She glanced aside at the open closet door, the pillows still visible on the floor. The edges were sharp. She checked her memory of what he’d said. It seemed clear enough. And now that he held her, the queasy feeling abated.
His arms were warm, strong but gentle. His lips brushing her forehead sent thrills coursing through her whole body. She buried her nose in his shoulder and just wanted.
The intensity of that unheralded desire was a shock. It was so different from anything she’d ever felt before that she hardly recognized it for what it was before it was too late. She pulled back, and was not quite surprised when he let her go. “What if I say no?”
“Would you do that, Gabby? I ask so little. I would not leave you weakened. You’d be strong and ready for your trip.”
“How do I know that?” But the cards had given no indication of real evil. And even now, the fog of perception he had used to force her to protect him was not in evidence.
“My word is not sufficient?”
“After the way you’ve forced me to help you, and prevented me from asking for the help I need—”
“Gabby, we have laws among our kind. If I had not silenced you, they’d hunt me down and kill me for endangering all of us. I had no choice in what I did to you. I’ve only a little choice now. Refuse me, and I will leave and take my chances.”
“You mean, find someone else?”
“There’s one thing I’ve discovered recently. I much prefer volunteers.”
It was the slickest manipulative pitch she’d ever heard.
He moved in close again and stroked her cheek before she could shrink back. Sensation suffused her whole being and she groaned deep in her throat. His finger outlined her lips and she couldn’t help tilting her head up to him. His touch trailed down her neck to her open collared shirt, then hesitated, asking permission.
Despite herself, she leaned into the touch, giving permission. She couldn’t have denied herself at that moment to save her life. She no longer cared if she died, she had to have what he promised.
His perfectly groomed fingernail slid over the outside of her bra, toyed with her nipple until her whole breast ached and then welcomed his hand as it worshiped the weight of it. “You see,” he murmured into her ear, “there is much I have to offer in reward. And I ask so little.”
She wanted to claw at him, climb onto him, force him not to stop now.
He pushed away, holding her at arm’s length, his eyes meeting hers. “I am so hungry.”
It was artless, the conflicts tearing at him so near the surface that she could see them. She pushed her own desire down and asked, “What do you want to do, bite my neck?”
He grimaced, his sensuous mouth making a straight line as he shook his head, loosed her arms, and picked up his jacket. The inside pocket yielded a Ziplock bag with a tourniquet and some sealed packages of disposable needles, the kind used to collect blood donations. He held the bag for her to see. “Nothing so dramatic. A couple of glassfuls will suffice.”
She stared at the prosaic tools and for the first time really believed she was dealing with a true vampire, not legend, myth, maniac, or disease victim, but the real thing, the fact behind the fiction. And the world remained clear around her. That, more than anything, convinced her.
She had felt his power to coerce, and a moment ago had been thoroughly seduced by an equally powerful force. Yet still he held back, asking.
“Well, all right, just this once.” she answered his silence. “But never again.”
“If that’s the way you want it to be, then that’s the way it will be.”
“What do I have to do?”
He took her into the kitchen where she sat at the table with her arm out while he tied the tourniquet, thumped the vein like a professional, swabbed the skin and inserted the needle. She had to look away as her blood, deep red, dripped into a jelly glass. Her arm was cold. Her back hurt.
His hand spread over the ache in her back and rubbed, making a delicious warm spot. “Not much longer now,” he crooned, and she could hear the barely restrained greed in him. “There!” The needle was gone with a cold sting of alcohol, and the tourniquet released with an audible snap. He was gone before she turned her head back.
Her arm was crooked up around the alcohol swab. The needle had been deposited in the trash. “They’ll think I’m an addict!” she muttered without real panic.
She bared her elbow to look at the wound. What have I done? Fed a vampire? But he wasn’t the legendary kind, the kind supposed to be Evil and Undead. He was just a man with strange needs and even stranger powers.
If she had cold-shouldered Titus outside the Halloween party house, he wouldn’t have been there to save her life. If she hadn’t gone to the party, she wouldn’t have needed her life saved, but she would probably have lost her job. Yet, that’s just where she was now anyway, jobless.
There was no sound from the living room. Thinking he might have just left, she got up and went to the door. The bathroom door was closed, and water was running. She hadn’t actually seen him drink. He could have flushed it all down the toilet. The whole thing might have been some sort of charade.
Then she remembered how she’d tried to clean the stage makeup off of his face last night. That pasty whiteness was his natural complexion. And he was no albino. In fact, the albinos she knew had a lovely translucence to their skin. Titus looked like he was wearing zinc oxide coating all over his body.
She was about to turn back into the kitchen hoping he’d just leave now when the bathroom door opened. He had stripped and re-donned her robe, and as he moved toward her there was no doubt in her mind that he had drunk the blood and it had restored him to vitality as it would only to a vampire.
She couldn’t say what it was about him, exactly, but he appeared more robust, calmer, stronger. He glided toward her now, and only by contrast could she see that before, his gait had been hesitant, shuffling, as if he were in pain. Now, he exuded controlled power.
His arms came around her and before she knew what had happened, she was in his arms, cradled against his chest as if she weighed no more than ninety pounds. “Did you think I’d forgotten my promise?” he breathed as he tilted her through the narrow bedroom door and gently set her on the bed.
His mouth covered hers, eager and willing, yet hesitant, asking permission. His whole attention seemed to be on her, seeking to learn what she wanted. Never had a man approached her this way before. All at once, the aching returned to her breasts.
From there a warm flush spread to everything else he touched. There was no mistaking his own intense arousal, but it seemed merely a reflection of her own, escalating at every thrilling stroke of his sensuous fingers. With tentative, dancing touches, those lithe fingers opened her clothing and began peeling it away, an inch at a time.
When he unhooked her bra, she gasped and he stopped. Then, slowly, he leaned down and kissed her again, silently stating his case. Deep inside, she knew this was her last chance to say no. She didn’t want to, but she knew it would be prudent.
He shifted his weight until the physical evidence of her effect on him throbbed against her thigh. His right hand came to rest on her groin, perfectly still as if he’d forgotten what he touched as his whole attention focused on her lips and tongue.
She had never been so aroused in her whole life. She was dimly aware she was being seduced, but the experience seemed more important than any other consideration. After all, he wasn’t forcing her. The edges of the world were still clear. It was her own decision, and she wasn’t going to deny herself something this special.
She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back. His right hand began to move, and she realized that until that moment, she hadn’t even begun to be aroused.
It went on for a very long time, longer than any man had ever spent on her before. Never once did she feel she had to hurry or miss out completely. It was almost as if he enjoyed simply being aroused as much as she did.
As the tensi
on mounted and mounted, she began to wonder if he was incapable in some fashion. She worked one hand down between them and began to repay the intimate caresses.
He gasped, paused, and melted into her touch with a groan. She had him in total surrender. If that was what she wanted. She could pick the position and the time. No man had ever let her do that before. Still, his knowledge and skill outstripped her own by so much, she’d always wonder what she’d missed. “Go on,” she whispered. “Do it. Your way.”
Panting, he encircled her hand with his own and gently removed himself from her grip. “Not yet, Gavriella. You’re capable of so much more.” His hands and lips began another detailed study of her whole body, front and back, and ended with her feet, where attention centered and deepened.
Just when she thought she couldn’t stand it any more, he moved up to lie beside her, then eased over her and entered without any help. Pure orchestrated sensation rose in every shred of her being. His lips covered hers once more, and gently, carefully, he teased her to the absolute apex, a condition she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams, a state no romance writer had ever evoked for her with the purplest prose.
Then it happened to both of them, simultaneously. But, in that ineffable, unspeakable moment, she felt his seed flood out from him onto her thigh.
The golden glory was tarnished, but still the greatest experience of her life. It became even greater when he didn’t simply roll aside and begin to snore. He stayed with her, petting and stroking, thanking her body, appreciating it as much now as when he’d wanted something from her.
This must be what it’s like to be loved.
By the light of the street lamps, she could see the same wonder reflected in his eyes.
When he eased himself to her side, and propped himself on one elbow to toy with her hair, she breathed, “Why! Why didn’t you finish it right?”
He kissed her. “Neither of us could afford any unwanted complications. I didn’t think you were protected.”
“I’m not.” She had taken that into account when she’d acquiesced, but at the time it had seemed a reasonable risk. Actually, she realized, it wasn’t. “Still....”
Suddenly, his arms were around her again, and he whispered into her ear, “Gabby, I can’t tell you what you’ve given me. You’ve opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me. I promise, when this is all over, I’ll look you up again, and if it’s what you want then, you will have it just the way you want it.”
“You won’t be able to find me,” she mumbled, her whole body and mind unraveling into deep relaxation.
“Don’t worry about that.”
He stroked her back, and she tumbled into sleep feeling more safe and protected than she had ever felt before. The entire experience had redefined what sex was about for her, and now she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Would any man ever measure up again?
Some undefined time later, she woke, aware she’d been asleep only by the fact that she was waking. She was alone in bed, the pillows restored for her comfort. It was still pitch dark outside, but she’d packed her alarm clock so she had no idea what time it was.
No light came through the crack under the living room door, but she heard Titus moving about. She didn’t want him to leave like that, so she got up, found her robe neatly folded at the foot of the bed with her clothes. She flung the robe on and tucked the bundle of clothes into the crook of her arm, intending to shower and dress, then leave. She should have gotten them both out of there at sundown.
In the living room, by the streetlight, she found Titus just cinching up the waist of the borrowed brown pants using a strip torn from the black cummerbund he’d been wearing. Everything hung on him like a sack, but at least he was decent.
She crossed to him. “I wanted to say thank you.”
“Oh, no, it is I who should—” He broke off, whirling toward the door in a crouch. “Gabby, get dressed!”
“What—“
“Do it!” He flitted across the floor and plastered himself to the wall beside the door, one ear pressed to it as if listening. The street light picked out planes and shadows on his lean features.
Heart pounding, she skinned into her underwear and pulled her clothes on, shoving her feet into a pair of running shoes she’d left under the sofa.
Titus nodded. “It’s him. Get your coat. I have to get you out of here.”
He pulled open the closet door beside the bathroom, but that was the linen closet. She grabbed a fleece lined jacket from the shelf under the table where she kept her purse, slung her purse over her head and slid one arm through the strap. “Who is it, the killer vampire?”
“No. My father. Let’s go!”
She started for the door, but he took her arm and swung her around. “No! This way.”
He had the living room window open and was outside, standing on the roof of the porch with his hand out to her before she knew how he’d done it. She’d often contemplated using the roof as a fire escape, but it was almost a two story drop to the ground from the bottom of the slanted roof.
She closed her jacket over her purse, which contained everything of real value, including her mother’s check. She’d long ago concluded that she was going to be running for her life, and somehow, she trusted Titus, even if he did have a facetious streak. His father! Really!
With one hand gripping her wrist and the other her elbow, he somehow levered her out of the window. Then he paused to close the window and plastered himself against the side of the building pulling Gabby up beside him.
She held her breath as a shadow flitted through a distant, neighboring yard. It was a very tall, reed slender figure. It disappeared between two houses, heading for the back yards.
Meanwhile, a car purred to a stop at the end of the block and double parked. Four men got out, shutting the doors very quietly. Gabby clutched at Titus’s arm as the men started toward them.
Titus breathed into her ear, “Where’s your car?”
“Up around that corner they’re blocking. About half a block up that street.”
He sighed. “The car I used ran out of gas up on Four.”
The idea of a vampire discommoded by running out of gas almost made her laugh.
“We’ll have to take their car, then,” he said.
The four men approached, scanning the bushes in every direction but never looking up. They moved up the steps very quietly, and opened the door as quickly as if they’d had a key. No sooner was the last one inside than Titus turned and swung Gabby up in his arms. Before she knew what was happening, he took two strides and stepped out into thin air.
If she’d had any warning at all, she’d have screamed on the way down. But before she could draw breath, Titus’s feet touched the ground and his knees bent, absorbing the impact. By the time her buttocks touched the cold pavement, it was only a minor thump, less than if she’d fallen on the stairs.
“Shit!” she said. “How did you—“
His hand clamped onto her mouth. “Shh!” He bent to her ear. “Simple physics.” His other arm gave her a confident squeeze, and then he was helping her to her feet. Pulling her behind him, he began to make his way through the yards, keeping bushes and trees between them and the double parked car. A feeling of unreality englobed her, and she could almost believe she was acting in a movie.
A distant part of her mind noted that the car they were about to steal from the drug dealers was a TransAm. They’d never have had a chance in her Mazda if the TransAm chased them.
Steal from the drug dealers. Steal a car from the drug dealers.
Something kept the natural panic that thought engendered at a great distance. She was glad for the distance. Panic could be fatal right now.
As they came abreast of the car, she could see the man left inside to guard it.
On a sudden thought, she dragged Titus back into the bushes and put her mouth to his ear. “What if those four men come back!”
“Don’t worry. My father will take care of t
hem. Now, let me concentrate.”
Father. He meant it! “Why are we running from your father?”
“You don’t want to know. Now, hush!”
In a few moments, the driver of the car lazily opened the door and eased himself out. He left the door open and wandered haphazardly up the street. They waited until he was nearly half a block away, then dashed for the car.
Titus took the wheel, motioning her around to the other door. As she closed her door, Titus spun the car around in a tight U turn, slid into the right turn at the corner and gunned the motor as he guided the car down the middle of the street.
“How did you know that man would leave the key in the car?” she asked when they made it onto the Garden State without any sign of pursuit.
“Influence.”
“What?”
“I used Influence, the power of my kind that so distresses you. I’m sorry, but there was no other way to avoid killing him.”
Killing him. Titus had said the words as if he had every reason to believe it would have been just as easy to kill a man who was, very likely, a professional killer.
If this vampire worked that hard to avoid killing a murderer, she knew she was completely safe. “Where are we going?”
He grinned. “How about Los Angeles?”
“Sounds good. But all my things are in my car.”
“Don’t worry. You’ve earned a whole set of new things.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacqueline Lichtenberg is a life member of Science Fiction Writers of America. She is the creator of the Sime~Gen Universe with a vibrant fan following (www.simegen.com), primary author of the Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! (which blew the lid on Star Trek fandom), founder of the Star Trek Welcommittee, creator of the genre term Intimate Adventure, winner of the Galaxy Award for Spirituality in Science Fiction with her second novel, Unto Zeor, Forever, and the first Romantic Times Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel with her later book, Dushau, now in Kindle. Her fiction has been in audio-dramatization on XM Satellite Radio. She has been the SF/F reviewer for a professional magazine since 1993. She teaches science fiction and fantasy writing online while turning to her first love, screenwriting, focused on selling to the feature film market. She can be found at her website,
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