Yet, sex is all I’m able to give her.
“Let me walk you to your car.” I smooth a loose hair from her eyes and tuck it behind her ear. I’m sending her away quite disheveled and I love it.
We walk in companionable silence with only the autumn breeze and steady thump of her heart to break the nighttime quietude for me. The annoying chirp of that car fob is now a sound I hate, since it means she’ll soon be out of my grasp.
“So, I’ll see you next week,” she says coyly, tossing her bags across the center console into the passenger seat.
The idea of spending the next six days away from her launches a twitching fit in my lower back. I step closer and my hands skim her shoulders.
“Is there a chance I can see you before next week? We once again didn’t really go over anything from my class.”
“It’s the middle of the semester.” Her eyebrows cinch together. “Papers to grade, all that. I don’t have an assistant.”
I stifle a growl. “But you’ll come back next week?”
“Just try to keep me away.” She leans into my hold and kisses my cheek. “Your classes are fascinating.”
I let slip a bark of laughter. “My classes, huh? Well then, I’m sure you’ll be thrilled with what I have planned for next week.”
She smiles. “Thrilled, huh?”
I can’t let her go with just a kiss on the cheek. My free hand holds her chin and I brush my lips over hers, enjoying their velvety texture. “Goodnight, Elizabeth.”
“Goodnight, Alexander.”
I reluctantly let her go, but only because my erection is back and if I keep her any longer I’ll want to fuck her in the back seat of her car.
She gets in and when she drives off I fight the urge to follow her.
I’m still not sure what to do with this woman.
Grunting, I get in my car. I intend to stalk her through the trees behind her house every night until next Wednesday while I try to figure this shit out.
Chapter 9
I’m not a vampire.
I can die a lot easier than losing gallons of blood, getting my head chopped off or being doused with flames.
Alex’s crude words from last night enter my mind as I slam on my brakes because the car in front of me stopped. In the middle of the road! I watched the ass end of a car grow dangerously large in my windshield. Sadly, it wasn’t the first time I drifted off today.
In my classroom this afternoon, two students were in the middle of a screaming match before I even noticed. Did Alex do something last night to keep me in this suspended state of mindless bliss?
The workload that spills out of my tote bag in the seat next to me means I need to focus tonight. Annie gratefully understands when I say, Mommy has a lot of homework and gives me my space. Will my brain cooperate, though and put Dr. Manning and his impressive anatomy, and skills, out of my mind long enough to grade all those papers?
I check the time on my dashboard as I turn onto my street. Ten minutes to spare before Annie’s bus arrives. Just enough time to get in the house, change and pee. As I pull into my driveway, my dad immediately drives up behind me. Good thing I have a strong bladder.
“Hey, you,” I say while I get out of my car. “Can’t get enough of us, huh?”
“Never,” he answers with a smile. For a man in his sixties he’s still quite handsome. It makes me wonder if he has any casual lady friends. He lives in a nice house, keeps it clean and neat, and has a great sense of humor. Plus, his teaching pension is impressive. “Annie mentioned a report she has due by the end of the week, but she didn’t have her books last night.”
I stop dead in my tracks and think I missed her telling me this. The guilt worsens when I remember I didn’t even see her today. What’s causing all of this brain fog?
“Are you all right?” My dad stands closer to me, but I didn't see him move. “You feel warm and you’re flushed. I hope you’re not relapsing.”
“No, I feel fine.” I shake my head and step toward the front door. “This time in the semester there’s just a lot going on.”
“I know what that’s like.” He holds the screen door open for me, but turns his head toward the street. “Oh, there’s the bus, I’ll go get her.”
“No!” I whip around. To ease my startled father, I touch his hand. “I’ll do it. You’re helping me so much already.”
I toss my bags in a heap near the front door, tug my jacket closed, and rush to the curb. The hot diesel fumes hit me like a whack in the face. The door opens and I force a smile to that skeevy driver.
“Hi. How are you?” I have no idea what his name is, nor do I want to know.
“I'm good now,” he answers with a creepy grin.
Come on, Annie Kastner. I rock on my heels, putting my eyes anywhere but on the driver. The hand on my back startles me. My first thought is Alex, but it’s my father.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, she usually sits in the back.” I notice the driver peers at my father with a frown.
“Grandpa!” Annie cries out and hurries down the steps to hop off the bus.
“Thank you,” I say to the driver with a disapproving tone and spin on my heels. I catch up to Annie and my dad. “Um. I was there too if you didn’t notice.”
We get in the house and slog through the typical, just got home, chaos.
I turn to my dad. “Are you staying for dinner?”
He puts his hands in his pockets. “Depends. Whatcha makin’?”
“I took some chicken out this morning.”
“Have any salsa?” he asks.
“I think so.”
“Cheese?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Yes.”
He rubs his hands together. “How about I make us some of my spicy chicken enchiladas?”
“Sounds yummy!” Annie passes us to put her books on the kitchen table.
“Indeed.” I spin around and head for the stairs to change.
It’s probably better I don’t cook tonight. I’m so distracted, I’ll probably light the house on fire.
After a delicious dinner, I send my dad and Annie to the living room to work on her cloud report while I clean up, grateful for a few minutes on my own to think.
When I check my phone again, my lips quirk up into a smile. Another text from Alex. I can see these messages eventually will lead to lewd sexting. Still, with everything going on his life, the fact that he takes the time to reach out to me is a nice to change to the emptiness I endured since my divorce.
“Everything all right?” My dad sneaks up behind me to refill his iced tea from the pitcher in the fridge.
“Yep.” I put the phone away. “That was really good chicken. I’ll have to remember the recipe.”
“It’s easy enough to make.” He finishes his pour and tilts his head at me. It’s his ‘thinking’ face.
I saw it enough growing up to be on my toes. “What is it?”
“You look different.” He puts his cup down and steps closer. “I don’t know. There’s a glow about you.”
I bring my hands to my face. “Really?” My bounds of happiness and inner giddiness show? Crap.
He whispers, “Are you pregnant?”
The cackle I release couldn’t be any louder. Slapping his chest, I say, “Trust me, that is impossible.”
~ ~ ~
The conversation with Elizabeth last night plays in my head again and again, as I drive home from work.
The way she came back at me the other night too, challenging my logic why I shouldn’t be involved with her. She’ll make excuses for me. Protect me. I must have given her the impression I’m vulnerable.
Maybe I am. I can kill many humans, but alone I’m not enough to overpower them in large nu
mbers.
Why is she so willing to be involved with me? Risk her life to be with me? I take off my jacket and settle into my home office where the second half of my day commences. Damn it, though. That woman perplexes me and my thoughts taunt me as the evening crawls by.
I’m so agitated that venom slithers through me and my brain is unable to control it. The need to see Elizabeth brings out the beast I really am. Tickles the unreachable itch I cannot scratch. Is this what being with her will be like? Minutes of gentle touches followed by hours of longing to hunt her down?
A force beyond my control puts me back in my car and I drive to Elizabeth’s side of town. I park several blocks away this time, since she knows my Benz.
It’s a moonless night, dark and the air is heavy with a layer of mist all around me. Scanning the emptiness behind her house, I take off into the rough terrain and run because it calms me.
After a few miles, I pick up a strange scent. I skid to a stop, scraping the bottoms of my expensive shoes. I see nothing, but somewhere in these woods, something is being stalked beyond the trees. Hunting.
My instincts guide me to the smell. I stretch my fingers, dislocating my knuckles to form claws. It’s painful but the venom eases it. A tall shadow appears several feet away and stretches through the clearing. I stop for a moment and think of Loren, who stands well over six feet. I can’t imagine him hunting in the New Jersey wilderness.
Probably a black bear. I run back in the opposite direction. Many of those filthy beasts roam these woods. This state is crawling with them. Dangerous and bored. A terrible combination. That disgusting scent is everywhere. I stumbled upon a few here and there, mostly females who just birthed cubs. They’re particularly vicious. No. What I smelled is not a bear. I can’t imagine a human—
My thoughts go cold and a hot rage zips through my veins.
Vampire.
Leaning against the iron fence. Watching Elizabeth’s house.
Like he’s transfixed on her scent. The same way I was. My worst nightmare materializes before me. He lifts a leg to climb the fence. No. No. No! I square my shoulders and burst toward him. With fists drawn, I call up to the surface the strength I suppress every day not to snap glass blood vials in half or crush patients’ wrists.
I’m only a few feet away when the vampire turns and sees me. I know all of the creatures in Francisco’s allegiant. This monster isn’t one of them. I will enjoy beating him senseless for crossing into our state without permission. He climbs down and is poised to strike. Rushing all my weight against him, I send us flying into a wide tree trunk.
Bones crunch. His. I pull him back toward me, ready to question him, but his wide eyes drift over my shoulder. A razor-sharp claw slices into my back. I whirl around in agony to find a bear, tall, black, smelly. This one’s a male and he is pissed the fuck off.
It lunges at me and without anything to stop us, we go down. Growling his terrible hot breath at me blows back my hair. With his full weight upon me, I feel a rib crack. He lifts a claw to strike, but I kick him away. I straighten my spine so when the bones heal, it’ll be clean.
The vampire tackles me from behind. Great, I have to fight both these fuckers?
This is not the quiet evening, watching Elizabeth, I planned. I can rocket away from the area, but the vampire will go back to his devices and possibly attack Elizabeth.
I deploy a tactic, I don’t use often. I close my eyes and begin prodding through his thoughts.
The vampire holds his head and screams. Loudly. Slippery strands of red hair shake as he whips his head around.
Loren slips into the mind like a cat burglar, winds in and out of the electromagnetic fields of the brain with his powers leaving a slight tickle. He had a thousand years to practice. I refrain from the gift so my methods are raw and by the way this vampire howls, it must feel like I’m shredding the muscles and capillaries to pieces.
Like a bull in a china shop, I search for his motivation. A face flashes from his mind to mine. Christiana. Philadelphia’s second-in-command. She sent this vampire, Gaston, not to watch Elizabeth, but to find me. Oh God. Anything but that. Anyone but her.
Jesus, my scent must be so strong around here it led a vampire to Elizabeth before finding me.
No. That’s not possible. He must want to find some form of weakness against me.
What the fuck could Christiana possibly want with me after all this time? Gaston is still in agony and I leave his mangled brain. The bear, sensing a weakened opponent, changed its course and now trudges straight for the vampire.
Shit!
I freeze the scene for a moment, something else I’m not very good at. It allows me to see all angles. Based on my trajectory, if I run straight for the bear, we will end up on top of the vampire giving it an easy kill stroke. I need this vampire alive.
With only seconds to think, I marshal my concentration toward the beast and lift it into the air. It roars with fear I can smell. I don’t want to hurt it, but bears don’t give up too easily. I need to get it far away from here. I know there’s a clearing several meters away where I can send it flying through the air. That should give me a chance to get to that vampire so I can question him.
When I find him again, however, he’s on his feet. Watching me. Suspending the bear. With my mind.
Fuck!
His face twists in confusion and I enter his mind again, but that causes me to drop the bear. I don’t use these ghastly powers and have little control or finesse. The vampire zips off. The image of me standing in the field with my gaze on the bear, keeping it afloat in the air is planted firmly in his mind.
As well as how he plans to tell Christiana the secret I kept even from Loren. I do have similar powers as he does.
No need to chase after him now. Considering he’s headed back toward the Pennsylvania border, I’m satisfied Elizabeth is not in immediate danger.
However, I am.
By the time I make it back to my house, the gashes the bear sliced into me are healed and I’m covered in dried blood. Before showering I study myself in the mirror.
I’m so fucked.
Chapter 10
Like the previous Wednesday, as soon as I step onto the landing of the Princeton lecture hall, Alexander’s head snaps up in my direction.
With his broad shoulders and soft hair feathering against his collar, he appears to be more handsome than last week.
A charcoal suit jacket hangs from the back of the desk chair. Matching slacks hide the long muscular legs I only got a glimpse of last time. Maybe tonight I’ll be allowed to explore his glorious body more thoroughly.
I nod at his glance, but his fleeting smile is deadened by long stares into his textbook, the class, and not at me. As if I’m not even in the room, he sails through the lesson. His brilliance and eloquent speech and how he talks so passionately about biology captivates me like last time. The only critique I have is that he speaks with such amazement about the human body it reeks a little of envy. Only someone who knows his secret would pick up on that.
Before I know it, it’s eight o’clock. As suspected, the line of girls forms even though he reminded everyone again at the start of class he wouldn’t be available. Except this time, he takes questions.
This perplexes me. Is it more stalling? Has he lost interest in me since our last text?
I sink into a pit of relief. Getting involved with a vampire must be replete with complications. I’m better off if he doesn’t want me. Right? Right. The ache of his possible rejection is momentarily soothed and I muster the energy to stand. I just hope my damn legs will even allow me to leave.
“Ready?” Alexander’s shadow crosses my desk and startles me.
I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t see him climb the carpeted stairs.
“Yes.” I gather my things.
My vampire is unusually quiet as we walk to his office. The comparisons from last week alarm me. His hand had rested on my back and I leaned into him. Tonight, he’s way ahead of me and after the ‘Ready’, he’s not said another word.
Either I will be pounced on the second we step inside his office, or something is wrong. At the door, he steps aside and lets me enter first, maintaining that achingly painful distance between our bodies. I’m not sure how much time Alex actually spends inside this office, but the scent of his skin and clothes is mixed in with the intense heat of the steam pipes and it’s damn near overwhelming.
I stop in the middle of the sweltering room and wait to feel his cool body against mine, but nothing happens. In an instant, he is behind his desk.
I drop my bags on the chair across from his desk. “That’s rather unnerving.” While I find that flying through time thing quite annoying, I can’t help but wonder what it feels like.
“Sorry,” he says softly but he still doesn’t look at me.
Something is wrong.
Even if I were here for some other reason, for him to fiddle with papers while someone waits is rude. Curling my fingers around the strap of my work bag, I ask, “Um, Alex, do you want me to just send you my notes?”
When he doesn’t answer or even bother to glance at me, I move toward the door.
Somewhere, I must have misread something. This time last week, I was writhing in pleasure on his couch. Vampire or no vampire, men can be fickle. And they say women change their minds a lot.
“I’ll see you next week, Alex,” I say calmly even though I’m crushed as hell and suspect I won’t see him again.
With my head held high, my fingers brush the knob before settling fully around it. I give him one last chance to stop me, but he says nothing, so I turn the handle to open the door. The air in the room crackles with electricity and after a loud whooshing sound, Alex lands behind me slapping the door closed.
Drawing Bloodlines (The Princeton Allegiant Series Book 1) Page 8