determination made him look like someone had just volunteered him to chaperone a middle school dance or told him he’d been elected to the board of directors of a homeowners association—and that while he’d rather do anything else, he was too honorable to back out now.

I turned to Sam. “Should we start at Gap, or somewhere else?” It had been a while since I’d been shopping anywhere that wasn’t online, but I seemed to remember Gap was good at this mall.

Frederick looked directly at Sam and asked, “Between Nordstrom and Gap, which would you say has nicer casual men’s clothing?”

He put his phone up to his ear. “Sam Collins.” His voice was so different—stiffer, more formal—than it was when he spoke to me. It must be one of the partners calling him.

Frederick frowned at me. “His employer calls him in the evening?”

Frederick looked horrified. “That’s horrible.”

Sam had pulled a notebook from his bag and was jotting things down as he listened to whatever the person on the other end of the line was telling him. “I don’t understand why Kellogg is panicking over the merger. It’s happening next week, I understand that, but . . .” Another pause. “Yes, of course. I’ll draft that memo as soon as I get into the office.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I’m out in Schaumburg right now but I can be there in forty-five minutes.”

Sam hung up, then looked at me, eyes apologetic.

My stomach plunged somewhere in the general vicinity of my shoes. “Do you have to go now?” I asked, my panic rising.

And then, he raised an eyebrow and leaned in a little closer before adding, in a low voice, “I am especially sorry I’ll miss Frederick trying on clothes.”

That was almost enough to distract me from the terror I was feeling over the fact that I would soon be alone with Frederick in various states of dress and undress for an entire evening. I swatted my best friend. “You are a married man, Sam.”

I snorted. “Good. Now go be a lawyer. We’ll be fine.” I looked over at Frederick, who looked anything but fine with this change in plans. His eyes were saucer-wide, making him look nearly as terrified at the idea of doing this alone with me as I felt.

And then, he was gone. Leaving me alone with Frederick, to go try on casual men’s clothing.

This was going to be great.

Absolutely great.

Frederick cleared his throat beside me. His eyes were on his shoes, the left fingers of his hand drumming rapidly on his upper thigh.

His eyes met mine, soft and so warm, before flitting away again a moment later.

He cleared his throat. “Shall we go to Nordstrom, then?”

Nordstrom. Right.

The last time I’d been in a Nordstrom was nearly twenty years ago, when I’d come to this same mall with my mom to try on dresses for my bat mitzvah. Given how long ago that was, it was astonishing how strong the feeling of déjà vu was the moment I walked into the store. The perfume that seemed to permeate the air, the fluorescent lighting—all of it brought me right back to being thirteen years old, miserably uncomfortable in my own skin, and wishing I were just about anywhere other than where I was.

From the way Frederick’s hands kept clenching and unclenching at his sides, I suspected that he was feeling much as I had all those years ago.

He stopped abruptly when we reached the display of five-thousand-dollar winter coats that looked like they’d been cobbled together from rhinestones and trash bags.

He frowned at them. I could only guess at what he was thinking right now.

He didn’t elaborate. But he didn’t have to. I understood what he meant perfectly.

My hand was still on his elbow as I steered him towards the men’s department, applying only the gentlest pressure to encourage him to move to the left. It was noisy in there, the store filled with shoppers and salespeople and piped-in generic background music—but even still, I heard the way his breath hitched at my touch as easily as if there’d been no one else there at all.

I tried to follow the signage for the men’s department, but there were so many other departments in that massive store it was a challenge. There were also way too many other people. It was nearly as crowded in there as it was in the main area of the mall. It felt like we were bumping into yet another well-dressed shopper every ten feet.

We must have wandered around Nordstrom for a solid ten minutes before finally finding the men’s department. It was on the sixth floor, past the home goods section, and at the very opposite end of the store from the mall entrance. It was so much smaller than the cumulative parts of the store dedicated to women’s clothing that it felt a bit like a forgotten stepchild.

What they did sell to men, though, looked just as expensive as everything else Nordstrom sold. Racks of suit jackets in conservative colors, adorned with thousand-dollar price tags, greeted us. Just behind them was a silk tie display that took up an entire wall.

Fortunately, they did seem to sell more casual stuff as well. A little further into the section we found jeans that would make Frederick stand out a lot less the next time he went out.

A slender woman in a black sheath dress, with her dark hair pulled back into a severe but elegant bun, appeared at Frederick’s elbow. I noted her name tag—this was Eleanor M.—and the fact that she looked about my age, albeit far more put together. I wondered if Nordstrom required employees to buy the clothes they wore to work the way The Limited did when I worked there back in college.

The salesperson’s eyebrows shot up. “Clothing?”

She continued to look expectantly at Frederick, as if waiting for clarification. When none came, she pivoted on one of her expensive-looking, three-inch heels to face me.

Boyfriend.

My heart lodged itself in my esophagus at the same time my stomach did a not entirely unpleasant somersault. I glanced at Frederick. From the thunderstruck look on his face, I could tell he’d heard exactly what she’d just said.

But she wasn’t there to hear the end of my sentence, already walking away and gesturing for us to follow her away from the suits and towards the men’s section’s more casual clothing. I glanced at Frederick, following just behind me. I didn’t think a person’s eyes could even get that wide.

The salesperson hummed, nodding sagely. “Yes. Well, you’ve come to the right place.” She stopped walking when we reached several racks of jeans. “Are you interested in distressed jeans or a more classic look?”

Frederick raised a suspicious eyebrow at the salesperson. He gingerly plucked at a pair of jeans that were so distressed they looked like they’d soaked in a vat of acid for two weeks.

He blinked. “These?”

He considered me a moment before asking, “How do I know which of these will fit me?”

At this, the saleswoman turned to Frederick, letting her eyes trail down his long form and then back up again. They lingered on his chest a few beats longer than strictly necessary, given that we were talking about jeans. My hands clenched into involuntary fists at my sides, an unpleasant, hot sensation I was absolutely not going to parse filling my chest.

Frederick worried his lower lip, looking like he was trying to work out the answer to a difficult math problem in his head.

Frederick looked as terrified as if he’d just tripped over a hornet’s nest. He took a reflexive step back and away from the salesperson. “That’s quite all right,” he said, sounding scandalized. He looked at me, then at the rack of jeans. He picked up five pairs at random, holding each of them up to his body in turn. “Which of these do you think look most like they will fit me?”

I considered each of them as he held them up to himself, fighting hard against the instinct to imagine him in that dressing room, taking his trousers off and pulling on the jeans he was holding. “It’s . . . hard to say,” I hedged. “Why not take all of them with you into the dressing room and see?”

He nodded, like this made a lot of sense to him.

I rolled my eyes but kept them closed. “The door is closed, Frederick. Even if my eyes were open I couldn’t see you. But yes, I swear on my father’s kombucha that I am not looking.”

A pause. I could hear fabric hitting the floor from within the dressing room. “You swear on your father’s . . . what?”

I huffed a laugh. “It’s this thing my mom and I say when we want to make fun of my dad. In his retirement he’s gotten very into brewing it.”

Silence from inside the dressing room. More rustling fabric. A hanger being taken from the wall.

The lock on the dressing room door turned. The door opened.

I did.

My mouth fell open.

Frederick looked great in the parade of old-fashioned suits I’d seen him in since we’d met, of course. More than great. But I realized now that his consistently too-formal, out-of-date attire served as a constant reminder to me that Frederick was out of my league in every imaginable way—and completely off-limits.

Untouchable. And other.

Now, though . . .

With difficulty, I tore my eyes from the broad expanse of his chest now covered in a forest-green Henley that fit him like a glove and met his gaze. He was fidgeting a little as I looked back at him, drumming his fingertips against his upper thigh again, and looking at me with a nervous intensity that stole the breath from my lungs.

I let my eyes trail slowly down his body, drinking him in, taking in his new shirt and the dark blue jeans that fit him so well you wouldn’t have guessed he’d had no idea what size he was twenty minutes ago. The other jeans he’d tried on lay folded in a pile on the chair beside him; his suit hung neatly on a hanger in the dressing room.

I focused on these other details to distract myself from how Frederick not only looked just as hot in more casual clothes as he did in his stuffy suits, but also how he now looked attainable in a way that was dangerous to me, specifically.

I had to avert my eyes. Looking right at him felt a little too much like looking directly at the sun.

His tone was so hopeful. It set off a wave of butterflies in my stomach that I tried to ignore.

I nodded—though great didn’t begin to do justice to how he looked.

He gave me a bashful, lopsided smile that activated his killer dimple, then looked down at his arms. He rubbed one of his thumbs along his collarbones, and then across his chest. “The fabric feels nicer than I expected. Softer.”

I watched as he ran his hand over the material. “Oh?”

My eyebrows shot up so high they nearly met my hairline. “What?”

He was staring down at his shoes like they were the most interesting things in the entire world.

I gazed up at him, blood rushing in my ears.

He . . . wanted me to touch him.

Here.

Outside of a Nordstrom dressing room.

I swallowed hard.

He nodded, still staring at his shoes. “I think so. But—” He looked at me, expression unreadable. “But only if you want to, Cassie.”

In the end, I didn’t need to think it over for too long. If it were anyone else but Frederick making this request, I’d assume this was the most transparent excuse in the world to get someone to touch them.

But this wasn’t anyone else.

This was Frederick, someone who was so formal, so prim and proper, he only stopped calling me Miss Greenberg and began referring to me by my first name after I’d asked him to several times. This was the same person who was so overcome by the sight of me in a bikini he couldn’t bring himself to speak to me for two days.

Frederick might have been the most gentlemanly person I’d ever met. If he’d wanted to find some flimsy excuse for me to put my hands on him, he’d have done it long before now.

Besides—I wanted to touch him. A lot, in fact. Whether it was a good idea to touch him was a separate matter, and one I would have ample time to think about later.

I stepped closer and put both of my hands on his chest. Part of me still half expected to feel a heartbeat, a warm and yielding male body beneath my palms. But Frederick’s chest was cool and almost unnaturally solid where I touched him, no rhythmic thumping where one would have been if he were still human.

Fortunately—or, unfortunately—my heart was beating more than enough for the both of us.

Frederick was right. The fabric of his shirt was soft. I slowly slid my hands back and forth over the waffle-knit material, reveling in how silky it felt beneath my fingertips, how delicious the contrast was with the hard planes of the chest beneath.

Now that I had the answer to his question, I probably should have stopped touching him. I should have stepped away from him and kept my hands to myself the rest of the night.

But I didn’t.

The shirt he was wearing was nice enough. But that wasn’t what kept me rooted to the spot, what kept my hands on his body long beyond what he’d probably imagined when he asked me to do this. I’d known he was muscular, but now that I was actually touching him I realized he was all but made of muscle. Had he been this physically fit when he was still human, I wondered? Or was being built like a professional athlete a physiological peculiarity unique to vampires? Either way, I could feel his pectorals bunch and flex beneath my palms as I touched him, could feel his sharp intake of breath when I grew bolder and started gently tracing his collarbones with my thumb.

His eyes were still trained on me, but growing glazed and unfocused.

We flew apart at the sound of the salesperson’s voice, coming from right behind me. Frederick—now standing at least a foot away—stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, eyes downcast. He wasn’t blushing—could vampires blush? I wasn’t sure—but I sure was.

I was too shell-shocked to respond.

Fortunately, Frederick seemed to recover his wits faster than I did. Or maybe he had never lost them in the first place. Though he didn’t correct her, either.