by Lovy Books
The momentary reminder of that second attempt at love made something twist in Della’s chest, something she’d thought long dead. She quickly forced the memories down, determined to leave the scab on that wound for as long as she could. Another 70 years should be long enough, Della thought, as she finally drifted into what passed for vampire sleep. Yes, another 70 years should just about heal that pain.
Della was in a meeting with the people that ran the day-to-day operations of her charity the next evening and wondered if she was really going to have to come into contact with Ava again so soon. Looking at the faces of the people around her, worried faces that were telling her they needed more funding to provide the vital resources abused members of the local LGBT community needed to get out of their abusive situations, Della knew she was going to have to cave in and contact the woman. She sighed as she picked up her phone and put a call through to Jenna, asking her to set up a meeting with the other woman.
For all accounts, Ava was a brilliant fundraiser and Della’s charity needed all the help they could get. One of the services her operation provided was help with paying utility bills. Skyrocketing costs had started to cut into other programs her organization ran, and the fundraising director employed by her agency just up and quit without a warning when her husband left her for a younger woman. They needed help, quickly, and fortunately, or unfortunately in her mind; Della knew where to get it.
Della hung up the phone after fending off the bubbly Jenna’s questions about what she’d “thought” of Ava, emphasis on thought to convey added meaning, and let the staff know she was going to do all she could to provide more resources. Thinking of her own bank account, she wondered if it would be safer just to transfer more money out of some of her secret accounts, but knew questions would be asked, questions that could prove dangerous for her, so she resigned herself to exposure to the delectable Ava and her intoxicating scent.
One of the main reasons for bringing in someone like Ava was that the woman could go out in the sunlight; Della could not. Her skin started turning to ashes sometimes even if she barely caught a ray of light through a pane of glass in a window; trying to step out into the sunlight to raise funds would be deadly. Her staff found it odd that they only met with her when the sun went down and never knew quite what kind of hours Della was going to be able to put in at the office. They knew their jobs; however, and knew what needed doing and usually did it well, life outside of the office and greedy utility companies had thrown a wrench in the works for them, and they needed her now. She’d do what she had to in order to keep the organization operating, she thought with another sigh.
Turning to the director of finances, Della smiled at the woman, assuring her that things were going to get better. “I’ve made a call to meet up with a fantastic fundraiser I met last night. I think she’ll be able to help us so don’t panic. I’ll put in enough money to tide us over in the meantime so never fear. In the future, I do want these problems brought to my attention before they become this drastic, though. Don’t keep me in the dark; I can’t help you that way. I know this shortfall isn’t your fault but we need to work together here, it’s vital. I’ll see you all tomorrow, alright? I’m going to meet with this lady in an hour and I’ll have more news for you then. You know how to contact me if you need anything else. Goodnight everyone, go home and get some rest!”
Della dismissed her staff and walked out to her own car, wondering what the night was going to bring her. She quickly drove home, changed her clothes to something more suited to the bar Jenna had told her to meet Ava at, and drove to the address on the other side of town. Walking into the place she quickly spotted Ava and walked over, a forced smile on her face. She’d braced herself for the meeting but Ava’s scent overwhelmed her as soon as she sat down beside her. She was determined to remain professional and calm during the meeting but it was a battle she wasn’t sure she could win.
She observed Ava as she sat down, wearing a flowing bohemian style maxi dress today with black-rimmed eyes that somehow made her eyes appear to be sensitive and kinder than the eyes Della had observed last night. Ava’s eyes hadn’t appeared cruel last night but there had been something there, a lack of concern or something that had made Della believe the woman could be unkind when she needed to be. That wasn’t there tonight, and Della was surprised by the change.
“Good evening, Della. May I get you a drink?” Ava asked her, smiling as the woman’s entire demeanour seemed to settle into Ice Queen mode lite. She was at least looking at Ava this time, Ava thought with an inner smirk.
“No, well yes, some tea please. That will be fine, thank you.” Della could drink small sips of liquids but usually chose not to. The only sustenance she needed was blood and she was so old now that she rarely even needed that. The urge was still there, sometimes very powerful, but she used a network of donors when those urges hit her. A very quiet, discreet network of donors, otherwise she’d have been forced to get blood in other less pleasant ways and doing those things could lead to far too much trouble these days.
Della sat across from Ava, wondering if she could get a donor in later tonight. Ava’s scent was driving her to distraction and she didn’t hear the woman when she asked why Della had called the meeting. Oh, why hadn’t she thought to send the finance director, Della wondered to herself as she tried to bring her attention back to the present? She kept losing herself in Ava’s scent, wondering what her blood would taste like. What effect it would have in her veins? And, as usual when blood exchange with someone she was attracted to was involved, her thoughts also turned to sex.
Della had gone into this meeting with a cold determination to get in and get out quickly. She was wasting time daydreaming though and had totally blanked out on Ava.
“Della! You still with me here?” Ava snapped her fingers in front of Della’s face and spoke loudly to the woman. From her face, Ava could tell that Della had gone somewhere far away in her mind and wondered where exactly she had gone.
“Oh my, please excuse me; it’s been a long day. Yes, well, ahem.” Della took a sip of the tea the barman brought to her, slipped a lock of her blonde hair behind her right ear, and then turned back to Ava with a rueful smile. “I do apologize. I’m a bit distracted. So yes, I need your help if you are willing to offer it.”
“Anything for you, my lady. What services can I offer you?” Ava decided to go with the chivalrous route thinking it might put the woman at ease. It brought a smile to Della’s face, anyway.
“Well, I need your help with fundraising. My organization is bleeding money at the moment, and we lost our fundraising director today. I wondered if you could offer your assistance. The event you produced last night was stunning and beneficial and we would like to hire you, short-term, if you’re available for it?” Della blurted out, hoping to get the meeting over with now, before she embarrassed herself even more.
“It would be my pleasure. Who do I need to speak with?” Ava asked.
“Well, until we get a new fundraising director, I guess that would be me. I’m a night-owl though, so would that hamper your plans in any way? I guess we’d have to meet at my house, too; the office closes at 5 and I guess you’d need to come after you get off work.” Della’s voice trailed off as she continued her train of thought. She visibly shook herself and started to speak again, “Well, yes then, what about 7 pm? Would that be a good time for you to come by tomorrow?”
Ava smiled at Della’s pained but questioning look, determined to set the woman at ease if they were going to be working together. “That’ll be fine, just leave me your address and I’ll meet you there tomorrow. Now, if we’re going to be working together I think we have to face up to a certain truth, don’t we?”
“Oh, um, what’s that?” Della asked, her usual self-assuredness faltering in the face of her own erratic behaviour lately. She also panicked when she thought Ava might have realized how attracted she was to her and Della had no idea how to answer to that. She was very attracted to Ava, unbeli
evably so, but determined to fight that attraction.
“You don’t like me very much, but you need my help. I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you, but obviously I’ve done something. I’d like to propose we start off on a new footing. We forget whatever happened last night and move forward in this business partnership. You need me; I’m willing to help, and you need this to work. What do you say?” Ava offered a hand to Della and hoped the woman would agree. Ava’s best defence sometimes was to face things head on, and this situation called for just that approach; she believed. If she was going to get Della to calm down and get over whatever was bugging her, Ava was going to have to force her to face it and get over it.
“Ah, well, last night was a bit awkward for me, yes. But we do need to get past that don’t we?” Della asked as some of her senses settled back into place. She took Ava’s hand and felt an electric jolt travel up her arm, which made her gasp and look up at Ava to see if she’d felt it too. Dismissing the feeling when she didn’t see a similar response on Ava’s face, Della smiled, let Ava’s hand go, lifted her mug of tea and said, “To new beginnings.”
“To new beginnings,” Ava replied as she lifted her glass of scotch to Della’s tea mug. She’d felt the same thing Della had but was more adept at hiding it. She was pleased; however, to see some kind of response from Della that wasn’t hostility or evasiveness. Part of the reason she was taking this job on was to discover more about Della and to find out what made her tick. One minute the woman was cold, the next she was acting like a shy schoolgirl. Ava wasn’t sure what to think about the confusing mix but she was intrigued. She’d help Della and see what came of it.
Della soon excused herself, pleading another meeting to attend and drove straight home. She hid in the darkness of her study, wondering how she was going to get through the coming weeks with Ava so close. Dialling a number in her phone listed under “pizza delivery” she asked for delivery service to her address then hung up to wait for the donor. Perhaps she simply needed to feed, and then she’d get back to her normal well-controlled self. Ava was proving far too distracting, and distractions were dangerous.
Della allowed the woman into her home and took her to the study now lit with candles. She didn’t plan on engaging in sex with the woman but the donors did expect a certain romantic air as they were fed on; in order to feed their own fantasies. Della drank deeply from the woman’s vein but the images filling her mind were of Ava, not the beautiful creature between her thighs with her back resting against Della’s chest. The thoughts filled her head and the craving for Ava grew worse instead of better. Breaking away from the woman’s neck she dismissed her with an apology and a lump of cash, soon dismissing her from her memory as well.
Della walked out to the window in the study, the craving causing a pain she’d never known before. She had no idea how she was going to get through the next few weeks if fresh blood didn’t soothe her. She hoped she could get through it without making a fool of herself.
Chapter Three
Ava walked home quickly, curiosity burning through her mind, making her quicken her pace even more as the city blocks fell away behind her. Della LaCroix intrigued her, one minute an ice queen, the next coy and shy, and far too distracted. It was that distraction that intrigued Ava the most. What was on the woman’s mind? Ava knew the woman had felt an attraction to her, Della’s inability to hide her shock when they touched proved that, but she was trying hard to hide it. In an age when people had sex at the drop of a hat, Ava found it hard to believe the woman was simply being modest or old fashioned. No, there was something she was missing here.
Running up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, she threw her bag down and went straight to the laptop beside her bed. She pulled her dress off and sat on the bed, her fingers moving quickly over the keys. She sat back when she found no results, not even for Della’s name linked with her charity, but clicked the “did you mean Dellah De LaCroix” that came up on the browser. She spent several hours after searching the internet and found references to a Delya LaCroix, Delyah De La Croix, and other variations, all images and one newspaper clipping from the 1930s. Paintings and photographs, both in black and white and in colour, were basically all she found but each image revealed the Della she knew.
Thinking about the little she had learned about Della over the last 24 hours, Ava’s brain produced one word: vampire. Della had to be a vampire! She only came out at night; she didn’t eat, barely drank anything, and either had very strong genes and a family name that produced a mirror-image copy with the same name every few decades or the woman was a vampire. Ava had heard rumours that the creatures actually existed but she’d always dismissed the idea. She lived in a major city filled with people from all walks of life and she’d never met a vampire. Nothing else really made sense. She knew people could resemble their ancestors, but this was uncanny. So many, with the same kind of name was just spooky!
Ava pushed the computer off of her lap and went to her bathroom to run a bath. Sitting back in the hot water, Ava allowed herself to relax, going over the information again and again. She finally concluded that, either way, asking Della about her current status as a human being or vampire might be dangerous. She would have to bring it up at some point; her curiosity wouldn’t allow the question to go unanswered, but maybe it would be best to wait and observe for now?
Sliding under the water Ava let the hot water rinse away her thoughts and decided food and bed were called for. She was going to have some long days ahead of her with two jobs, and she needed to get some rest to stay alert around a woman who may or may not be a vampire.
Ava soon put her burning curiosity on the back burner and focused on staying awake. She spent long hours with Della each night planning fundraising events, and her days were spent on her main job. They now had several promising events planned and Ava was looking forward to them, but she was exhausted. Three weeks had produced a stronger working relationship with Della but Ava still did not have the confidence to ask her about the pictures and paintings she’d found.
The pair had actually become friends, though Ava would never have dreamed that were possible from their first meeting. Della knew all about Ava, her family, her life so far, but she’d not shared much about her own life, other than she was the only surviving member of her family and had few true friends. Ava supposed being over 350 years old would certainly mean most of your family died before you, but kept the thought to herself.
Ava knew that outside of Della she shouldn’t breathe a word to others about her suspicions about Della, that could prove dangerous for Della and she’d come to really care about the woman, even if she was still somewhat distant. She loved how devoted Della was to her cause though, how much time and effort she poured into it. She loved the woman’s dry sense of humour and how she laughed at Ava’s antics. Ava would often break into a variety of dances to wake herself up during the long nights, and Della found it incredibly funny most of the time. At other times, the dances were sensual and stole Della’s breath away.
Ava was slim with breasts that might fill Della’s palms and had almost a boyish figure, but she was still the most beautiful woman Della had ever seen. Ava always smiled, even when she was frustrated or tired beyond words. Della knew she was also devoted to getting her job done the best way possible. She was competent at what she did and Della watched over the weeks as the woman she thought was a player, someone she thought was out for her own well-being, turned into this incredibly intelligent, kind, caring person that she’d never suspected existed beneath the façade Ava used.
Because it was a façade, Della thought. Ava may have never known the torture of being a lesbian throughout time but she still had her own insecurities, her own worries. She’d learned early to make people smile as a distraction technique and used it often. Della doubted Ava was even aware now that her humour was a tool to fend off people that might get too close to her. Ava also used her “I’m too young to get married” as a way of keeping people
at a distance. She devoted herself to her work but that was also a defensive move. She didn’t have to commit; she could keep herself in her bubble, and prevent heartache as long as she kept people from getting too close. Della wasn’t sure what had caused Ava to take such measures, but she knew they were there. For all that Ava talked, she still had no idea what made Ava need to protect herself so much.
Over the weeks Della had come to adore Ava even more while learning to keep control of her vacillating emotions. She’d settled down into a routine with Ava that kept them both safe. They would often catch the other woman staring or feel a jolt as they accidentally touched but both women agreed, without discussion, that this was business. Anything else would have to come after.
Ava never questioned whether Della was a lesbian or not, she made the assumption that she was because she’d gone to lesbian events with Jenna and she seemed to be interested in Ava, but she’d never said the words out loud. It never even occurred to her to ask Della herself, or her friends; she just made the assumption. She thought about it the night of the first event; however, as she dressed herself. Maybe she wasn’t? She’d never heard of Della before she’d met her, but she’d also not heard much about her since she had. There were no former flames that she knew of, no telling comments that would have let her know for sure, just her own assumptions about the woman.
“Oh, please don’t let me be interested in a woman who isn’t even a lesbian! I’ve gone down that road before and I am not making a fool of myself again!” Ava said to her reflection in the mirror. She’d gone for sexy but androgynous for tonight’s event. Her eyes were rimmed in smoky makeup that made her eyes beautiful. Her short hair was styled into a messy mop of curls that fell into her eyes, and the white shirt she wore was only made modest by the vest she put on over it. When it fell open, though, her dark nipples were apparent.