First Blood

by Susan Sizemore

The groan of a car’s high-gear engine from the otherwise quiet street came between them, but it didn’t destroy their silver connection.

  “The thing is,” she said, “sometimes what’s bad about them can be a part of us, too.”

  She seemed more human than ever right now. Ben probably should’ve even been wondering if this was a creature trick. But why did that matter when he was all too willing to give in to it?

  He set down his revolver on the floor, and she closed her eyes, as if not wanting to see what would come next. For a second, her silver faded from him, and he died a little.

  But then she opened her gaze again, and their re-established connection shook him to the core.

  And then it happened—the shared fantasy world he’d been hoping for.

  In her eyes, he saw Ginny, suddenly naked and breathtaking, standing before him. He pulled her in, his own bare, sweat-slicked skin against hers, his cock hard and pulsating as it slid between her thighs, their breath harsh as she wrapped a long leg around him . . .

  At the same time, outside of the fantasy, he felt her hands on his real body. Her fingers feathered over his throat, down to his chest, then his stomach. In primal rhythm, his muscles jumped beneath her touch, seizing until his penis stirred against his fly.

  She paused in her exploration, her compelling gaze still locked to his, and his body frantically pumped blood to his cock.

  Then, she touched him, tracing his growing erection.

  In and out of the fantasy, he felt her shudder, as if in near climax.

  As if unable to hold back.

  ELEVEN

  NO MATTER WHAT GINNY HAD PROMISED HER TWIN about wiping Ben’s mind, she couldn’t do it.

  Not with his scent tearing her apart. Not with the ridge of his penis beneath her fingertips.

  He was a part of her, and it was beyond any experience she’d ever had as a vampire or human. She’d only linked with Sorin and Geneva, and somewhere along the way, she’d started to leave both of them behind.

  She slipped her fingers lower, cupping his balls, and Ben moaned. At his instinctive sign of pleasure, she lost another grain of control.

  Her fangs threatened, but she held back. Desperately.

  See if he really wants it, she thought. See if he’s ready.

  She rubbed his cock to greater hardness as their gazes swirled together, her sex hot and pounding for him.

  Then, as Ben’s hands came up to grip her arms, their shared thoughts undulated until they coalesced into a vision that reflected real time, their clothing still on, their foreplay just starting.

  A mirror where she could see every stroke, every caress, just as if she were a voyeur.

  Turned on by the ability to watch, she undid his jeans, then worked his cock out, his length veined and thick. At the sight of it, she grew hungrier than ever before.

  She wrapped her fingers around him, and he hitched in a hard breath as she reveled in his girth. Her mouth watered while she smoothed her grip up, down, up again.

  Pausing at his tip, she circled with her thumb, exploring the slit there, the hint of beading come.

  “Ginny,” he said under his breath, and she held on to the way he said it, as if he was inviting her inside of him this time.

  She couldn’t move, because it was happening—she could leave her own world to go somewhere foreign, scary, but beautiful as she peered in from the outside.

  Ben’s soul.

  But then, as if sensing her hesitation to come in, he took over, roughly sketching his hands up her arms, her neck, then down her waist until he cupped her ass and brought her flush against his arousal.

  Wincing, Ginny automatically lifted her leg so she could feel his cock nudging her sex. She ground into him, assuaging the stiffness of her clit, slipping and sliding with the juices drenching her. She clung to his shirt, hearing the weave of it tearing bit by bit.

  Throughout it all, their gazes stayed locked, as if they couldn’t bear to glance away from the mirror they’d created.

  She kept straining against him, and he ripped off her halter, then eased one hand to her bare back while he used his other to palm a breast.

  Seeing how Ben hungered for her, seeing how she responded to it in their mirror, she arched against him, keeping eye contact.

  In his gaze, she saw that he was doing the same thing— getting hotter as he watched every sinuous move. He shaped her breast, kneading it.

  Ginny grappled with his T-shirt, tearing it clean off in her excitement. Their hips continued rocking, driving her insane.

  He made a sound low in his throat, animal and brutal, and her sensitive hearing thundered with it. Her body even rose up to the challenge of that growl as her fangs elongated.

  Bu-bump-bu-bump . . .

  The hammer of his heart took her over, beating as if it were her own, then traveling down to her sex, where she swelled to the point of nearly exploding.

  She wanted to feel his skin against hers, and she surged forward, forcing them both to fall back against the dresser and lose eye contact. At the lack of it, her vision went dark for only the slightest moment before it lit up again, their love-making now etched into her mind with the same mirror-fantasy movements.

  He was engrained in her now, even without the eye contact.

  Overcome by the realization, she latched her mouth to his throat, just so she could feel his pulse with her lips.

  Bubump-bubump . . .

  Oh, to be inside him . . .

  She opened her mouth against him, scratching him with her fangs, then, too late, fearing his reaction.

  But . . . he seemed enticed, on the edge of that paradise he was searching for.

  Wanting to give it to him, she slid down his hard body while taking his jeans with her, licking his inner thighs, making him buck and groan. He threaded a hand through her loose curls.

  “You want it?” she found herself asking. “Not an exchange. Never an exchange. But—”

  “A bite,” he said through his teeth.

  “Yes.” She turned her head so that his penis skimmed her cheek. In their engrained fantasy-mirror, she got off at the ecstatic look on her face, got off on how he shivered at her touch.

  Then she pressed her lips to his length. “A simple bite,” she said, kissing, tasting. “Nothing else.”

  Because a full exchange would mean separating from Geneva, and Ginny wasn’t sure she could do that, even if the idea had entered her mind.

  His grip tightened in her hair, and she smiled against him.

  “Are you afraid, Ben?” she whispered.

  A gruff laugh answered that. “I’m beyond afraid.”

  She could see in their mirror that he wasn’t joking. His honesty took her aback, but it made her burn for him even more.

  Pushing his thighs apart, she positioned herself to take his length into her mouth. He kept his hand on her head, his grip loosening, and she could mirror-see him watching her go to work.

  She deliberately swirled her tongue around him, up to his tip, kissing him softly there. Then she made a show of running her tongue over her lips to taste the fluid that had already seeped from him. His gaze was fevered.

  She raised his erection again, dipping underneath to touch her tongue to his seam, tracing upward. He whispered a curse.

  In punishment for that, she allowed her fangs to brush him, and he groaned in excitement as well as surprise.

  “Your curses don’t sit well with me,” she said.

  “Then put a stop to them.”

  With more strength than she would’ve given a human credit for, he yanked her upward, then tore her dress away from her body until it hung in rags. He did the same to her panties, too.

  As she stood before him in only wisps of cloth and her pumps, she saw the lust . . . the utter starvation . . . on his face.

  Bu-bump, bu-bump . . .

  His heart was picking up speed again, tugging her toward him with every beat. She followed the pulsing command, climbing up to straddle him. His
tip sought the wet folds of her, and she teased him, bracing her hands on his shoulders.

  Bubump, bubump . . .

  “One taste,” she said, anticipation creeping through her with devouring heat. “Just one taste of you, Ben.”

  “Yes.” His hand tightened in her hair as he brought her to his neck.

  Bubumpbubump—

  Breathing him in, she opened her mouth, then reared back, impaling herself on his cock while striking forward and sinking her teeth into a vein.

  He grunted and dug his fingernails into her back.

  Her first true bite.

  It was too much—a rush of sensation barreling into her, within her, ripping every cell to shreds.

  At the same time, she sucked at him, churning her hips with each sip.

  Bubububububu

  His heart—his body—was priming to explode, and she wanted to ride him until he did. He tasted sweet and thick in her mouth, his blood easing down her throat and into her with red, delicious bangs that she knew he was feeling, too.

  She was in his mind, his heart, and soul.

  They moved together, flew together, caught the air as it took them up and up. Still, all the while she strained against something holding her back—

  Ben groaned and thrust into her with such force that she tore away from whatever she’d been bonded to—the something outside this room that had kept her prisoner. Geneva.

  Finally separated . . .

  At a hovering peak, she grabbed Ben’s hand and he held on to it as everything about them entwined, making it hard to see where he began and she ended.

  Then they fell, long, soft, and hard as they hit the ground.

  Withdrawing from his neck, she clawed for breath, realizing that he had climaxed at the same time, his eyes unfocused, his pupils dilated. She stroked his face, his pierced neck, and they stared at each other for what felt like hours.

  She knew why he had come into her existence tonight. Finally knew.

  With a light touch, she pressed her fingers to his bite wound, healing it, even though the effort drained her and it took much more time than a higher Underground vampire would’ve needed.

  And as their bodies calmed, the mirror faded, their mind-connection dimming.

  “I’m going to come back to you,” she whispered, leading him to the bed, “but while you wait for me, sleep, Ben.”

  He lay down and smiled, caressing her cheek, his eyes containing the look all humans found at the end of Ginny’s and Geneva’s bites.

  Absolute peace and completion.

  As he finally closed his eyes, she stood, unable to take her gaze off of him. His eyelashes fanned against rough skin, his lips slightly tipped in slumber.

  She dressed in one of Ben’s shirts, which was long enough so that she could belt it at the waist and pretend it was a dress. Then she left his room to go back to the apartment she shared with her sister, knowing she’d been severed from her twin already.

  TWELVE

  GINNY TRAVERSED THE PREDAWN STREETS SO QUICKLY that anyone she passed—a transient huddled against a store-front, a baker going to work, a doorman at his post— probably only felt a chopping breeze as she whisked by.

  Not long afterward, she came to a halt in front of her building on the west side of Central Park. Composed of gray stone and fleur-de-lis molding, its faded elegance paled against the turning night.

  She and Geneva could afford the place because of a benefactor—a former Broadway producer Geneva had chosen because she’d believed he could get them parts in a show. But his glory days had already passed, even if his vaults were still bulging with riches, so the roles had never materialized. However, he’d showered them with a lot of money, under the table and unofficially.

  Needless to say, he had died very happy, yet also very naturally five months ago, leaving the sisters in posh straits.

  On her way inside the building, Ginny nodded to the doorman, who was well-trained enough to not give her shirtdress a second glance. He didn’t even comment on her quickened breathing as she tried to shed the contented air of a vampire who’d just experienced the most mind-blowing bite of her life.

  Ben, she thought, addicted, maybe even obsessed because of this morning afterglow.

  But after getting into the elevator, with its marbled floor and golden railing, Ginny’s spirits sank. How was she going to tell her twin about Ben?

  She opened her awareness, then realized her sister had shut her down.

  Strange. Ginny would’ve expected Geneva to be eagerly awaiting her return.

  After alighting from the elevator, she walked down the hall to their apartment, opening the door quietly so as not to disturb her twin. Maybe Geneva was already at rest.

  But that wasn’t the case at all.

  At the sight that greeted her in the foyer, Ginny stumbled back against the wall.

  The black-shrouded windows kept out the near-breaking dawn, but Ginny could still discern the body her twin was feasting on, her face buried in the stomach of a young man wearing a polyester dress shirt and pants.

  At Ginny’s gasp, her sister raised her head. Blood dripped from her mouth, her fangs grisly, her eyes a metallic silver that cut through the dark. She was breathing like a beast, smiling mindlessly.

  No wonder her twin’s awareness had been dark—Geneva had entered her own little world.

  “I’m eating,” her twin said. “Just like you told me to.”

  Ginny just stared, seeing the last vestiges of the sister she’d loved disappearing forever. She’d tried so hard to stop it. So hard.

  “You killed him.” Her voice barely made it out of her throat. “Geneva, didn’t we decide it wouldn’t happen again?”

  “Maybe you don’t like that I left you out of it this time. You weren’t here for him to choose you over me.”

  Sorin’s games had warped her twin. “Gen—”

  “Or maybe you don’t like that I ignored your command and did my own thing.” Her sister cocked her head. “How does that feel, Ginny?”

  So this was a punishment because of Ben.

  Ginny slid down the wall, trying not to look at the desecrated body of Geneva’s prey. Things could’ve ended so much better with her sister. Not like . . . this.

  But what had she expected from a vampire who had grown bored with her existence and become reckless and arrogant in the pursuit of new pleasures?

  “I caught him coming out of Studio, and I brought him back here,” her twin said. “He was perfectly willing, so don’t worry.”

  “Perfectly willing to die?”

  “Yeah.” Geneva laughed. “He chased that mental orgasm. He begged me, and I allowed myself to give in also. It’s such a ridiculous rule they had Underground, to hold back from the big death.”

  Ginny scanned the bloody corpse. “You can’t keep doing this. Someone’s going to miss this man. He’s obviously not homeless.”

  A bead of blood fell from her twin’s mouth to the marble floor, splattering. “Well, don’t you always know best? The humanly older sister, the gentle one, the provider.”

  “You’re going to get caught, and I’m not going to be there to cover for you anymore.”

  Shocked loss—an instinct rather than emotion—flared in Geneva. Ginny could sense it, even if their awareness was mangled.

  “So you’re going back to that Ben Tyree.” Geneva sniffed. “I can smell him on you. You fed from him, and he . . . he changed you.”

  Ginny slumped, wanting to be honest for once, but not wanting to hurt her twin. “Gen, you and I started to go our own ways a while ago. It’s just more official now.”

  Geneva ’s eyes showed the betrayal of being left behind. “I’m not going to let you go.”

  “You have to.”

  Geneva pushed at the corpse, done with it. “We’ll always be connected, no matter how much you resist. Just like the other night, with your new pet’s brother.”

  She licked the blood around her lips, as if tasting the memory of Nola
n.

  Ginny tried not to remember any of it, but the images were too recent, too fresh.

  As if it were happening all over again, she saw the colorful crowd in front of Studio, saw Nolan Tyree and his buddies in their disheveled business suits talking their way to the front so they could get in.

  When Ginny had told Ben that she was the one who had approached his brother, it’d been to save her lover from knowing that Nolan had picked Geneva out of the crowd that night. She had been using Ginny’s name, just like they’d done for years when they wanted to shake things up, and he had merely been another drunk husband away from home—an easy and nicely attractive truffle looking for a good time.

  Since they were outside in the open, the twins had forgone entering Nolan’s mind, so Ginny had never seen him the way Ben obviously did: a golden boy. A paragon.

  When her twin had brought Nolan to Ginny, he’d lost his friends in the mob. Then they had taken him behind the club, nibbling on his skin, snacking as he indulged in sharp kisses and lots of cocaine.

  All the while he’d told them how nice it felt to be away from his wife, how he wished he could find what made all these other party people so happy.

  Geneva had told him about a place where that could happen—a pleasure house secretly located in the Bronx where they could get as happy and naughty as they wanted.

  And that’s where they had headed, even though Ginny didn’t like this new place. Some clients killed prey there, and that had always been taboo to the twins. Too risky.

  Now, in the midst of memory, Ginny recognized her sister’s awareness nudging at hers. Numb, she allowed Geneva in, shivering under an icy joining that no longer felt so natural.

  Her twin’s awareness frosted Ginny as Geneva commented on the memory in progress.

  So I see Ben doesn’t know that his brother wanted to explore the pleasure house, knowing full well what went on inside of it.

  No, he doesn’t know, Ginny answered.

  And he doesn’t know that Nolan got excited by the torture rooms . . . and even asked for that scenario himself.

  No. No.

  In Ginny’s mind, she heard how Nolan had screeched with raw delight as Geneva had restrained him, bitten him, choked him with straps until he had climaxed and asked for more.