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I raised my head back and found Van Gogh’s Sunflowers above the bed. Richard’s cabin. We’d done too much damage to mine.

I had a very strong urge to pull the sheets up and cover my breasts. Okay, okay, Richard had seen the whole show last night, but this morning, I wanted to cover up. I was embarrassed. Not big, awful embarrassed, but little, confused embarrassed.

I realized I was lying there with my arms tucked across my chest, as if I was hiding. Richard’s arm looked very dark against the pale white skin of my stomach. Jean-Claude had remarked that my skin was almost as pale as his. I’d had enough moral problems with premarital sex with the undead. My one comfort had been that I was monogamous. Now I didn’t even have that. Whoredom had finally arrived just as my Grandmother Blake had always warned. In a way, she was right. Once you have sex with anyone, sex becomes more of a possibility with others.

The drapes in the cabin hadn’t been pulled completely. Morning sunlight fell through the white sheers and spilled over the bed. I’d never seen a man’s body by morning light. I’d never slept with a man and awakened beside him. Oh, once with Stephen, but fully clothed with guns and bad guys about to come through the door isn’t quite the same thing.

I reached out towards Richard’s arm, tentative. You’d think after what we did last night, I’d be braver, but I was almost afraid to touch him. I’d had sexual fantasies about Richard, but this—this was the big one. To wake up beside him, warm and alive. God forgive me, but I valued that.

I touched his arm lightly so that all I really touched were the small golden hairs, no skin. I brushed upward just above the skin until there was nothing but the bare skin of his upper arm and shoulder. I drew my fingertips over the warmth of his skin. He was incredibly warm. Warmer than skin temperature, almost fevered.

I felt him wake, a tension in his shoulder and back that hadn’t been there before. I turned my head, and his brown eyes were staring at me through the thick curtain of his hair.

He rose up on one elbow and smoothed his hair back from his face. He smiled, and it was the same smile that had melted me into my socks a hundred times. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” I said. I had pulled the sheets up over my breasts without thinking about it.

He wiggled closer, which made the sheets at his waist slide down to reveal the smooth expanse of his buttocks. He kissed me, soft, tender, then rubbed his face along my cheek until his breath was warm against my ear, then farther back into my hair. He was giving me a wolf greeting. He kissed lightly down my neck and stopped at my shoulder, which was about all that was uncovered.

“You seem tense,” he said.

“You don’t,” I said.

He laughed, and the sound made me shiver and smile at the same time. It was a laugh I’d never heard from Richard. It was very masculine, very . . . something: possessive, satisfied maybe.

I felt heat creep up my face. Being that embarrassed made me feel silly for being embarrassed. “Oh, hell.”

“What?” he asked. He stroked the side of my face.

“Cuddle with me, Richard. Sex is great, but when I thought of this moment, I thought of you holding me, spooning me.”

His smile was gentle, pleased. He turned on his side and even spilled the sheets back over his waist. He raised his upper arm.

I rolled onto my side so my back faced him and snuggled against his warm body. He was a little tall for spooning, but we wiggled around with much giggling and stupid comments until we found a position that felt right. I wrapped his arm around me, sinking into the warm curve of his chest and all the rest, and let out a sigh. The feel of his naked groin pressed against me wasn’t so much exciting as it just felt right. I felt possessive of his body, of him. I wanted to hold him like this forever.

His skin was almost hot. “You feel like you’ve got a fever,” I said.

“It’s the full moon,” he said. “By tomorrow night when the moon is completely full, my base temperature will be over a hundred and one.”

He pushed