He took another sip and wondered if she still did, or had she been one of those who had grown out of the condition.
Unfortunately, synaesthesia was a rather broad term covering a wide range of aberrations. Some people, like Olivia, saw auras; others saw sounds as colour where something as simple as a knock on the door was translated by the brain into a certain shade. Yet others saw numbers or letters as colours. It seemed there were many different forms and the condition manifested itself in many different ways.
No wonder Mr and Mrs Parr had taken their youngest daughter to doctor after doctor – Crow would probably have done the same.
But what Crow wanted to know was whether all the prodding and poking by various psychologists had cured her, or had simply driven the issue underground.
His instinct told him Olivia Parr still saw auras.
Chapter 23
Olivia
‘You know why I’m here, don’t you?’ Rochdale asked, politely waiting until I closed the door behind him. I gestured for him to go ahead of me into the living room.
He took a few steps, but before he reached the end of the hallway, he stopped and whirled around. I had no time to react when he grabbed me by the throat and pinned me up against the wall. Fuck, but he was strong, and fast, too. I tried to swallow, but his grip was too tight. Panic crept around the edge of my mind, and I tried not to let it grow. I wanted to stay calm and not provoke him. If I screamed and fought back now, the situation might become really ugly.
As if it wasn’t ugly enough already. Why the hell had I been stupid enough to let him in?
‘What did you see?’ he demanded.
His face was too close to mine, his eyes deep pits. I tried to look away but his gaze held me firm.
I was in desperate need of air. In a moment or two I would have to struggle, to fight back. I shook my head slightly, trying to tell him I couldn’t speak if his hand was around my throat.
He misinterpreted the gesture. ‘Oh, my dear,’ he said, his voice soft and chillingly pleasant. ‘You will tell me. You don’t have any choice. Now, then—’
He released me as suddenly as he’d grabbed me, and I almost fell to the side. Catching my balance, I steadied myself. He was still far too close for comfort, and however much I wanted to, I couldn’t break free from his intense gaze.
Crow was right – the man was a hypnotist.
Rochdale bent his head, and I sagged a little as he broke eye contact, but any idea that I was free of him was swiftly squashed.
His hand reached for my neck and he ran a cool finger across my throat. ‘I hope you don’t bruise easily, it would be such a shame to mar your perfect skin.’ His touch lingered over the top of my carotid artery, and when he gently pressed into my flesh, I became aware of the blood pulsing through it.
Leaning closer still, he inhaled – a long, drawn-in breath, as if he was taking the very essence of me deep into his lungs. Despite my barely-controlled fear, I shuddered with unexpected pleasure at the intimacy. His fingers trailed down my throat to the dip at the base of it, gentle, caressing, his touch flaming my skin, sending shivers down my spine and hardening my nipples.
Dear God, I was responding to him as a lover would. A faint repugnance at my wantonness lurked under my lust, but not enough to stop me from tipping my head back to lean against the wall, exposing more of my throat to him.
I desperately wanted to feel his lips on my skin, and I bit back a moan of frustration.
‘What did you see?’ he asked again, his voice a whisper against my hot flesh.
‘You,’ I breathed.
He pulled away a fraction, and pain lanced through my chest at the thought of him leaving me. I couldn’t bear it if he did – he had to finish what he’d started. He had to.
‘Just you,’ I repeated softly.
‘Who else were you expecting to see?’
He was intrigued, and he rewarded my answers by licking along the length of my collarbone, slowly, so slowly.
‘No one.’
‘There’s more...’ he urged.
Of course there was.
‘Your colour. You’ve not got any colour,’ I managed to force out between tiny shallow pants of bliss. My legs trembled and I had to lock my knees to remain upright. If he could tease this reaction from me by simply licking from my throat to my shoulder— I moaned softly. The anticipation was almost enough to make me come. Liquid heat pooled in my stomach and the juncture between my thighs throbbed and pulsed. The pressure was incredibly intense and totally irresistible.
‘I am paler than most, I admit, but not remarkably so,’ he said, as he pulled my T-shirt up. His hand slid inside, and I almost cried out when his questing fingers found the edge of my bra and eased the delicate lace aside.
‘No,’ I muttered, ‘Not your complexion, your aura.’
He jerked back, his head came up, and one of his nails scratched my breast as he snatched his hand away. I inhaled sharply at the sudden sting of it. His nostrils flared, and his lips parted, showing a gleam of teeth in the gloom. A flick of his tongue drew my attention – that tongue, that mouth...
He breathed deeply once, twice, then paused, holding his breath. He shivered against me, then he stilled.
‘Did you say “aura”?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Please, please touch me again. I’m not sure if I said the words aloud, or if the begging was in my head.
‘Explain,’ he commanded.
‘Kiss me...’
He smiled then, a feral, wolfish smile, full of lust and longing, and deep, deep desire. He brought his finger to his mouth, and that delicious tongue snaked out to lick the tip of it. His eyes closed for a moment. When he opened them again, they were blacker than hell itself and twice as deadly.
I fell into them with total and utter abandon.
Reaching for my breast once more, he resumed his interrupted caress. This time when he freed my nipple from its lacey cage, he bent his head to it. Cool breath fanned my skin. I let out a groan of sheer desire, as his tongue flickered across the hardened bud. With one long deep suck, it was in his mouth, and I squirmed with pleasure. The pressure between my legs was building, and when I wriggled at his touch, my jeans rubbed against me, tight and unyielding.
I moaned as he sucked, and I thought I heard his answering groan. My whole life was reduced to that sweet point where we were joined. He was drawing my orgasm up from that other deliciously hardened nub at the juncture of my thighs, through my stomach, up, up, into my chest, my heart, until it exploded out through my breast and into his mouth in a torrent of searing heat.
I writhed and twisted under him, grabbing his hair and pressing his head into me as hard as I could. I wanted him to suck the very life out of me, to swallow me whole and not spit me out until he’d wrung every last drop of pleasure from my tortured, shuddering body.
When he finally released my breast, I cried out at his abandonment. I wanted more, so much more. I needed to be filled by him, to feel his hardness inside me, driving me towards unknown pleasures and forbidden, decadent delights.
When he made no move to free his cock from his trousers and enter me, I slumped against the wall, weak and unfulfilled; I thought he was going to let me fall, but he held me firm, his head coming up so he could look me in the eye.
I stared at him, my mind numb except for a tiny flickering flame of fear deep within.
His lips were red. Blood red. And his teeth; the canines were too-long and wickedly sharp and they seemed to fill my vision.
I closed my eyes. Could I be having some kind of psychotic episode? A mental breakdown? Terror roiled and twisted in my stomach.
It was still there when I opened my eyes again and looked at him once more. There was no red. No long, cat-canines. Just Rochdale, with that slow, knowing smile and satisfaction on his face.
‘Explain,’ he said again, and I did.
I told him everything.
Chapter 24
Olivia
The sun
woke me, too bright and too high in the sky. I reached for my phone to check the time: eleven-fifteen. Yawning, I clambered out of bed, desperately thirsty, staggered into the bathroom, and drank straight from the cold tap.
When I’d drunk as much as my stomach could hold without throwing it all back up, I leant against the sink, with my head hanging down. I was tired; too tired to have had such a long sleep. What time did I go to bed?
I remembered getting back from Abergavenny and ordering a takeaway. That kind of explained the thirst. But it didn’t explain why I was so tired, fragile almost, and languid; it felt like a cross between being out-of-sorts and having had a good session in bed. I came to the conclusion I must be coming down with something, especially when I straightened enough to catch sight of my reflection in the mirror above the sink – pale, drained, and sickly were the descriptions which came to mind.
An image of Rochdale, of all people, flashed into my head; some dream about him kissing me. The overall impression I had was of red. Eh?
Pushing the dream to the back of my mind, I made my slow and careful way downstairs, feeling weak and exhausted, and scared I might either fall or pass out. Tea, that’s what I needed, hot, sweet tea.
The red continued to hover on the edge of my mind, and it was now joined by a vague feeling of unease. It must have been a hell of a dream, because I couldn’t seem to shake free of it. Why was I dreaming about Rochdale, anyway? Red was Crow’s colour. Rochdale, although he didn’t have an aura, made me think of black.
The state of the kitchen gave me pause. Oh, yuck. Several food cartons, their contents half-eaten, were congealing on the kitchen worktop. I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d enjoyed the meal or not.
A memory of me enjoying something else entirely, dried my mouth and brought a flood of heat to my face. For Christ’s sake, I’d only gone and dreamt of having sex with Rochdale. A flash of residual lust stirred inside me, and for a brief second, I revelled in it. Then I came to my senses.
Angrily, I lurched to the kettle and flicked the switch. I really didn’t need this now, not when I felt so out-of-sorts. My mother used to use that expression, as if the words “unwell”, “sick” or “ill” were dirty, and had to be avoided at all costs. But although I was a little nauseous (the stink of cold food wasn’t helping), and totally exhausted despite my twelve-plus hours in bed, I wasn’t achy and I didn’t have a temperature. I did have a slightly sore throat, though, so maybe this was the start of a head cold or (God forbid) the flu. Trust me to get through the winter without so much as a sniffle, but now that the warmer weather was here, I was coming down with an early-summer cold. Wonderful.
The post landed on the mat with a rattle of the letterbox, and I shuffled slowly into the hall. And stopped dead.
There. It’d happened right there, against that wall. He’d had his body pressed against mine and— oh, lord, I’d had such an orgasm. I couldn’t recall the details because they were fuzzy and shifting, like dreams so often are, but I vividly remembered the exquisite pleasure, and the strength of it. His seduction attempt during my brother’s party must have affected me more than I’d thought. I’d certainly been very attracted to the man, and if Crow hadn’t set those fireworks off, then I suspected I might have let Rochdale have me right then and there. I’d clearly been turned on enough to have forgotten all my morals and inhibitions.
I bent to pick up the letters, one hand holding onto the doorframe to steady myself, and as I came up again my head spun.
I hated being ill, it didn’t suit my temperament. Cross and tetchy, I returned to the kitchen and the promise of tea. Throwing the letters on the kitchen table, I made a cup of Earl Grey, inhaling the fragrant scent of bergamot, before adding some milk and sacrilegious sugar, then took it into the living room. I’d clean up the kitchen later, when I had more energy.
A few sips went some way towards reviving me, but not enough so I could be bothered to find the remote and put the TV on. I sat there, absently scratching at my left breast, and thought about Crow. He was red, several shades of it with the occasional black swirl. For some reason, his colour and Rochdale’s attractiveness were mixed together in my mind. Crow was the more aesthetically pleasing of the two men, to me at least. Rochdale was slighter, not as tall, more of a gentleman. Crow was solid muscle, from what I could tell, and considerably rougher around the edges, far less sleek and sophisticated.
Of the pair of them though, my instinct was telling me that Rochdale was the more dangerous, despite Crow’s muscles and air of menace, and I wondered why.
I finished my tea, the empty mug dangling from my fingers, and leaned back into the sofa, closing my eyes.
My hand reached for that annoying itch once more, and I scratched at it. Itchy-boob syndrome – was there such a thing?
I’d fallen asleep with my bra on, so no wonder the skin was irritated, but as I worried at the rather tender flesh, the tips of my fingers felt sticky and a little wet.
Curious, I opened my eyes and pulled my T-shirt down and to the side. Red. Blood.
Not much, but enough. Breasts shouldn’t bleed and for a panicked moment I assumed the fluid was coming from my nipple, and my mouth dried in dread. I dabbed at the oozing liquid, smearing it across my skin and looked again.
I’d been bitten by something, not once but twice, the puncture wounds were quite close together, and larger than I expected. Yet another tick in the box for today. Exhausted, upset stomach, bitten, and possibly acquiring another small scar or two to join the tiny puckered one on my neck, and the cluster of similar cigarette burns on my arm.
Another flashback – red lips, red teeth. Rochdale’s, not Crow’s. But why would Rochdale be red when he had no aura? The dream clung to me, like a rancid smell which wouldn’t wash off.
I needed a shower.
The hot water soothed me a little, and I stood under the spray, catching glimpses of myself in the mirror, the steam and the water droplets on the shower screen fragmenting my body, smudging it and blurring the edges. But even through the distortion, I still looked pale and washed-out.
Maybe if I stayed under the stream long enough, the spray would wash me away completely. I had the strangest feeling of not being entirely here, as if some of me was missing, and my head was so full of cotton wool all I wanted to do was go back to bed.
Another image taunted me; of Rochdale pinning me up against the wall, one hand around my throat, and squeezing until I thought I was going to pass out.
I almost laughed at myself then. For one thing, I would never in a million years invite a stranger into my home, and for another, I was absolutely certain I would never let a man lay a hand on me without going down with a fight.
But the whole dream seemed disconcertingly real, even the part where Rochdale had appeared at my door with my takeaway. As if that was ever likely to have happened!
I dried myself off and examined the bites properly. They’d stopped bleeding and probably wouldn’t start again as long as I left them alone. They were quite big though, not like mosquito bites. I wasn’t usually susceptible to being bitten – global warming has a lot to answer for if such ferocious mosquitoes were now present in rural England. The bite marks were definitely puncture wounds. Though small, they were far too big to be from a mozzie, unless my scratching had aggravated them and had made them worse. Not unreasonable, considering I always reacted badly to the little blighters.
An image of Rochdale, his head bent sucking on my breast, came into my mind, and I swallowed convulsively, reaching for the wash hand basin to steady myself. My treacherous nether regions tingled and throbbed once more at the dream-memory. I simply couldn’t get either him or my devastating orgasm out of my head. The whole thing seemed so damned real, and I couldn’t shake off the horrible suspicion that it might be.
There was one way to put my mind at ease and convince myself it was all in my head – I’d call the takeaway place and ask if anyone could confirm whether they’d actually delivered the meal to my
door. I’d have to wait until five o’clock when they opened, to call them, but by then the whole ridiculous thing would have faded away to nothing. The fact that it hadn’t as yet, I put down to being unwell.
Chilled, despite the length of time I’d spent under a hot shower, I dumped yesterday’s clothes in the laundry basket, and wandered into my bedroom to fish a clean pair of pyjamas out of a drawer. I put them on, then crawled back into bed.
Another image, more of a sensation than a proper memory, slipped into my mind, of me crying out with pleasure as the orgasm tore through me. Christ! That was some dream, I thought yet again, as I drifted into sleep.
Yes, that’s what I needed – sleep.
Chapter 25
Lord Byron – Present day
Interesting. Very, very interesting. For the first time in many years a spark of true excitement travelled along my veins.
What an intriguing woman was Olivia Parr.
I had not come across anyone who saw auras before and, although I was aware of the existence of such creatures, I had thought them mere charlatans. Until now.
What was even more intriguing than the woman herself, was my lack of an aura.
How fascinating.
How disturbing.
Should I seek out more like her, for confirmation? And if it was true, what then?
Death, I suspected, for I could not suffer them to live. The thought of people in the world who were able to tell what I was at a mere glance, unnerved me. Not that this Parr woman knew what I was, not yet; although, before she took her last breath, she most certainly would. They all did. Some sixth sense, some deep, ancient knowledge came to the surface in their final moments, and the horror when they realised the old tales were true, added a delicious piquancy to their blood.
Before I did anything rash, there was one question I needed an answer to. Did all vampires lack an aura, or was it just me?
The Colour of Death Page 12