There really was no better place to be than where I was right now – waking up in the arms of my boyfriend, Luke. Lying here with him, in our bed, in our house, made me blissfully, deliriously happy.

Three weeks had passed since my final battle with Rachel – the insane vampire who'd made it her personal mission to kill me – and since then no one had seen hide or hair of her, or any of the rogues who had joined her in attacking the clan's house. It almost seemed too good to be true, but maybe she really was gone.

Careful not to wake Luke, I rolled over to look at him. Our room was in pitch darkness, thanks to the thick black curtains we'd fitted to every window, but my body clock told me it was early evening. Slowly but surely, I was adjusting to living with a vampire.

Luke lay next to me, his face soft with sleep and his black hair mussed on the pillow. He was growing it longer again and my fingers ached to run through it, to glide along his head and down to his face and chest. His storm-and-steel grey eyes were one of his most striking features, but even with them closed, he was gorgeous.

I lifted a lock of hair from his face, smoothing it back so I could see him better. A goofy little grin broke out on my face. He was beautiful and he was mine. And I was his.

"Kiara," Luke murmured, his lips barely moving. "What have I told you about watching me sleep?"

"That it's incredibly flattering and sexy?"

He smiled without opening his eyes.

Leaning forward, I planted a gentle kiss on his mouth. Luke suddenly came to life, grabbing my hip and rolling on top of me. He braced his arm next to my head and I trailed a hand down his bicep.

Luke was always gorgeous but I loved him best like this – with sleep-mussed hair and slightly drowsy eyes. There was something wonderfully vulnerable and intimate about it.

"You're so beautiful," I said softly.

His lips quirked. "Isn't that my line?"

He lowered his head and kissed me, long, slow, and torturous. My hands clutched at his arms, feeling hard muscle flex beneath his skin.

We'd been living together, just the two of us, for a little over two weeks now, but we still hadn't taken that last big step in our relationship. There hadn't been time. During our final fight with Rachel and her rogues, the house that Luke and I previously shared with his parents had been set on fire. The house itself was salvageable, but it wasn't quite habitable yet. Samuel and Elena had a vampire friend with a spare bedroom, so we'd stayed with them temporarily – Samuel and Elena in the bedroom, and Luke and I on the sofas downstairs. Ethan had crashed on Riley's sofa for a while, until Riley's mum started to get funny about the whole thing and then Ethan had been left with no choice but to come and stay with the rest of us.

Luke and I only stayed there for a week before moving into the house that my mum had used her entire savings to buy us. We had offered to let the clan stay with us too, but Elena had refused, insisting that we needed to start our own lives there without everyone else breathing down our necks.

So for the past two weeks, we'd been painting the walls, getting the electrical side of things sorted – it wasn't easy finding an electrician who would only work at night – and trawling Dalwick's various junk shops for cheap furniture. Getting the house up to scratch had been almost a full-time job, and that wasn't counting all the hours I worked at the diner to make enough money for us to live on. Luke had valiantly tried to get a job, but it was never easy for a vampire, so for now mine was the only income. It wasn't so bad. The Waffle House was actually a fun place to work once I'd got used to it, and I'd dropped out of college so I could take on more shifts.

Money was tight and the house was still far from perfect, but we were happy, and that was all that mattered.

Except that at the end of each day, we'd both been too tired to do anything in our bed other than sleep. Our lives were slowly taking shape, but that one piece was still missing.

Luke gently nibbled my lower lip and I moaned. "Come on, you know we can't do this now."

He chuckled, moving his head lower so he could press a series of kisses along my neck, lingering over the pulse. One hand splayed across my stomach, sliding under my t-shirt to stroke the edges of my ribcage.

"Luke," I gasped, trying to think clearly through the happy-fog in my head. "Your parents are going to be here in less than fifteen minutes."

Luke groaned, his mouth still pressed to my neck. "Can't we just cancel?" He sounded plaintive but I knew he was joking.

Despite the fact that we'd lived here for weeks, the house was only just now in a state which we were ready to share with everyone. Although we knew that none of them would care, somehow it didn't feel right inviting friends or family over when the rooms were an obstacle course of paint tins and ladders, a sander to polish up the bare floorboards, the dusty heaps of old curtains that we'd had to tear down so we could replace them with sturdy black ones, and all the various other bits and bobs that had helped shape our home.

But now we were ready, and what better way to welcome people to your home for the first time than an official housewarming?

I swatted Luke's arm. "Come on, you. Off."

He rolled away from me, and I climbed out of bed and headed into our en suite bathroom. It was a tiny room, done in plain white tiles and with a shower tray that had seen better days, but I loved it, regardless of its imperfections. This was our bathroom in our house.

And as I stood in the shower, I still marvelled that this really was ours. After abandoning my old vampire hunting team, I'd moved in with Luke and his parents, but it wasn't long before I started dreaming of my own home. Samuel and Elena were incredibly lenient when it came to my relationship with Luke, but letting us share a bedroom was where they drew the line. It was very difficult to find true privacy, or even be completely comfortable with each other when we were so aware that Luke's parents were under the same roof.

I'd thought it would be years before we could save enough money to get our own place, and then Ava had stepped in and bought it for me – probably the first truly selfless thing she'd ever done. Even now, several weeks on, I sometimes found it hard to believe that this was mine. I kept expecting to find out it was all some glorious dream and I'd wake up back in the bedroom I had occupied in the clan's house – or worse, in the bleakness of the team's house.

I climbed out of the shower and grabbed a towel from the rack on the wall, winding it around myself.

Luke was sitting on the edge of the bed when I came out of the bathroom, and his eyes lit up when he saw me wearing nothing but a towel.

"That's not fair," he said, his eyes travelling up my bare legs.

I wished I was tall enough to really pull off the just-in-a-towel look, like people in films and magazines when the hem of the towel just skimmed their thighs. I was a little on the short side, so the hem of my towel just bunched around my knees. But the way Luke was looking at me, I might as well have been one of those leggy models.

As I made a beeline for my hairbrush, lying on the nightstand next to the bed, Luke's arm snaked out, looping around my waist and pulling me onto the bed with him, my back against his chest.

"Luke," I laughed, swatting him again. "I have to get ready."

"Why? You look hot like this."

I snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure your parents would love it if I answered the door wearing just a towel."

Luke tugged teasingly on the towel, loosening it. "Better than you answering the door not wearing the towel."

"They'd never come round again."

Luke nuzzled the back of my neck. "Mmmm, and then we'd never have to worry about answering the door again."

He kissed me between the shoulder-blades, little butterfly pecks that moved up to the nape of my neck until I shivered.

"Luke," I whispered. "We need to get ready."

He sighed theatrically and flopped back on the bed, his arms releasing their hold on me. "Do you ever get tired of being right?"

I wriggled around until I was facing him. "Nope, never. You like me this way."

"I do," he agreed, and kissed me.

I climbed off him, adjusting my towel, and picked up my hairbrush. Luke disappeared into the bathroom and a second later, I heard the rush of hot water as he turned on the shower.

Playing around had taken up precious minutes, so I brushed my hair and dressed as quickly as I could, throwing on the nearest pair of jeans and a simple green t-shirt that was as close to dressing up as I got. I wasn't a fashion-conscious sort of girl – heels were less accessories and more pretty instruments of torture to me – but then I'd never been raised in a life where fashion had any importance. Since birth, I'd been trained to hunt vampires, and that sort of lifestyle didn't lend itself to glitz and glamour. Flat, comfortable shoes and practical clothes were more my thing, and even now that I was free of my old vampire hunting life, I couldn't get to grips with being a girly girl.

Despite Riley's repeated attempts to convert me.

I hurried downstairs and into the kitchen. We hadn't been able to afford proper cabinets, but we'd picked up some freestanding units from a second-hand furniture warehouse, and they matched well enough not to look stupid. Just for tonight I'd covered the table in a chequered tablecloth.

Luke entered the kitchen, pulling a black t-shirt over his head. I loved him in black. It highlighted the stormy grey of his eyes and drew attention to the strong, crisp line of his jaw.

"Does everything look okay?" I asked, smoothing imaginary creases on the tablecloth.

"Everything looks fine," he reassured me. "Stop worrying."

I didn't need to worry – it wasn't as if Luke's parents or our friends were going to judge our home for not being perfect, but all the same it was the first thing I'd ever truly called mine, and I wanted it to look its absolute best.

Someone knocked on the front door.

"Showtime," Luke said, pecking me on the cheek.

I went to answer the door.