by Lena Fox
“Can I help you, Miss?”
“It’s me.” I ran my gaze over his face, the face I had once hated to see and had missed so much since it had been gone from my sight. “It’s me, Kitty.”
“I’m sorry. I think you have me mixed up with someone else.” He withdrew his arm carefully and gently.
“The hell I do. I know it’s you, stop pretending it isn’t.”
“I’m not who you think I am.” His voice held an aching tenderness. His eyes were kind and warm but there was hurt under that, I could see it. Why was he hurt? He wasn’t allowed to be hurt when he was the one who left me! I was hurting too, dammit. Couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he care?
Tears as corrosive as battery acid sprang to my eyes and my throat filled with a salty lump that would not let me speak let alone refute his words. I had been mistaken before but not this time. I knew him, knew him all too well.
He turned away, reaching for his keys. I heard the locks on the sleek black sports car disengage and I knew this was my only chance. Not only would he drive away from me he would likely leave LA and my chances of ever finding him again were slim to none.
I said, so low that I knew those around us could not hear but he could, “Don’t you turn away from me. You face me dammit. You turn around here and face me. You owe me that, vampire.”
His shoulders slumped and he turned back toward me. Guilt creased his features and he met my eyes, “Strawberry,” he sighed. “You always were too persistent.”
I fell onto his chest, swallowing away the sob that rose. The solid warmth of his body met me like a wall and I welcomed it. He was real, he was there and I hugged him so tightly I could hear his back creaking. The warmth of him was what really struck me. Every time I had touched him before I had expected it, only to find his skin cold and inhuman. Now it was hot, sunbaked. I could even smell a faint whiff of sweat and leather, probably from the car seats. Good smells, living smells.
“It really is you.” I said. “And you’re really human?”
He stiffened in my arms but I held on, not letting go. Like hell I was going to let him go again.
He let out a long sigh. “Yes. Something in your amazing blood changed me. I had felt the change coming, the slow progression of my humanity coming back to me, but almost didn’t believe it until that morning after we made love. I walked into the daylight, and I did not burn. You made my heart beat again, and you gave it something to beat for.”
I looked up into his eyes. “Then why did you leave me?”
“When I found myself human, I also found that I had fallen in love with you. In that moment I realized the tragedy that had befallen me. How could you ever forgive me for what I’d done to you? How could you, when I could never forgive myself?” He looked away from me. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, but for that moment it didn’t matter. I rested my cheek against him, listening to the soft, steady thump of his heart.
“You... fell in love with me?” Trust a girl to focus on that part.
“Heart, body and soul.” His voice was barely a whisper, like his confession pained him, stealing his breath. “But I knew you could never love me in return after the crimes I had committed against you. I had done you such wrong, I had to let you be free of me. I had to leave.”
“You were a monster,” I said. I saw him flinch and look away again. I reached a hand to his chin and turned him back to face me. “Were a monster. I love the man who was trapped within the monster. I love Owen Raine, not the vampire that possessed you for so long. You are human again, and it doesn’t matter what the cost was. I don’t love the monster that imprisoned me. I love the man who set me free.”
He held me, crushing me to him as if afraid I’d disappear. My face pressed into his chest and I could hear it, his heart beating. It was a steady drumming below my ears. I loved the sound. Closing my eyes, a hundred days and nights seemed to flick before my eyes, falling asleep bathed in moonlight to the sound and waking up to the brilliant morning sun with it still steadily beating by my ear. I picked up one of his hands and held it to the sun, the sunlight turned it red, outlining the veins below his skin.
He smelled of cologne, something subtle and expensive, but the coppery scent of blood had left him. He was a human, a man, and the one I wanted to love forever, for the rest of our natural lives.
“What are you even doing here? I mean, why? Why have I found you again now?” I asked, breathlessly.
“Can I make a confession?” Owen said softly.
“Confess away.”
Owen’s eyes darkened with concern. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I’m sorry, I know that’s not the done thing these days, and I don’t want to seem strange or overprotective or possessive. I had reason to be worried about you. If your blood was at all as appealing to other vampires as it was to me, I considered you could be at great risk if you ever crossed a vampire’s path again.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” I rolled the words slowly off my tongue. I had often wondered the same thing. It made me feel special, and safe, to know Owen had been worried about me. “Except that no vamp was going to steal me away from a daylight market, now would they?”
Owen grinned bashfully. “Mostly I’ve had some men I hired keep you under surveillance. But when one reported some suspicious activity, I had to come myself. I needed to know, after all you’d suffered, I just needed to know you were okay. I needed to see you. Perhaps the more honest truth was that I just could never let my Strawberry go, as much as I knew I should.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to see me too,” he said, pressing his lips into my hair. I could feel the warm trickle of a tear on my face but it was not mine, it was his. “I did not know how to handle all the emotions that came with being human again. I did not know how to be human, maybe I never did. Your blood changed me, made me something far better and I can’t believe you would ever be able to look at me and not see the vampire that had harmed you.”
I leaned back to look at him. He looked confused and I felt a mischievous smile steal across my face. I stepped back, feeling his hands clutch at me for a moment before reluctantly giving way and allowing me to move freely.
“What if we just start over?” I held out my hand to shake his. “I’m Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn French. I’m an actress and I am not doing too badly at it. I like food, especially good food, cats, and happy endings.”
He smiled, a smile that sent arrows of lust slicing into my heart. “I’m Owen Raine. I’m a multimillionaire businessman who currently lives on a ranch with horses. I like grocery shopping because every time I go there is some new and wonderful food to try. I just learned how to use a computer in order to keep up with the world better. I googled you, just so you know. I recently began to hang out on the beach and I have learned to like dining in restaurants.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said shaking his hand, both of us laughing at each other.
He twined his fingers through mine. His smile was full of the boyish ruefulness I’d only seen once before and I cherished it. In the touch of his fingers, his skin hot against mine, and the way his blue eyes saw into me, I knew that he felt the same way about me as I did about him. He’d said it, sure, but neither of us were the best with words. Our souls resonated with each other though, proving the truth in both our hearts.
The day shone down on us as he pulled me in for a slow, tender kiss. I wanted to keep that moment forever, but knew I didn’t have to. I had Owen again, and he loved me, and I loved him, and everything was right in my life.
Never before had I felt so loved.
Now and forever, I belonged to him.
His strawberry.
He whispered in my ear. “I noticed your credit for your new movie says Kaitlin French. I like it. Sounds less like a porn star.”
“Oh, bite me.”
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