Ravenous (Triskaidekaphilia Book 2)

by Wendy Nikel

  He smiles. The vasopressin scent grows stronger. His cheeks and collarbone are tinged pink. His cock struggles against his tight jeans. But nothing else in him struggles. He’s experiencing the nirvana I never will.

  Another towel. A slow massage with an aftershave balm. Andres’s neck is polished marble but with much more warmth. It pours into my ever-tepid fingers, brings a blush to my skin.

  His eyes blink open. I return the chair to its upright position. Andres looks past his reflection in the mirror to focus on me. His expression is searching, bewildered. For a moment I have the irrational fear that the old myths are true, and my reflection has suddenly become invisible to humans.

  But that’s not it. He sees me bright and clear. It’s obvious in the way his eyes graze my body from brows to cock.

  I have an erection, too. Strange I didn’t notice until just now.

  I grab the hand mirror and move behind the chair, so Andres can see the line of his cut. He nods approvingly. “Time to step back out into the cruel world,” I say.

  He laughs, gets up, adjusts his stance to accommodate for his erection. He doesn’t seem concerned that it might be seen. “Thanks, Keith.” He pulls a folded bill out of his pocket, and something else—a small piece of paper with a handwritten phone number.

  “What’s this?”

  Andres looks into my eyes. I feel his full height now. If I leaned forward without tipping my head, my lips would land right on his neck. His mouth crooks into a cocky half smile. He glances at my crotch. “I think you know.”

  I call Andres early that evening, before I see John again and he can talk me out of it. I can take care of myself, or at least, I ought to learn how. Aren’t vampires supposed to be solitary creatures?

  I suggest we meet at a bar. A few drinks will spoil the scent of Andres’s blood and curb my appetite. I can breathe through my mouth while I fuck him and never once be tempted to bite.

  Not every vampire hates the smell of drunkenness. John loves it. He says blood with a bit of ethanol in it tastes cleaner, more refined.

  I wasn’t exactly drunk the night we hooked up—the ill-fated night I became a vampire—but I nursed a vodka neat as I watched him alone on the dance floor, in baggy jeans and a muscle shirt, swinging his hips for no one in particular, his arms high in the air, his armpit hair showing dark against his light complexion. His skin seemed to refract the colored beams of light that shone from the ceiling. It looked as if his body glowed from the inside but without the sheen of sweat that coated the other dancers.

  John was so self-contained. I liked that about him and took it as a challenge. I gulped the last of my drink and made a beeline toward him.

  His back was turned when I got there. I slid my hands onto his hips and my chest against his spine. John was shorter than me, the opening of his ear right beneath the level of my lips. I thought about whispering something to him—a come-on, a compliment, something sweet or dirty. He pressed back into me, draping his arms around my neck and leaning far back enough to shout, “You smell amazing.”

  I couldn’t distinguish John’s scent from those of the other dancers. Everything mingled together in one erotic stench of sweat and cologne. I pressed my nose against the back of his scalp and tried to sniff out his shampoo or curl cream, but it was lost in the swirl. No matter. I was a visual and tactile guy back then, and John was a feast for both those senses.

  He swayed his ass against my groin. I was already hard but grew harder as he moved purposefully up and down my length. Good. We were thinking the same thing.

  I let my hands wander, one over his chest and the other over the front of his fly. The baggy pants left his size up to the imagination, but now I felt it, heavy and solid, almost twice as long as my palm was wide.

  “You’re a good dancer.” John arched into me as I gave his cock a firm squeeze.

  “Let’s see how long we can make this dance last.”

  His head fell back onto my shoulder. “Before we have to go somewhere else, you mean?”

  I nodded against the side of his face and slipped my hand beneath his loose waistband.

  I suppose it shouldn’t seem like such a revelation to touch a man’s cock. With few exceptions, they’re all made from the same mold, varying only a little in size and weight and texture, foreskin or no foreskin. An erection is an erection. And yet it’s always a surprise, especially that first time, as if I’ve never touched a cock before.

  John swayed up and down through the loose ring of my hand, his skin smooth and velvety as moleskin, cooler than I’d expected but growing warmer with each churn of our hips. His cock grew denser and thicker by the moment, his foreskin retracting as it swelled. I fucked into the tight space between our bodies, slow gentle thrusts meant to tease me as much as him.

  His cock began to leak. His precum was more viscous than mine usually was. It clung like a bead at his slit until I caught it with my thumb and spread it over his glans and the inner layer of his foreskin. The word fuck fell from his lips, half shout and half laughter. He spun around in my arms and looked up at me, panting. “I could drink you alive.”

  “Please do.” I leaned into John, my mouth open before it even met his. He tugged my tongue between his lips, kissed me so hard our teeth mashed together. I remember thinking he tasted the way grass and earth smell after rain, lush and sweet, and that this was what it must feel like to be devoured.

  We stumbled backward off the dance floor—or rather I moved backward while John pushed forward like the rear engine of a freight train. We never separated our mouths for more than a breath at a time, a quick glance to make sure the floor wasn’t about to disappear from under us and that we were headed in the general direction of the men’s room.

  We crashed into the stall. I don’t have any memory of who undid whose pants or how our shirts ended up over the hook on back of the stall door. But I do remember running my hands over John’s chest, how his skin seemed even whiter under the fluorescent lights, how even his nipples were pale and without a hint of pink, like sun-bleached desert sand. I ran my fingers over them, and they colored slightly, the centers going erect.

  I wondered if he was albino but thought it would be rude to ask and then remembered his hair wouldn’t be so dark if he was. It didn’t matter. He was gorgeous and otherworldly, and I was achingly hard. All I cared about was getting off, preferably with him.

  John moved his kisses from my mouth to my neck as he worked his hand over my cock. My tip was leaking now, too—thin, watery precum that glided easily down my shaft. I worked over him at a matching speed, slowing down only when I felt too close to coming, coaxing him into a gentler pace. This was the hottest hookup I’d had in ages, and I wanted it to last longer than ninety seconds.

  His mouth on my neck was exquisite: long tonguing licks as if I were a dish to savor, then succulent kisses, followed by tentative sucks. I moaned my approval, and he sucked harder, pulling the skin into his mouth, curling his lips back until the flats of his teeth pressed against my flesh. My neck throbbed with arousal, became even more sensitive than my dick.

  I felt it when John pricked me open. It was painful, yes, but the kind of pain you lean into instead of flinch from. Not that I’m a masochist, but I know the erotic power of a good nipple tug or a sharp spank. I had a vague awareness of the irony, that what we were doing with our dicks was safe sex and what he was doing with his mouth was not. But I reasoned that the sharpness of his teeth had only made it feel like a prick, when in fact he couldn’t have broken the skin. It couldn’t possibly have felt this good if he had.

  I egged him on, murmuring words I’d normally use with someone giving me a blow job. “Harder. Suck me dry.” I continued the chant even as I noticed the first rivulet of blood descending my chest.

  I’d heard of vampires before. Didn’t believe in them. Didn’t have any idea what was going on and didn’t care. My balls were tight, my dick starting to spasm.

  “You’re delicious,” John whispered against my s
kin and then bit me again.

  I shot into his hand, but my dick wasn’t where the orgasm was centered. It was in my neck, radiating a pleasure so transcendent it seemed to spill beyond my body and make the air around me vibrate. Power poured from me. I was intoxicated, ecstatic, giddy, weak.

  I collapsed.

  Andres is standing at the bar when I get there, sipping something red from a small glass. Whatever it is hasn’t hit his circulatory system yet.

  I touch him on the shoulder. “What are you having? I’ll order you another one.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. A guy can only drink so much cranberry juice.”

  “A beer then? Or a gin and tonic? I think that’s what I’m getting.”

  “Nah, I don’t drink alcohol. I’ll switch to water.”

  I get the same sensation as when a car screeches to a sudden halt, the sharp squeal of tires piercing into the roots of my teeth and each knob of my spine. “AA?” I say because if Andres is an alcoholic I might at least be able to seduce him into a few drops.

  “Allergic to it, actually. Makes me break out in hives.”

  I take a deep breath to keep from panicking. Yes, vampires breathe. “You should have told me. We could have done something else.”

  Andres’s mouth twists into a lopsided smile. “I guess. But to be honest, I don’t really care about the date. It’s the after-party I’m interested in.”

  “You don’t think that’ll ruin our professional relationship?”

  “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  “Is this why we have a professional relationship? All this time you’ve been coming to the shop, you’ve been feeling me out? Should I feel stalked?” I brush my hand over his biceps to signal I’m only teasing.

  Andres looks at his empty glass, his thoughts churning so loudly I can almost hear them. “Yes and no. I mean, I always thought you were…” he looks me in the eyes now, “…hot. But that was just an observation, like the sky being blue or the grass green. It wasn’t a… a thing for me until last summer.”

  “Oh?”

  “You changed.”

  It’s not the first time someone’s commented on my transformation, even if they don’t know what it means. Odd that Andres would have liked it, though. I was in a constant temper last summer, and though I tried to save the worst for John, it bled into the rest of my existence. “For the better?”

  He nods and leans in close, his eyes so near to mine I can hardly focus. I can smell the blood vessels at the surface of his eyes and skin, the tiny capillaries that make his lips dark and the inside of his eyelids pink. “It was the way you shaved me. It started to feel more… charged. Erotic.”

  “Oh?”

  Andres steps closer. His hand is on my hip, his body so close I can feel its blood-heat. Each word he speaks puffs the warm taste of iron and ocean into my mouth. “Dangerous. Like you couldn’t decide whether to shave or devour me.”

  “Is being devoured so dangerous?”

  “The way you want to devour me? I think it could be.”

  Andres has me rock-hard. But he has no idea what he’s saying. He’s thinking BDSM—some rough role-play, whips and bondage, perhaps being flogged until he comes. There are limits in BDSM. There’s no limit when it comes to the things I want to do to him.

  I make a break for the door. I’m not three strides away when his hand comes around my arm. He’s stronger than me. I stop.

  Andres looks over his shoulder, eyeing the other patrons as if they have any awareness of us, and then turns back to me when he’s satisfied our conversation is our own. “You want to, though, don’t you? To hurt me? To cut me?”

  I stare at him. My dead heart pounds. Our desires aren’t so incompatible after all.

  “I’m negative. For everything. I can show you the results. Or you can come with me to the clinic. Or use gloves. Whatever. But—”

  “Yes.”

  Andres startles back. “What?”

  “Yes.” My hunger hits me like a tsunami. “Tonight.”

  We go to Andres’s apartment. A small paring knife lies in an open box on the nightstand. There are scars under his shirt: a pale hairline beneath his left pec, a crooked V above his right nipple, a curve like a smile beneath his navel.

  I trace my fingers over them. “Someone cut too deep.”

  “No. Just deep enough.” Andres stretches out naked on the bed. He’s beautiful, his golden skin turning pink in places, his fat cock purple. I can smell his blood everywhere. It feels like it’s already entering me through my lungs.

  If only that were enough.

  I strip naked and take his cock in my hand. Andres hasn’t asked for that, but I want it—to feel the heat of it, the lifeblood pumping through it. Also, I haven’t gotten laid since that night John turned me. There’s that.

  “I need to get you off,” I say. “That’s part of it for me. Not just pain, but pleasure.”

  “Cut me first. Anywhere it won’t show.”

  “Just once.” If I don’t put a limit on it now, I won’t be able to later.

  I take the knife from the box. I’ve never done this before, but it’s not much different than playing with a razor. I drag it like one over his body as I search for the perfect spot.

  “Such a tease,” Andres whispers.

  “You’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Might as well make it last.” What I mean is that I’ve been waiting a long time. Funny how it seems like a lifetime, when it’s only been since my death.

  He grows harder the longer I taunt him. The tip of his cock glistens. Mine does, too. I press it against his thigh as I hone in on the spot where his blood calls to me the loudest: right below his collarbone, halfway between his sternum and shoulder.

  Andres senses the change in my intentions and nods.

  I don’t draw the blade deep, don’t try to carve a memory like other hands have left behind. It’s the blood I want, not the injury. If I could get it without piercing him, I would.

  He lets out a sharp moan of pain-pleasure when I break through his skin. His eyes go wide and glassy, the way saints look in pictures when they’re visited by angels. A globule of blood bubbles to the surface. I can taste it even before it’s on my tongue.

  Andres cries out when I kiss his wound, his back arching off the bed. His blood feels like an orgasm on my tongue. My mouth floods with pleasure. The sensation radiates down my throat as I swallow, into my stomach, through my groin. I suck harder, take in more. I’m dizzy with power and arousal. My dick throbs.

  I take him in my fist, stroking in time with the beating of his heart. He writhes under me, shouting and sobbing, murmuring yes yes yes as he fucks into my hand and I draw more of his life to the surface.

  It’s not enough.

  I’m not even conscious of biting through Andres’s skin, don’t notice the friction of his vibrating flesh against my teeth until the quality of his shouts changes. His blood pours into my mouth so fast I can’t swallow it all. His life enters me in earnest while something just as powerful and all-consuming coalesces in the roots of my teeth, building a pressure like the one in my balls, with the same sort of striving toward ecstasy. It’s the distillation of my being, struggling to get out.

  “Stop!” The terror in Andres’s yell is unmistakable. I tell myself it’s all part of the game. He knees me in the balls.

  It takes two whacks before I really feel it. I suppose being departed deadens my sensations. But three is more than I can handle. I’m on the floor, pain wrenching my balls and twisting my gut. I’m going to vomit, or shit, or pass out.

  Andres stands above me, blood trickling down his chest in seductive runnels. He whacks me in the balls again. “What’s wrong with you, motherfucker? That was not part of the plan!”

  I haven’t cried since John changed me. Forgot vampires could. But here I am, curled up like a fetus, tears streaking down my cheeks as hot as Andres’s blood.

  I’ve never seen John look shocked before. He
looks shocked now. “What did you do then?”

  “I left as soon as I could walk. He didn’t even give me time to put my clothes on or wipe the blood off my face. Not that I can blame him.” I sink back into John’s couch. I dressed in Andres’s hallway and ran all the way here, block after block, my panic transforming into elation. I have that sense of satisfaction I get when I’ve been working on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle for weeks and the solution comes to me in a sweep, my brain clicking the pieces together faster than my hands. I feel alive for the first time in a year.

  “I can,” says John. “Blame him, I mean.”

  It’s such a ridiculous thing to say I can’t help but laugh. “Oh really?”

  “He asked you to drink his blood. What did he expect?”

  “In his defense, I don’t think he had any idea about vampires.”

  “Still. It’s not like you were planning to kill him. Or turn him.”

  My laughter dissipates. “No. Not planning. But…”

  John’s eyes go wider. “You’re fucking with me. You weren’t— You didn’t—”

  I’m almost amused he can’t say the words. Does he find it that hard to believe I could succumb to the same impulses that overpowered him?

  Of course, not even a day ago, I was under the same illusion.

  “I felt it, John, trying to get out of me and into him. I wanted it to. I wouldn’t have stopped it.”

  John looks at me a long time. I don’t look away. His eyes grow brighter in the low light of the table lamp. I keep forgetting how beautiful they are, as blue as a clear winter sky. I used to love that sky.

  He blinks, but it doesn’t keep a tear from dampening the lower lashes of his left eye. Its scent evokes hyacinths. “I’m sorry, Keith. I really am.” He pats my knee.

  “I know.” I put my hand on top of his. It’s not hot like Andres’s. It’s the same temperature as mine, tepid like the couch and the air around us. Our aromas mingle. They go well together. I close my eyes and inhale. The scent hits some long-neglected center of my brain.