Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 124

Justin was inside, sitting on my bed. He looked up when I opened the door, and his lips parted, but he was silent for a long few seconds.

"I should go," he finally said, but he didn't get up.

I settled in next to him. It was all perfectly correct, the two of us sitting fully dressed like this, but somehow I felt like we were on the edge of a cliff, both in danger of falling off.

It was exciting, and terrifying, and all kinds of wrong.

"So what happened to you today?" I asked. "In the Bloodmobile, I mean?"

"Nothing really. We drove to the edge of town and parked outside the border, where we'd be able to see anybody coming. A couple of vamps showed, trying to make a withdrawal, but we sent them packing. Bishop never made an appearance. Once we lost contact with the vampires, we figured we'd cruise around and see what was going on. We nearly got boxed in by a bunch of drunk idiots in pickup trucks, and then the vampires in the Bloodmobile went nuts--that call thing going off, I guess. I dropped them at the grain elevator--that was the biggest, darkest place I could find, and it casts a lot of shadows. I handed off the driving to Cesar Mercado. He's supposed to drive it all the way to Midland tonight, provided the barriers are down. Best we can do."

"What about the book? Did you leave it on board?"

In answer, Justin reached into his waistband and pulled out the small leath erbound volume. Amelie had added a lock on it, like a diary lock. I tried pressing the small, metal catch. It didn't open, of course. "You think you should be fooling with that thing?" Justin asked.

"Probably not." I tried prying a couple of pages apart to peek at the script. All I could tell was that it was handwritten, and the paper looked relatively old. Oddly, when I sniffed it, the paper smelled like chemicals.

"What are you doing?" Justin looked like he couldn't decide whether to be repulsed or fascinated.

"I think somebody restored the paper," I said. "Like they do with really expensive old books and stuff. Comics, sometimes. They put chemicals on the paper to slow down the aging process, make the paper whiter again."

"Fascinating," Justin lied. "Gimme." He plucked the book from my hands and put it aside, on the other side of the bed. When I grabbed for it, he got in my way; we tangled, and somehow, he was lying prone on the bed and I was stretched awkwardly on top of him. His hands steadied me when I started to slide off.

"Oh," I murmured. "We shouldn't--"

"Definitely not."

"Then you should--"

"Yeah, I should."

But he didn't move, and neither did I. We just looked at each other, and then, very slowly, I lowered my lips to his.

It was a warm, sweet, wonderful kiss, and it seemed to go on forever. It also felt like it didn't last nearly long enough. Justin's hands skimmed up my sides, up my back, and cupped my damp hair as he kissed me more deeply. There were promises in that kiss.

"Okay, red flag," he said. He hadn't me her go, but there was about a half an inch of air between our lips. My whole body felt alive and tingling, pulse pounding in my wrists and temples, warmth pooling like light in the center of my body.

"It's okay," I said. "I swear. Trust me."

"Hey, isn't that my line?"

"Not now."

Kissing Justin was the reward for surviving a long, hard, terrifying day. Being enfolded in his warmth felt like going to heaven on moonbeams. I kicked off my shoes, and, still fully dressed, crawled under the blankets. Justin hesitated.