by CoraLee June
We both sat down at a corner booth, and the waiter poured us both a glass of the house wine. The restaurant was packed and bathed in neon blue light. To my right was an oversized aquarium filled with hundreds of fish, covering the expanse of the wall. A couple to our right was whispering naughty words while feeding each other raw rolls.
“At the rate you’re going, you should probably plan on a lifetime of it, Diego. You’re an all-in sort of man. She’s slow and steady with the emotional aspects of her relationships. If a relationship was built solely on sex, I think you’d last a lifetime though. I swear you both are practically bathed in tension when you’re in the same room. Just thinking of it makes me sweat.” Claire grinned while adjusting the strap of her black bodycon dress.
“We do have incredible chemistry. It’s one thing we can agree on,” I grunted while sitting down.
“Then why don’t you focus on that for a while?” Claire asked while lowering her sunglasses and waggling her eyebrows.
“What do you suggest?” I asked.
“A date?” Claire offered. “A night together…dinner and...entertainment.”
I’d already been planning on taking her out. Drew and I needed to get to know one another better. Although we felt connected on a deep level, there were still little nuances about our personalities I wanted to explore and understand. “So, what is this meeting about, hmm?” Claire asked.
“Graham knows about Drew.”
Her face fell. “I suppose it was inevitable. He’s a slimy one, yes? Are you going to tell the coven?”
“Not yet,” I replied. Things were still so up in the air with Drew. I needed to tell her about our life connection and hope she didn’t freak the hell out. Again. “I will soon though.”
“I had hoped the courtship would be enough.”
“Me too. I’m really fucking this up.”
Claire gave me a polite smile. “You’re not fucking this up. I think telling everyone could eliminate some of your issues. We all know that fated mates are inevitable. I’m sure they’ll be more accepting of her once the announcement is made.”
“People aren’t accepting?” I asked. I knew they struggled with Drew, but I didn’t want anyone giving her trouble over it.
“I’ve heard some whispers. It’s unfortunate how prejudiced some of our people can be. They don’t like the privileges she’s been given. For starters, she’s alive. You’re never been lenient about our laws. Some view it as an abuse of power on your part. Once word got out that she could get her license early, there was quite an uproar.”
I growled. She wasn’t like the other Level Ones. She had my resistance and strength to her advantage. “You are the one that suggested it.”
“Yes, well, I know she’s capable. The rest of the coven does not.” Claire unrolled her napkin and put it in her lap.
Claire was right. I knew what it looked like to our people, and I hated it. Being with Drew was making me realize how much we needed to change about the vampire culture. “I’ll tell her tomorrow about the life sharing.”
“Good,” Claire replied before picking up the menu and looking at it.
Drew
When I received a formal invitation to dinner tonight, written on private stationery and sealed with a wax emblem, I nearly laughed. We hadn’t even left for dinner yet, and already Diego had put in more effort than about ninety-nine percent of my dates in the past.
After the strange telepathy declaration, Diego had the good sense not to force me to talk about why I ran away from him, but that distance and patience only lasted a day. I guess I couldn’t avoid him forever.
He also was smart enough to not gift me a dress to wear for the occasion, but I did select a long gown that his private shopper had picked out and left in my new closet. It was red and floor-length. The swooping neckline showed off how hard my push-up bra was working to show off the girls. I wore a simple necklace and hoop earrings.
I had to fight my instincts with this date. Diego was trying, and I wanted to explore our chemistry. He was a nice man, when he wasn’t threatening to murder me or making fun of my style. I owed it to both of us to give him the old college try. If I could give Joseph Sloth the benefit of the doubt, then I could let a sexy vampire king take me on a date.
A knock on my door sounded, and I took a deep breath. Okay. We could do this. We could try to be normal. I went to the door, opened it, and nearly laughed at the sweats he wore and the bag of takeout in his fist.
Okay. So maybe I overestimated the fancy invitation scrawled in elaborate handwriting. This was a more casual event. Who sent letters sealed with a formal crest for Netflix and Chill?
“Shit. You—You look gorgeous,” he gasped before squeezing his eyes shut and cursing. “I’ll change really fast and be right back. I’m so sorry.”
I ran my hand down my dress, and he followed the movement with his heated gaze. “I spent the last hour getting ready. No big deal,” I said with a wave of my hand. I was enjoying his embarrassment. “It’s not like I watched four YouTube videos on how to contour my face or anything.” I was nervously laughing. Diego swallowed.
“I just...I was trying to not overwhelm you with our first date. I wanted to take you to the steak house on Willow Avenue, but Claire suggested something simpler so you didn’t run off. I’ll be right back. Please, don’t change a single thing about your outfit. I’ll only be a minute.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed his arm, stopping him from leaving. “Come in, Casanova. Let’s see what Claire had planned for the evening, hmm?”
Pulling him inside the apartment, I led him over to my pink couch. “Don’t move. I’m happy to get out of this tight dress.”
I went to my bedroom and snapped a couple of quick selfies, because damn I looked good, and this needed to be documented. I sent them to Yaz and Ryan before stripping off my gorgeous gown and hanging it carefully back in my closet. I threw on some sweats with my favorite oversized T-shirt and pulled my hair up into a ponytail.
I sashayed back into the living room and did a little twirl for Diego. “Ta da! What do you think?”
“You look gorgeous, Drew,” he said, looking me up and down. “The stain on your shirt really brings out your eyes,” he teased.
“What can I say? I like to coordinate my stains,” I said and tossed my hair.
Flouncing over to the couch, I took the seat next to Diego and reached for the takeout. Yum, Chinese! And he got extra crab rangoon. This man gets me.
“Don’t you want to get plates?” Diego asked, looking at me like I was a savage for digging into the fried rice. Maybe he didn’t get me after all.
“Um, no. Half the reason to get takeout is so that there’s no dishes to clean up afterward,” I said while giving him an incredulous look. I handed him a fork and smiled encouragingly. “And don’t judge me. I’m using a fork; I was never able to master chopsticks.”
He shrugged, took the fork, and opened a container of something deep fried and steaming. I tried to sneak my fork in to steal a bite of what he had, but he playfully swatted me away. “That’s mine!”
“I only wanted a taste, it smells amazing!”
“Open up,” he said, taking a bit of golden deliciousness on his fork and feeding it to me like it was a decadent dessert. Flavor exploded on my tongue, and I looked Diego in the eye as I chewed. Holy hotness, Batman. His eyes were a deep smolder. Sexy bastard.
I chewed and swallowed, then licked my lips. He followed the movement and coughed before backing away. “You know,” I said while clearing my throat, “some might say you wanted to have dinner at my apartment because you were hoping to get lucky.” Diego bit his fist, then started rummaging in the takeout bag again. I continued. “You even wore gray sweatpants. You didn’t happen to see my blog post about how all men should wear gray sweatpants all the time, did you?”
“I might have seen the paragraph about your appreciation for dick outlines in this particularly very comfortable loungewear,” Diego said with a
smile, “then might have immediately sent my personal shopper to grab a few pairs.”
Of course he did. And of course, my traitorous eyes would just have to zero in on his impressive bulge at that second. Food? What food. I was suddenly ravenous for something else.
“We could Netflix and Chill,” Diego offered.
“You do realize that’s a euphemism for sex, right? Don’t you think that’s a bit forward of you?” I asked. Please be forward. I really needed to get laid. Fated mate marriage bullshit? No. Being stripped from my stained pajamas and fucked into tomorrow? Sure. I’m game.
Wait. What the fuck was I saying? No. No, I didn’t want that.
But maybe I did. Just a little bit.
Fuck our mate bond.
“I meant it in the most literal sense. We can watch a documentary, hmm?” His question was a sensual purr. “As much as I would love to devour your sweet cunt on this couch and make you scream my name, I think I’ve decided that you’re right. We should wait. I’m in it for the slow game, Drew.”
My mouth popped open. I didn’t think a guy had ever turned me down for sex before. I guess his reason was kind of sweet, or at least it would’ve been if my pussy wasn’t begging to be fucked. Was it possible for me to get blue balls? Or would it be blue vulva?
I stared him down for a few more minutes to make sure he was serious. I sighed in resignation and said, “Well, there is this documentary about Gypsy Rose Blanchard I’ve been wanting to watch.”
“Who?” Diego asked as he raised his eyebrows.
“Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Her mom was nuts. She made Gypsy sick and faked all kinds of crazy stuff to get her surgeries and diagnosed with things she didn’t have. She made her use a wheelchair and a feeding tube. Gypsy ended up killing her.”
“Huh. Okay, I mean, I was thinking the Biggest Little Farm, but yours sounds interesting too.”
Grabbing the remote, I opened Netflix and navigated to the documentary. I glanced back over to Diego, who had shifted into a more comfortable position on the couch. Even though he was wearing sweats, he still looked out of place against the worn pink fabric. He was looking straight ahead at the TV, reading the description below the picture of a bald little girl hooked up to all kinds of wires. Okay, I guess we were really going to watch a documentary.
“You sure you don’t want to do anything...else?” I asked.
“Positive,” he murmured before grabbing the remote from my fingers and turning up the volume.
I wiggled on the sofa and licked my lips. Maybe I should have changed into my slutty pajamas.
Why did I want Diego so badly?
“Sit still, Drew,” Diego said with a chuckle. “Is something wrong?”
I pouted and debated on my answer for a moment. “I’m pretty open about my needs, Diego. I don’t like that whenever you’re in the room, my panties become Niagara Falls and I want to jump your bones.”
Diego choked on air. He thumped his chest and turned to look at me while muting the volume on the TV. “Come again?” he said.
“Is it our weird fate bullshit making me this way? I mean, fuck. This isn’t normal.” I rubbed my hands along my buzzing skin. “I mean seriously. I need an orgasm. Now.”
He swallowed. Ah, guess he wasn’t as unaffected as he claimed to be. Take that, Mr. I’m in it for the slow game. “Does it make a difference to you if it’s from our bond? What would you do if you were a normal girl that wanted a normal guy, Drew?”
“I’d wear a really slutty dress, woo you with my awesome seduction skills, then fuck your brains out,” I answered immediately.
“I, uh, see,” Diego rasped while tugging at the collar of his shirt. “And the only thing stopping you is our fated bond.”
I let out a sigh. It was hard explaining this to him, but I wanted him to understand where I was coming from. “Consent is really important to me. I built up my entire career around empowering women to take control of their sexuality. When I was in college, a group of guys drugged m— Uh...my best friend, Yaz. She was out of her mind. If I hadn’t stepped in and called the police, I don’t even want to know what could have happened. I vowed that day to stand up for women. I don’t like the idea of some outside force making me attracted to you. I’m a sexual person. I think it’s empowering. I’m not afraid to take control in the bedroom and demand what I want. But it has to be what I want.”
Diego listened closely to every word I said, carefully paying attention to me. It was sweet that he was so attentive while I shared something vulnerable with him. What I wasn’t sharing was that it wasn’t Yaz that was drugged. It was me. Ryan was the one that called the cops. It was the scariest night of my life. I hated how afraid they made me feel. It’s why I became so obsessed with sex toys. I commanded my pleasure. I was in charge of when and how I came, not some sick football players who liked to roofie their dates.
Diego growled.
Are you reading my mind again? I asked while crossing my arms over my chest.
I’m sorry. I can’t control it yet. Please know I’m not meaning to intrude on your privacy.
“See?!” I said while throwing my hands up. “I don’t like that I can’t control what I share with you. It feels like a mind fuck.” I wasn’t used to opening up to people, and with Diego, I had no choice but to show him all the things I’d buried deep in my chest.
I stood up and made my way over to the kitchen. I needed space. I started slamming the cabinets and pounding my fists on the countertops.
Diego sat quietly for a moment. He didn’t chase after me. He didn’t ask me to calm down. He didn’t force me to listen to his side of things. He let me be frustrated. Fuck if it didn’t make me like him even more.
“Did your grandparents love one another?” I asked, surprising myself.
“They were perfectly compatible in every way,” Diego replied with a smile while getting off the couch. He slowly approached me while answering my question. “It was beautiful. It wasn’t the supernatural connection that bonded them. It was their respect and love for one another. It was their mutual interests.”
“But did they love each other?” I asked again.
“Yes, they did,” he answered. “It wasn’t a love-at-first-sight, carnal type of love. It was a love that grew with them as they shared their lives together, it was a comfortable kind of love that they could always trust in. It made their bond unbreakable.”
It made me think about my own grandparents. How my grandfather always ate the tomato basil bread my grandma painstakingly prepared from scratch for him every Sunday. He had confided in me one day that he hated tomatoes and he had eaten so much of that bread the sight of it made him sick, but he loved her so much he continued to eat it every Sunday until the day he died, and my grandma passed thinking that he loved it.
“We may be fated, Drew, but I think that is only intensifying feelings that were already there. At least, they were for me,” Diego said softly. “The fates know what they are doing. They wouldn’t bring us together, especially after being dormant for half a century, if we weren’t going to be good together.”
My heart melted at his admission. I remembered what Betty said about not letting my ego get in the way of love, and I decided right then and there that I wasn’t going to give the fates any more power. If I wanted something, I was going to trust my feelings and go for it. And I wanted Diego.
“I have a confession to make,” I admitted. “I overheard you talking to Claire about your grandparents dying in the war. I’m sorry that happened.”
Diego let out a sigh and threaded his fingers through mine. “There was a vampire war. Half of our people wanted to continue as we are and change humans, half wanted us to enslave them. My grandfather fought and was beheaded by a rogue faction of bloodlust vampires. My grandmother died the moment he did.”
“What?” I asked. “Were they fighting together?”
Diego looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. “I didn’t want to scare you with more fated information than you
could handle at a time, but mates share a life force. If one of us dies...”
I knew the rest of that statement before he even said it. “So does the other,” I finished for him. “Is that what happened to your parents?”
Diego shook his head. “My father used a breeder to make me. It used to be a common practice for non-fated vampires. They’d find the strongest of their kind and arrange to procreate. I don’t even know her name. I know she was paid handsomely to birth me.”
It sounded so impersonal. I hated the idea of Diego growing up without a mom. “And your dad?” I prodded.
“He was on the opposing side of the war.”
My brows shot up in surprise. I wasn’t expecting that. “Wow.”
“I take my job very seriously, Drew. I lead with an iron fist, but I refuse to let my family endure another divide like that. I have to ease my people into change. Do you hate me?”
“Why would I hate you? We aren’t our parents, Diego.”
“What about the life force share? You’re tied to me for eternity. I know that can be overwhelming.”
I considered his words. Yes. It was terrifying to think about being interconnected with him. I’d watched plenty of soap operas in my time. Monarchs had plenty of enemies. “Surprisingly, I’m not worried. You’re kind of a badass. I think you’re good at staying alive. If I’m being honest, I’m the accident-prone one. I’m all for female empowerment. I’m a strong badass, but I think you got the shitty end of the stick this time. I’m more likely to die than you.”
Diego growled and cupped the back of my head before grunting. “That is never an option, little one.” His voice was deathly serious. I reached out and kissed him deeply, roaming my hands over his muscular chest and pressing my body to his. When he pulled away from me, I felt dazed and hungry. “Nothing will ever happen to you. Ever. You understand?”
“I’m not sure I do,” I whispered. “You might need to kiss me again so I know for sure.”
Diego laughed and kissed me more. I jumped up and wrapped my legs around his waist, grinding against his hardening cock with my needy cunt. He groaned while walking me over to my pink couch. “Don’t stop,” I pleaded between kisses.