by Fiona Zedde
In the penthouse, she allowed her nose to lead her to Belle, her scent of the sea, of home. Kylie didn’t pay attention to where she was going; she only knew she was searching for her mother, the one who would have any answers she needed. That particular scent led her to the hotbox.
The hotbox was a room that was rarely used. It was a place any of the clan could escape to when they wanted to be truly alone. A rare enough occasion. The box was soundproof and tucked away from the rest of the penthouse’s rooms.
It was an architectural quirk of the building, a glass box leading nowhere and attached to the rest of the house by polished steel girders, arching out from the main building and gripping the top and bottom of the box. Steel stairs and a railing led from the box to the rest of the penthouse. Like a Rubik’s cube attached to the larger rectangle of the house. The entire room, only about thirty square feet, was made of tempered bulletproof glass and steel. There was a thick bearskin rug on the floor, a black sleeping mat wide enough for three, glass on all four sides. The room gave anyone in it the sensation of being suspended in the air over New York City.
Belle and Silvija were in the hot box. The room smelled like them. Their individual vampire scents, their sex. The noises they made rushed at Kylie. Harsh groans. Silvija’s grunts. The heavy, wet sound of Silvija fucking Belle with a thick, red dick.
They were naked and on their knees; Belle’s arms cuffed behind her back with wide leather straps, Silvija behind her, gripping her upper arms to keep her from falling forward as she pounded her pussy with the lipstick-red dick strapped to her hips. Belle groaned, begging for harder and more. Silvija grunted with each thrust of her hips, the white bands of the dildo’s straps bright against her brown skin. She gripped Belle’s arms, jerking her back into the dick as they made painful love.
Idiot. Idiot!
She stared at them, unable to look away. With the sight and sound of their sex, she was immediately yanked back to the room where, with a simple touch of her hand, Olivia had Kylie completely under her control. Kylie’s teeth snapped shut on her tongue. She turned, and she ran. She didn’t stop running until she was back in Atlanta, back at the hotel with Violet and her human blanket. That night, she hunted with a particular viciousness. When daylight dreams came, they were only of Olivia.
Chapter Seventeen
“I can smell you.”
Olivia unwrapped the plaid scarf from around her neck, draped it and the thick jacket on the hanger, and closeted them. The little knit cap, she left on. She walked down the hallway and deeper into the apartment without turning on a light. It had been an unexpectedly cold fall day in Atlanta. Humans scurried from place to place, building to car, in search of escape from the brisk wind and evening temperatures in the forties. Olivia’s cheeks had a touch of deeper color, but she seemed otherwise untouched by the chill.
Kylie stood up from the couch, ignoring the tremor in her fingers, the fear that Olivia wouldn’t want to talk to her again, but Olivia acted as though they hadn’t argued. As if they hadn’t…touched.
“I saw them fucking,” Kylie said.
Olivia stopped and wrinkled her nose. She didn’t look in Kylie’s direction or ask her to repeat what she said.
“Who? My neighbors?” She continued through the living room and into the kitchen.
Olivia was a slender wraith in her bright yellow knit cap, the hem of her denim skirt brushing the floor with each step. Kylie followed her to the kitchen. Teakettle. Water. The flare of the gas stove. Olivia blew the flame off the match.
Impatience and irritation rippled across Kylie’s skin.
“No.” She didn’t keep the sharpness from her voice. “My mother. Her lover.”
“Her wife.” Olivia turned, bracing her palms behind her against the stove, her body’s incline dangerously close to the orange kettle sitting on top of the blue flame. “Did it excite you?”
The breath exploded from Kylie’s lungs powerfully. Once. Then she froze. “Shut up!”
Even to her own ears, her words sounded childish, tinny and small in Olivia’s kitchen. They strangely reminded her of what had excited her: being with Olivia in her small bed, kissing and being kissed, falling outside her own body.
“Were you spying on them?”
The gentleness of her gaze rubbed Kylie raw. “No!”
But she couldn’t explain the reason she had been there, the need to spill her honest self into her mother’s ear and create something sweet of this bitterness that lay between them. The fear of what she and Olivia had done, what that made her. What she was really afraid of.
Although Olivia wasn’t saying anything, something about her coolness, her almost dismissive manner, made Kylie think she was pissed about how things ended last between them. She read Olivia again, not judging by her own standards or perceptions but what she had learned over the last few days of watching her. Yes, she was definitely pissed.
Kylie turned and left her alone in the kitchen, stomping back to the living room where she had waited for Olivia to get back home, rehearsing what to say to the woman who was not her lover but her…friend? Even in her agitation, she was very aware of Olivia’s movements. Getting the brown sugar and box of tea from the cupboard. A mug. Her back was turned to Kylie, her body straight and unyielding in its pretty fall clothes.
It was time for Kylie to pull her head out of her ass. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.
Olivia turned from the cupboard to look at her. “Are you just saying that because you want me to engage with you about this foolishness you have against your mother?”
“No!” She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets.
“Honey, I don’t know the woman, but I do know everyone has a right to happiness. This existence can be lonely. Why are you unhappy because she’s found someone to share her darkness with?”
“Why do you assume that it’s me?” Kylie muttered the question from the couch.
“Because sex frightens you. And, as an only child, I get the idea that you don’t share very well.”
Olivia sat on the couch with her mug of tea. Steam rose from the large red mug, drifting up to her serious face. “I’d offer you something to drink, but I know you wouldn’t take it.”
Kylie crossed her arms in her lap, feeling combative. “There’s something you could offer me that I’d accept any time.” She eyed Olivia’s throat where the pulse beat steadily.
Olivia slid her a wicked look, the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Unless you’re talking about putting those lips of yours on these lips”―she pointed between her legs― “then no deal.”
Kylie’s mouth slammed shut. All her antagonism wilted away as she stared at Olivia in astonishment. Olivia’s smile blossomed even more.
“Calm down. I’m not going to rape you.”
Kylie stuttered. “I didn’t think you would.” Although if Olivia made any advances toward her, anything that happened between them afterward would definitely not be rape. She squirmed on the sofa.
“So,” Olivia said. “Tell me what’s on your mind. Why did you run out of here so quickly the other evening?” She brought her mug of tea to her nose and inhaled deeply the scent of bergamot rising from it. “Or shouldn’t I even ask?”
The teasing smile had fallen away from her face, leaving her once more serious, distant. Kylie wanted that playful warmth back again. Her hand curled into a loose fist next to her thigh. “What is it that you think about me, anyway?”
Olivia looked at her, examining Kylie and obviously trying to decide whether to tell her the truth. “I think you’re scared and angry. I think that you love your mother but you hate that she left you for another woman. Whether that means you hate lesbians, hate your mother for abandoning you, or are just confused, I don’t know.” She sipped her tea. “Even after what happened between us yesterday.”
Yesterday. Had it only been so short of a time since those head-swimming few minutes between them? A few minutes where Kylie felt like her life was changed forever.
She couldn’t hate her mother with the same intensity anymore. Could she even hate her at all? But the other, she wasn’t sure about. Just like Olivia wasn’t sure about what Kylie hated and wanted to run away from.
“I’m not like my mother,” she said.
“Okay.” Olivia sipped her tea.
“I would never abandon my family and everything important just for sex.”
“Why would you ever say that’s what she did? It sounds like she loved you as a human and loves you now. She didn’t have to bring you into the clan. She could have killed you or let you die all those years ago.”
Would it have been better if Kylie had died? What would it have been like if she’d never heard that low voice at her ear, felt the sharp pierce in her throat that both saved and damned her? That voice hadn’t been her mother. And no matter how many things Kylie accused her of in her mind, she knew that Belle would never have let her die in that blood-splattered basement.
“It sounds like you wanted her to just dump her wife and the rest of them just because you were back on the scene.” Olivia put the red mug in her lap. “That’s not fair.”
“Nothing’s fair,” Kylie muttered. “She abandoned her family to sleep with another woman. A stranger she didn’t even care about.” Julia. She leaned back in the sofa, arms crossed, mouth tight. “That wasn’t fair to me and Grannie.”
“I don’t think she’d have left you if it crossed her mind that she wouldn’t see you again,” Olivia said. “From what I’ve seen, mothers are mostly selfless. They’d sacrifice sexual happiness in a heartbeat to be with their children, to keep them safe and to stay in their lives.” Olivia’s mouth twisted into another of those smiles that Kylie didn’t quite know what to make of. “Most mothers though, not all.”
Kylie fell silent, having nothing to say about mothers and their sexual happiness.
Olivia sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting sex, Kylie. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting it from another woman. If our pussies stopped working after we gave birth, it would be another thing, but your mother is still a woman. So am I. And so are you.”
Her lashes left shadows against her sharp cheeks as she looked down into her mug. “I won’t mention what happened yesterday if it makes you uncomfortable. But—” A ripe smile touched her mouth. “I want you to know I very much enjoyed touching you. I’d like to do it again.”
Agitation squirmed in Kylie’s belly, and she found herself turning away, unable to look at her. I’d like to do it again. The words bounced around in her brain, distracting her from anything else. And her imagination swept her away, put her and Olivia in the countless scenarios she had witnessed in bedrooms, parked cars, and back alleys as a voyeur. She wet her lips and shifted on the sofa as arousal pinched between her thighs.
After a tense silence, Olivia made a determinedly cheerful noise, putting aside her mug on the coffee table with a dull tap. “Anyway, there’s a Stephen King marathon on TV tonight. You want to watch it with me?”
Caught off guard, Kylie could only say, “Okay.”
“Great. Our first date night.” Olivia grinned.
Kylie stared at her.
“I’m just kidding!” She bounced up from the couch and brushed a palm under Kylie’s chin, leaving her with the scent of her salty sweat, brown sugar, and bergamot. Her skirt swayed with the movement of her hips as she walked toward the kitchen. She looked at Kylie over her shoulder. “If this was date night, I’d take you someplace much nicer than this.”
Chapter Eighteen
Date night came much sooner than Kylie expected.
Only two nights of the seven that Silvija gave her were left.
She arrived at Olivia’s after an early feeding and climbed over the balcony and into the small apartment to see Olivia waiting for her in the living room. Olivia stood, hands on her hips. She wore a floor-length, diamond-patterned black and white dress with long sleeves and an attached hood that draped from her shoulders. She looked like a sorceress. She looked…curious.
“Tell me, what is this?” She held up her hand. In her palm glimmered the ruby necklace that Kylie had forgotten all about. The thing that had brought her to Atlanta what seemed a lifetime ago.
Kylie’s face prickled with embarrassment at Olivia’s intent look. How had she found the necklace? Kylie was sure she’d hidden it deep in the back of the closet.
“It’s a necklace,” Kylie finally said. She clasped her hands behind her back, not sure how else to proceed.
“Did you steal it?”
“Yes.”
A smile touched Olivia’s lips. “I saw something about it on TV the other day. The cops are still looking for the necklace, and the thief.”
“Are you going to turn me in?”
“I thought about it,” Olivia said. She closed her hand around the rubies and diamonds, caressing them with her fingers.
Kylie felt something cramp in her stomach. Disappointment. Because it certainly wasn’t fear of any human police.
“But then I realized that, like you, I don’t like to share.” Olivia held up the necklace in her palm again then turned her back.
“Put it on me.”
Kylie froze, then jerked into motion, the words of the command automatically moving her feet the scant inches across the hardwood floors. She took the necklace and it slithered into her palm, the rubies flashing fire in the small apartment. She undid the clasp, moved closer to Olivia, and smelled her skin that was fresh from the shower with a hint of the coconut mint soap she used. Olivia bent her neck.
Kylie put the necklace around her throat. The flashing rubies and diamonds were like kisses of light on her perfect skin. The V of the necklace pointed down to her modest cleavage bared in Olivia’s dress. But it was her neck with its throb of hot and rushing blood that distracted Kylie. She’d eaten before she came over, had sated that always ravenous hunger. But the thought of biting Olivia rose readily to her surface.
And it would be easy. And delicious. Already she could imagine the slow thrust of her fangs in heated flesh. The moan of surrender Olivia would give, that they always gave. Slender neck falling to the side, she allowed Kylie to settle her cool mouth on hot flesh, and suck until they were both satisfied.
She trembled and finished fastening the necklace. The jewels had barely settled on her flesh before Kylie stepped back, biting the inside of her cheek as temptation flooded through her in a way that was disturbingly like arousal.
Olivia turned around.
If Kylie had breath, it would have left her. Olivia stood across from her as regal as a lifelong queen, standing tall and still under her awed regard. Her mouth tilted slightly at the corners; her chest moved with easy breaths.
“You look delicious.” The unbidden words spilled from Kylie’s lips.
Olivia arched an eyebrow. “Would you like to eat me?”
Kylie clamped her mouth shut; otherwise she would have stuttered and made herself look like a fool in front of this woman she wanted to what? Impress? Eat?
She swallowed. “How would you like to eat?” Kylie got the words out in one go, an idea taking shape in her lust-fogged brain. “A picnic in the park?”
Olivia looked amused. “Okay.” She put her hands on her hips, looking at Kylie with a light dancing in her dark eyes. “I would love that.”
It didn’t take Kylie long to wrangle some of Olivia’s favorite foods from the fridge and into a shopping bag. Then she grabbed a blanket from the hall closet, Olivia from the middle of the living room, and then the car keys.
She guided Olivia to a park she had seen often on her wandering hunts through the city. It was mostly isolated, with a scattering of golden and orange leaves on the ground from the fall season, an area of undulating hills and valleys under strewn ginkgo and oak leaves with the occasional stray cat or dog making its way past.
Kylie spread the blanket over the ground, set down the picnic supplies, and waved Olivia to sit down.
She had thought it
through enough to bring Olivia a jacket, but the night was apparently warm enough for her to shrug it off almost immediately. She sat on the blanket, her legs curled demurely under her, the necklace shimmering against her skin and under the piercing moonlight.
“You look beautiful,” Kylie said.
Olivia smoothed the dress over her thighs, her slender fingers making a hypnotic motion over the black and white fabric. “What’s gotten into you?” she asked Kylie.
“Nothing.”
But that wasn’t quite true. There was something, and that thing was desire.
The thing she always condemned her mother for being victim to. But with that desire singing through her own veins, desire for a woman, she felt much of her animosity toward her mother drain away.
“I want to make love with you,” Kylie said, then clamped her teeth on her tongue until she tasted blood, surprised at her own daring in asking for what she was suddenly aware that she wanted, and wanted very much.
Olivia sat on the blanket, watching her with calm eyes. The necklace and the moon and the short drive had mellowed her into something manageable, a nymph resting on the blankets beneath swaying trees instead of a sorceress with overwhelming power.
“I would very much like to make love with you.”
Kylie swallowed the taste of her own blood. Now what?
She did not know what sex truly was, at least not from her own experience. She heard it in the whispers between Silvija and her mother and saw it between the women she spied on, from the vampires whose passion resounded through the house they all shared.
When she was alive, her grandmother had kept her from sex, sheltered her from anything resembling male attention so she remained trapped in ignorance, even a little frightened, of physical intimacy. And later, even though she watched people have sex and sometimes enjoyed the uneasy feelings the act stirred in her, she had still preferred to observe instead of participate.