Safe Place

Chapter 32

Jess cut her eyes over from her seat for the umpteenth time, stealing glimpses at the man driving. Er—vampire male as it were. The male who hadn't said much to her in the past hour or so, especially considering what had gone down between them not several hours ago in that small motel room. He had let her sleep for a good amount of time, and she didn't know if it was because of the multiple world-shaking orgasms he gave her, but she had some of the best sleep she's had in the past month.

But he didn't make any advances toward her. Didn't try to kiss, hold, grope, paw, or even touch her, hell not even an accidental brush of a hand. He just went silent again while wearing that expression of utter controlled, granite concentration on his mug.

Now didn't that just do a whammy on a girl's self-esteem?

Gabe had informed her of a text he received from that guy Joe, who had set them up with a nice set of wheels parked at an underground valet garage of a downtown parking lot. When they arrived and mentioned a name to the valet, the guy just dropped a set of keys in his hand, no questions and all smiles. Now they cruised through the Bay area in wheels in the form of a brand new black V8 Ford Mustang—which she had to admit she was becoming quite partial to. And of course, Gabe just made it look sexier by driving it. Or was it the other way around?

Damnit, her mind needed to get out of the gutter. Yeah, not likely anytime soon, and since he wasn't doing much in the talking department, she just kept all of those thoughts to herself. Those hot, steamy, erotic—

Wow! She needed to stop with all that like yesterday. Here she was in the car with him, sharing the same air and space with him...and she didn't know what to do. That text he received gave them a meet-up location for them to rendezvous with Rainer. Who could very well be finally bringing her home after they met up. Sure, she wanted to go home and back to her own life, but another part of her didn't. That part of her that had become attached to the vampire beside her, who wanted nothing more than to stay next to him.

But then there was the little fact that they still barely knew each other. Damnit, she wasn't going to get all clingy and shit just because they hooked up a little in that motel room—okay, it had been a lot more than just "a little" hook up, but still. She wasn't the type to just latch onto a guy after one encounter and wasn't going to start now. Nope, not at all, so not gonna happen. As far as she knew, his current aloof manner could very well be due to him trying to formulate some easy way to cut her loose once they got to wherever their destination was.

Goddamn it. Why was she so twisted up inside about him?

There was another agonizing handful of minutes of Gabe not doing anything other than steering and the occasional shifting of the car's gears, the silence driving her insane and stir-crazy. She was fidgeting with the strap of the seatbelt as she spoke up. "So where are we going exactly?"

He downshifted and zipped around the slow minivan in front of them, then shifted back up to sixth on the semi-empty freeway. It was sometime after ten at night—between not leaving the motel until well after dark and doing the cab hop shuffle to the parking garage, the night was already in full effect. "Golden Gate Park. Joe relayed that Rainer wants to meet up there."

"Oh, gotcha." Golden Gate Park was probably another fifteen minutes from where they were. She had gone there a few times since she started living in the Bay but didn't go there as much as some of those younger frats who loved partying up in the woods there during the weekends.