by Bee Murray
“I need to forgive you, Vinnie,” she continued. “If... if we survive this. I want to do that. I don’t know if we’ll ever be friends, but I have to move on. The last five years—”
She blurted out the words and her face turned a delightful shade of pink as she looked down at the floor and over at the wall, anywhere but at me.
I ambled towards her as though I was in a trance, I stood before her, my hands outstretched to her in invitation. She placed her palms on mine cautiously and I hauled her to her feet so she stood flush against my body. Her breath was uneven and I smelled fear intermixed with her arousal.
She was afraid. Afraid, turned on, and exhausted.
I moved slowly and wrapped her into a hug. The top of her head nestled under my chin, and my hand came up to rest against her glorious dark brown hair.
“I just want you in my life, Tuesday,” I whispered as I dropped a featherlight kiss onto her head. “It doesn’t matter if you take another five years, or fifty, to forgive me. I’ll take it.”
She relaxed against me just a little as her arms wrapped around my bare torso. The warmth of her skin was a dramatic contrast to my coldness. The longer I held her, the more my fangs ached to drop and my cock twitched; but this moment was hers. I would rather die again than lose control and prove her trust in me was misplaced.
I lost track of time as we stood there, two exes locked in a nameless embrace, holding onto each other as though we were lost at sea.
She moved first, and my stomach tightened as her head shifted slightly. I loosened my arms to let her have more freedom to move. I didn’t know what I was expecting—a kiss? I wouldn’t dare—
But I definitely wasn’t expecting a sharp stab of red-hot pain when she grabbed my nipple in her teeth and bit down.
My fangs descended, and I growled as I pushed her away and held her at arm's length. It took immense effort to refrain from retaliating in kind or throwing her to the ground to have my way with her.
She laughed, slapped my hand away, and stepped closer to me. When she reached out slowly to touch my cheeks and trailed one finger ever so slowly toward my mouth, I gulped. Slowly, she leaned forward and rubbed her thumb over the edge of my fang.
“My, my, my…” she whispered. “What big teeth you have!”
Without warning, she pressed her lips to mine in a searing kiss that had the monster in my head roaring and demanding freedom to play, too.
Her hands roamed all over my body. She violently ripped the blanket away from my hips and grabbed me by the balls. Her grip was firm. Unexpected. Borderline painful. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and I groaned in pleasure. She pulled her mouth away from mine and looked at me. There was a fierce glow in her eyes that stoked the flame in my guts that still burned for her. Is this really happening?
“You know what we never did, Vincent?” she purred. “We never had the hate-fuck. Let’s remedy that, shall we? After all, you’re supposed to die tonight. Again. Ground rules: Rule #1: No biting. Rule #2: No blood. Other than that? It’s fair game, fang-face.”
I growled, picked her up, and strode towards the bedroom. I kicked open the door and launched her onto the bed. She bounced on the wide mattress and struggled to gain her balance.
With a graceful leap, I pounced on her and held her still with my body as she squirmed beneath me. My hands roamed her body, ripping her clothes off viciously.
My monster had agreed to her terms, albeit reluctantly, and we were both ready to play. From the looks of her? Her monster was more than willing to jump in the fray and battle it out as well. Neither one of us wanted to be gentle with the other, not really.
I leaned down, smelling the unique bouquet of her blood as it pumped through her veins. She bit down on my ear and I roared in pain and dropped my hand to her throat.
“Oh, is that how it’s going to be, tater-tot? Be careful how rough you get with a vampire,” I said through gritted teeth.
Tuesday smiled sweetly as her knee connected squarely with my junk. Not just a glancing blow, either. A full-throttle, no holds barred, knee to the cock.
Time froze for a split second.
I suppose, in hindsight, I should have expected that she wouldn’t fight fair, but in my defense, no one anticipates getting kneed in the balls during consensual hate-sex.
Well, at least I hadn’t gotten that memo.
Cursing her, I curled into myself as my vision blurred and black spots danced in front of my eyes. I tried to breathe through the pain, but I sounded more like a wounded animal and it wasn’t helping in the slightest.
Tuesday wasted no time. As soon as I was vulnerable, she jumped on my back like a wildcat. Her arm encircled my throat, and I choked out a strangled laugh and pulled her over my shoulder in a smooth motion. Flipped back onto the mattress, she glared at me with murderous rage in her eyes.
“Vampires don’t need to breathe, babycakes, we’re dead. But nice try. Really, valiant effort.”
The knee had hurt, though.
I brought my palm down on her ass with a resounding smack. She squirmed out of the way; her muffled curses shouted into the bedcover.
I grinned when I saw her one hand wriggle out from where it was trapped beneath her to flip me the bird.
That’s my girl. That’s my Tuesday.
I spanked her again as she wriggled farther away from me. She launched herself toward the headboard and then flipped around in some sort of yoga-gymnast bullshit move.
“Getting over you took a lot of yoga, hot stuff,” she snarled.
We grappled and clawed at each other, neither one of us particularly concerned with hurting the other, but indulging in the release of five years of hurt.
Five years of betrayal.
I shredded her clothing, ruining it as I ripped it from her body. She used her stockings as a gag when she snuck up behind me. She stuffed them into my mouth and pulled them tight, gagging me until I bit through with my fangs.
We fought.
We yelled.
We called each other every terrible name in the book.
Breathing heavy, we perched on opposite sides of the bed, two predators staring at each other with eyes full of distrust and anger.
And then, something clicked in me and I dropped my head, hoping she’d recognize, and accept, my submission.
“Tuesday, I—I could wrestle and hate-fight with you all day. We could rip each other, and this room, apart, but… that’s not what I want. My monster does. He loves playing with you. He gets excited to provoke all that glorious anger and passion you keep bottled up inside. We could destroy each other so easily. It wouldn’t even hurt. But I want to be different with you. You deserve more than that.” I shook my head and dared to meet Tuesday’s glare. She needed more. I took a breath.
“The day I left you. I owe you an explanation. I know I do. I was turned that day. You probably already figured that out. If I could go back and change it, I would. I should never have left the apartment that day. I would have been there for you when you needed me. But I can’t change the past. I can only offer my truest, most sincere apology for how it ended between us.”
She didn’t answer me, she just sat there stunned and I sighed. It was probably for the best.
Leaning over, I pressed the softest kiss to her forehead before I slid off the bed and left her there, sitting cross-legged on the mattress staring at me, the bruises from our catharsis already blooming on her skin.
My phone vibrated and skittered across the table as I entered the living room. Apparently, Tuesday’s plan was still in motion—the Seattle Police just offered protection for the Vampire Rights book club I was supposed to be speaking to tonight. They wanted to let me know that there’s been an uptick in online hatred for vamps, and I should use caution as a high-value target.
I thanked them but I couldn’t help but wonder if we were doing the right thing.
8
TUESDAY
I sat on the bed and stared down at the fingermark br
uises on my thighs. I hadn’t expected the fervor with which I had launched myself at Vinnie. I hadn’t expected the anger to come pouring out of me as I pinched, slapped, hit and scratched my way through that encounter. And I really hadn’t expected him to bow out and leave me panting, bruised, and aching with a need that only he could fill.
Freakin’ A. Men are the worst. Even the undead ones leave you wanting.
In the other room, my phone buzzed in my bag as my alarm went off. It was almost go-time, and I was still naked. My joints ached as I pulled myself off the bed and shuffled to the bathroom. There was no way any of Vinnie’s clothes would have fit me, so I took one of his black t-shirts and wore it as a dress with one of my old stockings as a belt. It’s all the rage in the fashion niche of walk of shame chic. Was it even a walk of shame if it was just to the living room?
I made my way out to the living room and found Vinnie sitting on the couch. He was dressed like a fashion icon and sipping something out of a large black goblet. He looked like Dracula’s much hotter, much younger cousin. Ugh, why is he so pretty?
It was awkward. The words said and the ones left unsaid ate away at our ability to talk. We acknowledged each other silently, but we didn't engage. Perhaps, even after five years, our pain was too fresh and our wounds too deep. Maybe we can’t come back from this, after all.
“Why didn’t you go public back then? You could have dragged my name through the mud a thousand times with our history. A woman scorned? The tabloids were always on the hunt for stuff to make me look bad. You probably would have made a fortune, Tues.” Vinnie came up behind me and smoothed the flyaway hair on top of my head and looked down at me expectantly.
He had a valid point, in his own way.
He’d walked away from me, but I didn’t chase him. I still remembered the first magazine cover I saw with him smiling on the glossy cover in the checkout line at the grocery store. It was like an ice pick to the heart.
“I’m just not that kind of person, Vinnie. What would I have gained? Public intrusion into my life? Notoriety as one of the many notches in your bedpost. You were too busy being Vinnie Quake, superstar. It was pretty obvious you weren’t the man I fell in love with anymore. Why would I put forth that kind of effort for no reward?” The words tumbled out in a rush, one after the other. When I finished, I drew in a shaky breath and hugged my arms to hide the tremor in my hands.
It wasn’t a lie.
Outing Vinnie as a womanizer and unfaithful fiance would have done exactly nothing back then. It likely would have backfired and made him more popular. Boys will be boys, after all.
Uncomfortable with the direction this conversation had taken, I gave him a terse nod. There were phone calls to make and plans to set in motion. Memory lane was a useless exercise.
“Tuesday,” he called out softly, “You were never just a notch on my bedpost. You’re the one I let get away and regretted every day since.”
But right now, none of that mattered. It was time for business-face. I pushed back my shoulders and lifted my chin. No time for fluffy bullshit.
I grabbed my bag from where I’d dropped it on the silver couch and pulled out my phone to shut off the alarm and bring up the itinerary for the night’s events.
“Let’s get to it,” I said briskly. “At 7:00 p.m., you’ll go to the Book Club and speak about your interest in Vampire Rights. I don’t really care what you say, but make them believe it. At 8:00 p.m. you’ll leave the bookstore and we’ll start the countdown. By midnight, your house will be a smoking pile of rubble and you will be seen dancing the night away with your new girlfriend Sandrina, oblivious to the destruction.”
It all sounded so simple. A logistical juggling act all for one purpose: making sure my undead ass of an ex could still have his multi-million dollar empire by the time the sun rose.
“We expect a small-to-medium brawl will block the southwestern corner behind the coffee shop where the book club is. Be advised, our intelligence tells us they plan to come armed with stakes, Holy Water, and silver. Many are ‘True Believers’ and they are expecting a fight. Your address and confirmed attendance at the event were leaked on the appropriate channels and Kelly has three of her little proteges ready to keep poking people to get the results we want. The explosion will be hot enough to burn the remains beyond recognition and then... It’s done.”
Vinnie nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me, I didn’t even know if he’d heard anything I’d said. He stared out the window at the sunset. The sky was red. Dark and dangerous. He took another long slurp of his drink.
“It won’t be. Done, that is. Blowing up the house was just a step,” he said grimly. “I decided to make an announcement in the next month about my status as a vampire. I want to launch a foundation to honor the lives of my staff. If I make life more difficult for the vampires of Seattle because I’m covering my ass, then I need to put myself out there.”
His words struck a chord within me. Knowing he was willing to make amends with real action healed a small portion of the hurt that he’d caused so many years ago. Had being turned actually made Vinnie Quake into a good guy? I walked toward him, pulled the ornate goblet out of his hand, and looked into his eyes.
“Thank you, Vinnie. Thank you for making it right.”
I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his. This moment was just ours. A stolen second in time with no hidden agenda, no anger, no revenge. Just Tuesday and Vinnie, just like old times.
He let me lead and my tongue teased against his lips until he opened his mouth to me as I deepened the kiss.
My tongue touched the sharp points of his fangs and the coppery, metallic taste of the blood on his tongue surprised me. I froze, unsure of what to do but unwilling to stop this moment. It’s only blood. I teased him again and nipped at his lower lip. He groaned his approval and I felt his body react to mine. He reached up to pull me into his lap and crushed me against his chest as we dueled for dominance and enjoyed each other.
He pulled back first and I reached up to touch his now mussed hair. I liked how he looked disheveled and sex-drunk. His lips were slightly swollen from where I nipped and nibbled and his eyes were red, almost purple. We studied each other, imprinting this moment as a memory, frozen in time.
“Can we be kissing friends?” he finally asked and I burst out laughing.
I pressed another kiss to his nose and pushed myself off his lap, ready to face the rest of this clusterfuck and get it over with.
“Let’s go save your fine ass from jail or insta-staking, ‘kay?”
He grumbled something I couldn’t hear and begrudgingly got to his feet. I reached for my bag and ran into the palatial bathroom. I always had a change of clothes with me. The outfit I wore over here was ruined beyond repair so I stuffed Vinnie’s shirt into my bag and pulled on my jeans and t-shirt.
Together, we walked out of the hotel suite and took the elevator down to the main floor. A blacked out SUV waited at the curb.
“Now or never,” I muttered as the door opened. Vinnie smiled, flashing his fangs at me as he climbed into the back seat.
This was, hands down, the craziest night of my life.
I needed an enormous coffee. And someone to slap some sense into me. Just the basics.
* * *
***
* * *
Vinnie walked into that bookstore so confidently, it made my throat tighten. He greeted his fans and stopped to take selfies and sign autographs. It was a little surreal that he’d successfully hidden being a vampire from all of his fans for so many years.
He told me his inner circle was extremely small and loyal, with iron-clad NDAs that threatened all kinds of repercussions if they told his secret. His late assistant, Patricia, was his primary procurement specialist, ordering a seemingly limitless supply of pig’s blood and other blood mixes to stave off his hunger. Until one day, that hadn’t been enough to save her, and she became the meal instead.
That thought was enough to bring me back to focu
s on the task at hand.
Business face. Get in the game.
The press loved this new side of Vinnie, and a quick check of my phone notifications confirmed that this little book club visit was trending on an international level. Gotta love the human fascination with a celebrity, it works every time.
I was grateful that Carlyn insisted her staff always carry a go-bag with us. My tote bag had quite literally saved my life in the past and I was grateful for the change of clothes. The cozy fleece jacket and jeans were a welcome respite from wearing Vinnie’s old shirt.
The Bluetooth headset in my ear beeped, and I answered.
“So, that scuffle you ordered? It’s bigger than we expected.”
Baldwin sounded nervous, but he’d have to get over that.
That’s the other thing you can count on—people are more than willing to be dicks to anything that is remotely different from their shared experience.
“Good. Just keep your distance,” I said, and ended the call. I didn’t have time to hold Baldwin’s hand through this process. There was too much at stake.
Stake. The anti-vampers had probably brought their own.
Great, now I was making vampire puns.
I took out my headset and concentrated on the noises outside the bookstore. Sure enough, there were low rumbles of shouts and marching drums coming up one of the side streets. Here we go.
Sergio and Cole reassured me via text that everything was ready and I slowly exhaled.
My phone beeped again and I looked down in surprise. Four missed texts from “Zach-The-Boring”? What the hell? I never would have pegged him for a clinger. Ugh.
I hit ignore. I was not remotely prepared to deal with that. Zach could wait.
My phone alarm sounded and a shiver wracked my body. 7:00 p.m.
Show time.
Vinnie sat in the circle, his legs crossed as he dipped his head in conversation with a tiny elderly woman who wore a giant hat covered in flowers made out of yellowed book pages. He laughed at something she said and his entire face lit up with the superhuman ethereal beauty that was so uniquely Vinnie.