“Go. Now, Allie.” Cole’s voice was no more than a growl through a slowly released breath.
I had never been paralyzed by his voice and gaze the way I was at that moment.
“You are so damned beautiful.” He slammed his head against the doorframe, jerked his hands behind him, and closed his eyes.
I stumbled out of his reach as if life depended on it.
And it did.
I didn’t look back. I wasn’t that strong.
I staggered down the stairs. The group of guys watching a ball game and throwing popcorn across the room at someone’s mouth glanced up at me. They stopped mid throw, mid-laugh, and gawked at me.
I rushed out the front door, not meaning to slam it on the way out but that was the final effect.
From the window that belonged to Cole, he stared down. He planted the words stay away into my mind.
I nodded, but wasn’t sure if I could.
After closing the dorm door behind me, I wanted to text Mama and let her know Cole was okay, but she wasn’t aware that there was anything to be alarmed about. No one at home knew the danger we were in. They didn’t remember Cole’s death or his rebirth, if that’s what you would call it.
It was only me.
I had to deal with him myself.
He’d asked to be alone, but I couldn’t let him go through all of this alone. I’d already spent most of my life avoiding him. That day had ended the day my blood had given him new life.
* * * *
A black envelope with swirly writing I recognized from Cole’s fraternity was left in my mailbox. Nicki and Lacee got matching invitations. A costume party, but it would be crazy to take a chance like that. Given too many close calls, Cole or I may give into our instinctual pull to each other.
For the last few weeks, I had spent all my time studying, reading, running, hiking, playing tennis, and doing pretty much anything that would keep my mind off Cole. Beyond that, I treated Cole as if he had the plague. I had even begun going out the back door of my dorm so that there would be no chance of seeing him.
I’d allowed a few short texts a day to keep us in touch.
“How are you?” I texted holding the envelope in my hand.
“Amazingly well, today. Did you get the invite?”
So he did know about it. The party and the invitation wasn’t Andrew’s ploy to get us in the same breathing space.
“Yes. But you asked me to stay away?”
“With chaperones, I think we’ll be fine. I miss seeing you. You’ve done an amazing job at keeping yourself away. Are you sure you’ve been at school?”
“I’ve been here. Just staying busy.” I smiled as I pressed send.
He wanted to see me. Maybe this was a sign he had things under control at least more than he had before.
“I want to see you. Can’t we sneak in a visit before tomorrow night. I’m impatient.”
“Patience is a virtue. I’ve learned that proverb miserably well.” I carried the invitation into my room and slid it under a book on my dresser.
Nicki slipped up behind me and grabbed it before it left my fingers. “I got one just like this. And don’t even think about trying to snake your way out of this one, young lady. You are going to get out of that cave of a bedroom if it kills me. You are the most boring person these days. You have got to get a life.”
“I hike, I run, I swim, I do all sorts of things. I’m not turning into a vegetable.” I snatched at the invitation. It was fun to make her think I hadn’t planned to go.
She jerked back. “We are going to this party, and you are going to have fun if I have to wring it out of you. What do you have to lose?”
“You have no idea.” I shoved her out of my room and closed her out.
“I know you probably don’t have a thing to wear, so I’m picking out your costume. I know you can hear me, so don’t be shocked when I come back with the most fabulous costume you’ve ever seen. And yes, it’s going to show cleavage. We’ve got to get you a boyfriend. If Cole can’t see what he’s missing, then it’s his own stupidity.”
* * * *
I’d wasted the hours away being so nervous I hadn’t thought to get a backup costume just in case Nicki brought me a stripper outfit. Of course, she wasn’t going to let me out of the house in an outfit that wouldn’t lead to her idea of fun. That meant something borderline slutty.
Nicki sauntered into the room carrying a wand with a leather strap folded at the end. She dropped a bag at the door. With a nonexistent neckline, her leotard was leopard print and left nothing to the imagination. She twirled. “You like?”
“If you didn’t look as though you’d been melted and poured into it,” I said.
With fake horror, she ran her hands down her thighs. “This was almost a whole week’s paycheck.”
“Where did you work? A corner somewhere?”
She popped me on the backend with her torture device. “Watch it, missy.”
“Ouch.” I rubbed my behind.
She sashayed to my bed, where she dumped a bag. “If this shocks you, you’re going to hate what I brought you. But no matter. There’s no time for last-minute shopping.”
I held up the costume.
It looked like a negligee she’d bought from some adult store close by. My heart fluttered. In a few hours, I would have to face Cole. In that.
“If Cole doesn’t run to you and scoop you into his arms, you’ll find someone who’ll appreciate all your positives tonight.” At just the sound of his name, it felt as though someone had deposited a block of hot ice on the floor of my stomach.
“I can’t believe you thought you were going to get out of this dorm in something silly like a cow costume.” Nicki giggled and tossed a black lacey thingy at me. “A cow suit says unavailable. This says come and get me. I say, if you’ve got it flaunt it—and you are so not a cow. You are going find a man to have fun with tonight. You don’t have to marry him, but if you don’t at least kiss someone then I’m going to unleash my wrath.”
“I won’t be kissing anyone, and I’m not remotely afraid of your wrath. What’s the worst you could do?” I taunted. She was a few inches smaller than me in every way.
“Don’t test me.” She shoved me toward the bathroom.
Giving the costume closer inspection, I gawked in horror. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Shut up and put it on. I spent loads on that. You will be Elvira. The hottest Elvira ever.” Uninvited, she rambled around my room gathering more ways to make me look like a streetwalker. A hair straightener, a bottle of hairspray, and a gargantuan amount of makeup was spread all over the dresser.
I grumbled the whole time I undressed.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll find a cool way to tape your mouth shut and make it look like part of the costume. Then there’s no way you could mess up getting a date.” She chose the makeup she’d need to finish my costume and hummed the whole time.
“This is too tight. And look. It shows my boobs. It’s making me look like I have fat rolls I didn’t even know I had.” I smoothed the side of the dress with a slit up the leg.
Nicki crossed her arms. “You are the complaininest person I’ve ever met. Trust me. I’d do you.”
“Complaininest? I don’t think that’s a word.”
“I have a hot weapon in my hand, and I am not afraid to use it.” Shelby waved it at me.
“That’s what I’m worried about. All the men on campus need to run for their lives.” I grunted and turned around. “If there were a little less dress, my boobs would pop out.”
“Perfect.” She clapped.
“You are trying to get me attacked by a sexual offender.”
She tossed me a pair of high heels that looked like death traps with straps. “And you don’t want me to be able to run from my assailant.”
“You need an alcoholic beverage and a man. You are so uptight.”
* * * *
> “I look like a porn star,” I grumbled when we left our floor.
The music was already rattling the front door of our building.
Our dorm mother stood at the door peering across the college campus at all the spooks and scantily dressed young women. I guessed that sexy was the new scary this year, for the women anyway. I’d have no trouble fitting in.
“If I fall down the step in these heels, I am going to pull your tail off and stuff it in your…” I started, but the dorm mother gave me the look as we went out the door. “…your ear and pull it out the other side. You will become the new urban legend on campus.”
“You are scary.” When Nicki saw Lacee heading toward us from the party she let out a loud squeal and jerked me toward her.
Lacee looked promiscuous, but great. She was the most scantily clad genie I’d ever seen.
I linked arms with her. “You are going to make some guys dream come true tonight.”
“That’s my motive.” She nodded toward the party. “Hopefully, Andrew’s.”
“You guys have been moving slow. That’s a good thing,” I said. “It’s always good to really get to know the person you’re involved with.”
“If you have a chance at true happiness tonight, you’d better jump on it. I’m tired of seeing you pretend to be living.”
“No more no’s tonight,” Nicki said. “You are a yes girl for the rest of the evening. Do you hear me?”
I went through the mental exercises that I had spent hours upon hours going over in my head so that I would be prepared to see Cole again. It was time to pull out the willpower I had been storing up.
A few guys greeted us, giving us more than approving glances.
I was sure that my face was three shades of red.
Nicki yanked a strand of my hair. “Elvira is pale not flushed. Now get that look off your face and live up to your character: sexy.”
Letting loose a little might not hurt anything. I took a cleansing breath and stepped into the light show and loud music. At the bar, a guy gave me a Coke but grinned as he pulled a bottle from a hidden door. “You look twenty-one. You game?”
“Sure. Why not?” I didn’t look around for Cole. I wouldn’t. I would just exist in the same space as him and try to stay calm.
It wasn’t like I would be able to tell who he was anyway. All the guys were dressed up with their faces virtually hidden beneath masks.
I smiled at a few of the guys as I went back out to find my girlfriends, but I didn’t see them on the porch where I left them. I cursed under my breath.
At least when I was with them, I had a cover. Without them, I had to interact with mostly guys because the other girls around here were in full conversations with their own boyfriends or an object of their current affection.
I turned around hoping to find a face that I knew and that I wouldn’t be standing there like a loon all by myself the whole night. There was no danger of that. Within a few seconds, I had a group of guys that I recognized from class surrounding me. Thanks, Nicki.
“Nice costume. Elvira?” Kevin Atwood from psych class said.
I nodded. “My friend Nicki suggested it. So far I’ve seen no other Elviras.”
He nudged my shoulder. “She made a great choice.”
A girl I thought might be in my world religions class walked up and started a conversation with him. He smiled and talked with her, including me in the conversation, but I was a bit preoccupied.
Cole had not yet let himself be known. He was probably watching me from a corner somewhere in the shadows of the house.
Andrew walked through the crowds of people with a red cup in his hand. “So, you look great.”
“I definitely would have gone for a costume that was a little more conservative, but Nicki was in control of costume design for this show.” I wrapped my arms over my chest, but that made the dress reveal that much more.
“You look no sluttier than any of the other young ladies around here. Besides, you deserve to have some fun. You’ve been through a lot.” Andrew nodded at a fellow housemate but leaned back to me. “Cole seems to be a little better today. He said he’d be down soon. Until then, what do you say, we shake our money-makers?”
I put my drink on the bar beside the pool “Sure.”
It had been a while since I’d let loose like that. The surroundings reminded me of a party I’d gone to when I was underage, one that Cole had to crash to save me from myself.
He’d done that so many times. And to think, I’d always thought he saw me as an irritating sister, when in reality he’d only been trying to preserve the purity of his wife.
How much more messed up could that be?
I focused on Andrew and tried to forget that in a short while, Cole was going to see parts of my chest he had never seen.
Andrew was a great dancer. He was also very nice on the eyes. It was a harmless inventory, but I still felt that Cole was close so I thought to him. “Don’t tell me you haven’t glanced at a few tatas.”
Anyway, I could see why Lacee was so enthralled with him.
We continued to dance until the heels began to hurt my feet.
“You’ve got moves.” Andrew led me by my hand to the edge of the dance floor. “You should have gone into exotic dancing.”
“No poles for me, thank you.” I dabbed my neck with a napkin.
“What are you drinking? I’ll get you another.” Andrew nodded to the bar.
“Coke and whatever that guy put in it last time. Rum, I think. I’m already feeling the other drink so if you see me getting too tipsy, stop me.” I was on fire under the thick material of the dress, and if I didn’t soon get some air, my makeup was going to run. With as little as the dress covered, I couldn’t imagine getting so overheated.
Andrew returned with two drinks.
“Can we get some air?” I fanned myself.
He obliged, leading me out of the house to the porch and down the steps.
“We looked everywhere for you!” Lacee and Nicki ran up to us. “We went to the bathroom and when we came back, you were gone. We thought for a minute you’d bailed on us.”
“I’ve been with Andrew. Clearly there’s no romance involved, but he is a guy. I know he’s not quite what you guys hoped for, but I did dance.”
“Well, he’s better than inanimate objects like hiking boots, books, and tennis rackets.” Lacee smiled shyly at him.
“Where have you been hiding?” Andrew turned to Lacee. They stepped over to the side.
“Have you seen Cole?” Nicki pulled me toward the open door of the house. Just as we walked inside the room, she stopped cold. With her intent stare on the staircase, she barely breathed. “Oh, my.”
Heat prickled up my spine before I turned to look at the spectacle Nicki ogled.
Cole, dressed in a black suit with a red cape billowing down his back, sauntered down as he buttoned his cuffs. His skin was so ashen, he appeared drained of blood. Either someone had done a magnificent makeup job or he really was dead. He was the best vampire in the whole house. Surprisingly, there had only been a few. They all paled in comparison to him, though. He was the epitome of all things a vampire was said to possess.
That pull that made you have to be near him. The longing for him to bite your throat, not just once but as many times as he needed to be satisfied. The stare that made you need to look into his eyes. You were entranced, and you would be held there until he let you go.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Cole took a calm, emotionless inventory of the room until he found me in the entrance.
My heartbeat drummed in my ears as his eyes slid a liquid gaze over my face, down my neckline, down to the dangerously plunging cleavage, over my curvy hips and then back up. The gaze he gave me could have leveled a small country.
I flushed red-hot.
He nodded.
I would have fallen over if someone had nudged me.
A few of the
guys waved Cole over. He moved through the crowd and away from me.
I had never had someone do to me what he had just done in a glance. If the elicit effects of his stare hadn’t been wanted, I would have felt violated.
“I knew it.” Nicki plopped a hand on her curvy hip. “You’re in love with him.”
Her accusation caught me off guard.
“He looked nice.” My voice was breathy. I tried to hide the fact that I looked as though I had just made love to a man in the middle of a very heavily populated room.
“That was some heavy chemistry there, and believe me, I know chemistry when I see it. I was almost embarrassed by the look on his face when he saw you! I should have put more clothes on you,” Nicki commented with an incredulous look on her face.
“The only heavy chemistry here is that mixture you’re drinking. He didn’t even speak to me. Give me a minute. I’ll find out why.” I left Nicki.
Cole stood with his back to me and just as I began my ascent down the three steps into the living area toward him, a funny feeling tickled my brain. “Don’t. Find me at the gazebo. In fifteen minutes. I need a few moments to compose myself. Where in the hell did you find that dress?”
Stopping a few feet away from him, I almost laughed. His private way of speaking to me came in handy at times like this.
Cole swiped a cup from the guy on the right of him. He took a long swig of whatever beverage his friend had been drinking.
“It’s a Nicki special. I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s just that when I’ve seen you in dresses, they’ve never shown that much…skin. In the 1800s, you were never so daring.” He turned his cup up, finished the drink, and handed it off to his friend. “Get me another.”
Chapter 10
The first chance I was out of the girls’ sight, I slipped out into the October air, which was surprisingly warm that evening. Weather in North Carolina could be so bipolar. Under the trees, the path to the gazebo was lit with little lampposts that provided ample lighting to guide the way to the back of the house. Decadent landscaping and lush, fall flowers perfumed the air.
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