Favorite Darkfever Scenes

Burned to CD scene

I opened the door a crack and glared up at him through the space afforded by the latch-chain.

I couldn't imagine Jericho Barrons as a child, going to school, face freshly scrubbed, hair neatly combed, lunch box in hand. He'd surely been spawned by some cataclysmic event of nature, not born.

He cocked his head and studied me through the narrow opening, spending several seconds on each part of me: disheveled hair, sleep-swollen mouth and eyes, lacy sleep shirt, jeans, toes. I felt as if I'd been burned to CD by the time he was done. "May I come in?" he said.

 

Catastrophe Scene

Barrons' mouth fell open. He gaped at me a long moment. Then he turned and punched the end of the bookcase so hard books went crashing to the floor, shelf after shelf. When he whirled back around, his face was drawn with fury. "Bloody hell!" he exploded. "Un-fucking-believable! You, Ms. Lane, are a menace to others! A walking, talking catastrophe in pink!" If gazes could scorch, his would have incinerated me where I stood. "Didn't you hear a thing I told you last night? Weren't you even listening?"

"I heard every word you said," I said stiffly. "And for the record, I don't always wear pink. I often wear peach or lavender. 

Perky rainbow scene

"If you treat me like one of your skanks again tonight, Barrons, you can just forget about our little arrangement. You need me as much as I need you. That makes us equal partners in my book."

"Well, your book is just wrong," he said flatly.

"No, yours is," I said just as flatly. "Figure out another way to explain me. I don't care what you come up with. But if you call me your latest piece of petunia again or make uncalled-for references to my mouth and oral sex with you, you and I are through."

He raised a brow. "Petunia, Ms. Lane?"

I scowled. "Ass, Barrons."

He crossed his arms and his gaze dropped to my glossy Lip-Venom red lips. "Am I to understand there are called-for references to your mouth and oral sex with me, Ms. Lane? I'd like to hear them."

Eyes narrowed, I sidestepped his idiotic taunting. "Is this Malluce guy really a vampire, Barrons?"

He shrugged. "He claims to be. He is surrounded by people who believe he is." He scanned me from head to toe. "Last night you said you wanted to know what to expect so you could better select your attire. I told you we were going to visit a vampire in a Goth-den tonight. Why, then, Ms. Lane, do you look like a perky rainbow?"

I shrugged in kind. "Take me or leave me, Barrons."

He took me. As I'd known he would.

 

Nail Polish Scene

When blazing floodlights, mounted on all sides of the roof, had come on shortly before dark, illuminating the garden, I'd taken a good hard look at my ragged nails, gone down for my manicure kit, come back up, and spread my tools on a pretty glass-topped wrought-iron table above the facade of the bookstore, right under one of the brightest floodlights, and given it my best shot. But no matter how hard I'd tried, I'd not been able to paint the nails on my right hand with my splinted left arm. Then Barrons had arrived and I'd wasted no time putting him to work.

A muscle leapt in his jaw. "Tell me again why I'm doing this, Ms. Lane?"

"Duh," I said. "Because my arm's broken." I waved my splint at him, in case he'd forgotten.

"I don't think you tried hard enough," he said. "I think you need to try again. I think if you angle your splint out like this"—he demonstrated, in the process tipping fingernail polish onto the tiled patio—"then twist your arm around like this." He nodded. "Give it a try. I think it'll work."

I gave him a cool look. "You drag me all over the place, making me hunt for OOPs, but do I complain the whole time? No. Suck it up, Barrons. The least you can do is paint my nails while my arm's broken. It's not like I'm asking you to do both hands. And I'm not asking you to do my toes at all." Although I really could have used some help with my pedicure. A proper foot grooming was a two-handed job.

He glowered at the prospect of having to gloss my toes a matching shimmery, gold-frosted Ice Princess Blush, which, by the way, had always seemed oxymoronish to me, like jumbo shrimp. None of the ice princesses I'd known in high school and college had been the blushing types.

"Some guys," I informed him loftily, "would jump at the chance to paint my toenails."

Barrons bent his head over my hand, applying pale pink polish to my ring finger with exacting care. He looked big and muscular and male and silly painting my fingernails, like a Roman centurion decked out in a frilly chef's apron. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

"I'm sure they would, Ms. Lane," he said dryly.