Ian was fun to be around. He was smart, charming, rich and a good listener. He was also handsome and genuinely cared for her. The real question should be why hadn’t she slept with him before now?
Because he wasn’t permanent.
He wasn’t serious.
They dated and he was sweet but she had kept herself back from him physically as well as emotionally. But now that the big bad wolf was at the door, she was going to rush into the sack with him. Oh yeah, this is a really good decision.
For the umpteenth time she wondered if she was being melodramatic. Lucas had said nothing that implied he wanted her. Sure she’d touched him a little and he’d let her but it wasn’t like she’d ripped her clothes off or propositioned him. Maybe she could resist him. Maybe she didn’t even need to resist him because he wasn’t interested.
No, he wants me and if I don’t send a signal that I am unavailable, I’ll be coffin bait for the rest of my life.
Alright then.
Val showered and dressed carefully. Ian came to pick her up and took her to Pizza Express. She loved their thin pizzas and salads. Why didn't California have pizza like this? Probably the same reason England had terrible hamburgers. Some things just didn't cross the pond.
Ian took her to the theater and they saw The Phantom of the Opera. Val had seen it before and loved it. They had considered going to see Cats but the Time Out review called it 'moth eaten' so Phantom it was.
Valerie had always loved the Phantom. Who liked the boring old knight in shining armor anyway? Oh no, she always liked the bad boy. As if the happy ending would last past the first orgasm. The irony was not lost on her.
When the opera was over and they left she was near to tears. Val had spent the whole time thinking about her life, the future and her current options until she was a wreck. Ian took her home and she started crying. He held her sweetly and even sang her a song to cheer her up.
He had a nice singing voice and like most English guys it seemed he'd been in a band for all of his formative teenage years. Pulling her wet act together, she splashed water on her face and convinced him that she was crying because of the play. He actually bought it.
When she turned her face to his and kissed him deeply he eagerly joined in. Almost aggressively, she pushed him back on the bed. He tried to protest a little, slightly disturbed by her change in emotion but she didn't stop and the protest was half-hearted at best. She reached between them, felt him through his dark jeans, then unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, maneuvering her fingers through his clothes until she felt his hard, silky skin in her palm. This was right.
Right now, with him, she wanted this. Let him possess her, she thought frantically, someone human claim her. Because she knew, in a terrified little part of her, that things were changing. Ian’s hands were shaking when he put the condom on, rummaging around in his drawer and then his closet, trying to remember where he'd stashed them. Val laughed, surprised that he wasn't carrying one on him, just in case. With a mock frown, he told her it was her fault. He'd given up on thinking he was going to get laid and had told his roommate to have at them. Apparently, he had.
He kissed her over and over until they were both panting and then she spread her legs, felt him pressing against her.
Finally, when he was in her, moving gently, telling her how much he loved her, she believed it, clasping him closer, feeling only him as he blocked out the rest of the world and kept her safe in his arms.
Val slept in his room, trying to ignore Ian's roommate who came stumbling in, blind drunk at three am. Sleep came to her fitfully as her mind went over the events of yesterday, attempting to process just how much her life had changed in such a short amount of time. Lucas, sex, the secrets she now had. Also, the bed was made for one and Ian had disgracefully sharp elbows.
At 6:30 am, she was awoken by the cleaning ladies coming in and banging around in the kitchen. It was still dark outside and Val was exhausted when she snuck back to her room. The old ladies started in the communal kitchen, then did the bathrooms and finally opened every door so they could take the trash out and have a good gander at the irresponsible inhabitants. The last thing Val needed was to be gossip for the cleaning ladies.
When Val opened her door, she was struck by the cold and breeze. She froze, her gaze drawn to the open window.
Jack was sitting on her bed, his feet on the ground, back against the wall. His hands were laced across his stomach and he was the picture of relaxation. Sitting up, he put his elbows on his knees, turning his head towards her.
He looked her over, scrutinizing every inch of her. Her mussed hair, clothes that were rumpled because they'd been on Ian's floor all night, and she just knew she had mascara on her face from all the crying she'd done. She also knew her lips were a little swollen and that he could tell that too.
His lips thinned into a fine and angry line, his jaw clenched. He squeezed his hands together once, like he was restraining them from violence.
“We're back.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He was here, now? Twelve hours ago she would have jumped him! He would have had to fight her off.
“Hard night?” Jack asked, his voice taut.
She put her hand out in front of her like she could capture his words and keep them from hurting her. Where had he been twelve hours ago? She drew in an unsteady breath. He stood and came towards her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight. Clumsily, her arms went around his waist and she tucked her head against his chest, listening to his heavy heartbeat.
“Are you alright, Val?” His voice was tender. Of course it was, this was perfect Jack. She could tear his fucking heart out and he'd want to know if she broke a nail. But the next time he'd wear armor.
She nodded against him, having no idea what to say. Then he was all business.
“Why do you have this information?”
She pulled away from him, following his gaze.
He'd opened the folder from Lucas and spread all the papers on the bed. She saw photos of Marion, the vampire who'd killed Jack's parents. She'd been off the grid for a decade. Not a whisper and yet here was a photo of her holding the hand of a young man in what, Switzerland? The bottom of the picture said Geneva and a date. Two months ago.
She felt his confusion.
“Why are you here?” she asked instead.
“Your dad and I went to clear out Gilbert's house and there was a note with your name on it. I just needed to make sure you were safe.” He searched her face.
“Yes, because Gilbert's dead.” She said absently.
“Yeah, he is. But how do you know?”
As far as he was concerned she didn't know anything about this stuff, had cut herself out of the loop on purpose when she'd chosen a normal life instead.
“These files look like his. That's even his handwriting. Why is it here with you?”
She thought quickly. “I've been doing some thinking for a while now and I wanted to help...a little.” It was a good idea to stick to the truth as much as possible. “You guys were gone. I called Gilbert. I didn't want you and dad to know.”
Something wasn't right and Jack knew it. “Why wouldn't you want us to know?”
Man, she hoped she could lie her way through this, “Because I didn't know if I could do it. I wanted to try to help on a trial basis. Why get your hopes up or involve you if I just decided to cut and run instead?”
Jack crossed his arms, surveying her like a teacher with a cheating student. His legs were spread a little, making him a bit closer to her eye level— but it was also a don't fuck with me posture.
“So, Gilbert sent you this?”
She nodded.
“What were you going to do with it?” Anger and disbelief threaded his voice.
“I was going to look up records in Switzerland, see if I could pin her down a little. Check obituaries, rentals, look for aliases or weird disappearances, stuff like that.”
There was a lengthy pause as Jack organized
his thoughts. She was surprised he didn't explode, cartoon style, he was getting so worked up. “You were going to try to get information on Marion? The monstrous bitch who stole my family? You were going to sniff around her and see what you could find, is that right?” He was moving towards her and she didn't realize she was backing up until her back hit the wall. “This I will take.” He looked her body up and down, and she knew he meant her sleeping around, “But I won't let you get near her. You don't give her any reason to notice you. You shouldn't even think about her, do you understand me?”
She thought of Lucas killing Jack or her father if she tried to say no.
“You don't have the right to tell me what to do!” She was overcome with rage. Rage that he'd shown up too late. Rage at being forced to lie to him. Rage at being cornered by Lucas. She pushed him hard and he barely moved, allowing no more than a few extra inches between them.
“You passed me up, remember? It's my life and I'll do whatever I want to. If you want to be involved— great. But if you think you can dictate to me, then I will throw out that fucking pager and leave here in the middle of the night and you'll be lucky if you ever see me again.” Val wondered if maybe she was laying it on a bit thick, but he was so infuriating!
Jack invaded her space again, voice lethally quiet. “First of all, you would never escape me. I would hunt you down, wherever you go. And secondly, you will do what I tell you when it comes to her. She is mine!”
Val nodded. He was at a breaking point and this was getting ridiculous. If Lucas hadn't forced this information upon her, she wouldn't have gone digging for information on Marion. She had a damn good reason to leave Marion alone: if Jack found out where she was, he'd try to kill her. And there was a big chance he'd wind up dead.
“You're right. Anything I find goes to you first. I won't do anything to get noticed. But I've made a decision that I can't keep sitting by and waiting for a phone call to hear that you are dead. I'm going to help. Wasn't that one of the problems, Jack? That I turned my back on my family and wouldn't help? Well, here I am. This is what you wanted, so don't try to shut me out.” Val sighed, looking out the window at the lightening sky, “Let's face it, any vampire who wanted me could have killed me a long time ago. I just wasn't worth the time and attention.”
Until now.
“Jack, I'm good at this. Did you know that Lucas is almost 1600 years old? Well, give or take a few centuries, the math is a bit fuzzy. I even know what he looks like.”
He looked at her like she was a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model. Lucas was elusive. Vampires had been tortured and talked of him but neither Jack nor her father had ever seen him.
“And as for Marion, I've found out more about her in my limited time of searching then you have in ten years. You're more likely to get her with my help. That's what you want, right?”
Jack paced away from her. “I don't know. I'm exhausted. I've been up for 36 hours, then I come here and your room is empty, yet you have pictures of Marion everywhere and now....”
Yeah, he'd just seen her come in from shagging her boyfriend and was turning his life upside down. Great night.
So, Lucas was giving them Marion. Guess she should have read the file sooner. He walked over to her desk and started writing. “Whatever you get, you can reach me here.”
He put down the pen, and walked away from her desk towards the door. “Good night.” He opened her door and stood in the doorway, not looking at her. He seemed momentarily frozen, then he rolled his shoulders a little and exhaled. “Val, it’s really nice to see you. I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick.” Then he closed the door and left.
His comment made her smile in a wobbly sort of way. Maybe that was the only conversation they would have about her dating other people. Maybe now they would move on and there wouldn’t be this weirdness between them. She thought about how she might act if she saw Jack the morning after being with someone. Sad. Even after all this time a part of her would think that it should have been her.
Would she always feel that way? That if things had been a little bit different, Jack a little less haunted, that they would have made it work? He was her childhood love. Even though she was grown up, he was still around and in her life. He’d show up, be all alpha male, say something about how important she was to him and she just…couldn’t quite get over him.
He was the fantasy. And a small part of her still hoped that if he killed Marion he’d be free. She could then convince him to give this all up and settle down with her.
She went to the piece of paper and looked at his tightly scrawled writing. The cell phone she had, mailbox she didn't. A secondary email address she'd never seen and a fax number were also listed. All with a strange country code. 420. What was 420? She turned on her computer and looked it up. The Czech Republic. Why was Jack based in the Czech Republic?
She put the papers and Jack's information back into the file and wondered about where to hide it. She didn't need Jack looking at that information again and she didn't want Lucas to find out about Jack. Folding it in half, she put it in the bottom of her box of tampons. That'll scare everyone off, she thought and then went to take a shower.
She walked down the hallway in her robe. It came to mid-thigh and had a definite ‘lived in’ look. It used to be a dark blue but had been washed so many times that the color had lightened to pale blue. Like Lucas' eyes, she thought. I’m so stupid.
The dorm had a communal bathroom. It sucked. Happily, no one else was taking a shower.
She thought about Jack. What if it had been him last night? Torturing herself, she imagined him taking off her panties, that it was Jack moving into her and over her.
Val imagined him stopping, gentling her and kissing her while she got used to the sensations. It made her heart break and she wondered when loving him would end. Would she spend her life wanting him, loving him, despite herself? Pathetic.
Jack had a death wish. And she knew that on some fundamental level he ranked his life lower than hers or her father's. That part of him had died when his parents died and he'd just never recovered.
Jack would live as long as she and her father did. So long as he could make the world safer for them. He was like a prisoner marking time and there was a depth of hurt and darkness in him that he hid and probably didn't want her to be stuck with. Sometimes she thought he’d snap. Like the last straw would settle on his shoulders and he’d go nuts.
A man who wouldn't have children with her, get a normal job, and laze about on the weekends reading the paper. Surely that was part of the reason that he kept himself away from her?
Pretty to think so.
He'd leave her and destroy her life by dying if it got him a crack at Marion. Was it selfish to want him to not be a hero? Sigh. Probably.
Val also knew why it upset him that she would get involved in the vampire biz now. He'd given up on her. Released her to have a happy life and now she was turning back. God, if he knew about Lucas he'd kill himself trying to get to him.
Val finished rinsing and then stood under the water for a good ten minutes. Watched the water swirl down the drain and tried to not think about anything important.
In England, she didn't have to think about wasting water, it rained all the damned time anyway. But bizarrely, England had a lot of droughts, even with all the rain. The pipes had all been set up during the Victorian era and were now falling apart. Huge quantities of water were lost because of leaks. That’s the sort of crap a one hundred thousand dollar education got her.
Love is Darkness (A Valerie Dearborn Novel) Page 11