Dead Man's Curves (BBW Vampire Paranormal Erotic Romance) [KOBO ED]

by Ava Lore

  Warily, the vampire nodded.

  Chloe took a deep breath. “Well, it started out like this...” And she told him the whole story. James and Jenny having anal sex on her couch, getting kicked out of the apartment she'd lived in for the past three years because James thought it would be best that way and his name was on the lease anyway. Then the part about how he told her he was no longer attracted to her because stress at work had caused her to put on weight. Then she added in her terrible day at work, the sudden disappearance of her access to her bank accounts, the breaking of her driver's side seat which was going to cost a fortune and her car was currently the only home she had—especially since now she couldn't get a hotel thanks to her utter lack of cash, oh god—and to top it all off she'd been shanghaied into the service of a vampire who seemed to want to either drink her blood or fuck her and he couldn't decide which.

  “...and now I'm sitting here, talking to a dead guy,” she finished. “No offense.”

  He just sighed and shook his head, as if he couldn't believe his luck in choosing victims. Of all the women in the world, that shake of his head seemed to be saying, he had to pick the one with the most baggage.

  Still, she had to admit that it had felt good to get all her thoughts off her chest. Normally if she wanted to cry to someone, she'd cry to Jenny. Now she was pretty sure she was never going to talk to Jenny again. In the circumstances, telling a centuries-old vampire her woes didn't really seem like a bad idea. For one, her previous confidant had obviously been poorly chosen, and for two, he probably had a better perspective on these things than she did.

  “Well?” she said after a second. “Any thoughts?”

  The vampire shook his head.

  Her heart sank. “You're not going to say something like, oh please, I once knew a guy who got his dick caught in a metal press, or, when I was your age we were lucky we didn't die of tuberculosis before lunch time or something?”

  The vampire pursed his beautiful lips and thought about this for a moment. “No,” he said at last. “It is my opinion that you have indeed had a fairly bad day.”

  “Oh.” It was actually far more disheartening to hear it confirmed by a guy who probably knew what a bad day looked like. After all, he'd clearly had a day where he'd actually died. “I guess I have, then.”

  The vampire sighed. “It appears I must find another avenue to procure the things I need.”

  For some reason, a pang hit Chloe's heart. It wasn't like she wanted to help a vampire recover his strength and once again become an undead stalker of the innocent and guilty alike, but... Well, to be honest, the crazy chemistry she'd felt with him had been the only good thing about her day. The kissing? The handsy groping in the library? The intense fingerbang? Their interactions had been doozies. Almost enough to make the whole twenty- hours a wash, and that was saying something.

  “I'm sorry I can't help you more,” she said, and she really did feel sorry. “But, uh, if I might ask, why are you so, um... affectionate?” That wasn't the right word, but the faint smile on his face told her he knew what she meant.

  He turned and looked her in the eye. “Because,” he said, “if you had spent a hundred and one years underground, your thirsts would be at the front of your mind as well. Can you blame a starving man for falling upon a banquet such as yourself?”

  Then he bit her. Again. She was starting to feel a little like a pincushion.

  He moved fast. Like a viper. His lips were fastened to her throat before she'd even had a chance to blush at his words, and the narcotic of his bite was already moving through her veins when she realized what was happening. And, of course, by that time it was too late to do anything about it. Chloe stared at the ceiling of her car as his cool, insistent lips drew her blood from her throat, his tongue laving the pinprick wounds he'd made, and sighed.

  Sometimes, she thought, you just might as well go along with it. So she did.

  The vampire retreated after a moment, licking blood from his lips. “Thank you for that,” he said. Far away, Chloe felt a sad tickling at the base of her stomach. Was he going to say goodbye? She was stupid for wanting him to stick around. Everything sucked, but at least he'd been a different flavor of suck.

  Haha. Suck.

  But he didn't say goodbye. Instead, he opened his door, looped his arms around her, and dragged her out into the parking lot.

  The dark night dipped and swayed around her, and Chloe found herself just letting him carry her, distantly curious as to what he was going to do. A naked vampire dragging a chubby librarian through the Walmart parking lot at ten o'clock at night? Someone might actually take note of a sight like that.

  Someone did. Through the dizziness, Chloe saw two young fratbros, clearly drunk, watching them curiously from their perch on the bed of a pick-up truck. “Hey...” one of them said.

  “Excuse me!” the vampire called to him. “Excuse me! My wife, something is wrong with her, please help me! She just collapsed, I don't know what to do...”

  Oh, Chloe thought as the young men jumped up and ran toward them, oh, I can't approve of this at all.

  She couldn't really do much about it, though. The moment the two young men were within range, the vampire dropped her and struck.

  Chloe hit the ground rather softer than she expected. The creeping cold of the concrete beneath her seeped into her clothing and she had to clench her teeth to keep from shivering as she watched the vampire bite first one young man, then the other. Within seconds the venom was doing its work, and the vampire stood before them, staring them in the eyes. They watched him dreamily.

  “Give me your clothes and all your money,” the vampire said.

  “It's too cold to leave them naked,” Chloe protested from her spot on the ground as the two began to disrobe.

  “Do not fret, my bride,” the vampire said, never taking his eyes from them. “They will have many pleasant memories of how they got that way. And besides, they can warm up in their truck.”

  Helpless to do anything and, admittedly, curious as to what the vampire would do next, Chloe watched as he shed the last of his disintegrating clothes and took the replacements from the two students. He ended up in worn jeans, a striped sweater, a dark jacket and a pair of Chucks with argyle socks.

  And just like that, the vampire was no longer an undead monster risen from the grave. Now he was a J. Crew model.

  The perfect predator, she thought. Blending in, no matter where he goes...

  The vampire pressed the clothes he hadn't chosen back into the hands of one of the young men, then reached out and held both of them by the back of the neck.

  “You will remember nothing of this encounter,” he said. “Instead, you will go back to your vehicle and consummate the lust you have been repressing for each other. It will warm you up. You will go home and keep each other warm until tomorrow morning, after which you will wake up and...” He trailed off. “And you will go from there.” He turned away from them with a satisfied smile on his face, and Chloe's eyes widened as the two of them suddenly threw themselves at each other, right there in the middle of the parking lot. Open mouths clashed and tongues warred while hands groped and grabbed. Though she could ill afford the blood, Chloe felt a red-hot blush rising to her cheeks. She was too weak to look away. Or at least, that's what she told herself.

  “That was unethical,” she told the vampire as he strolled toward her, looking as swank as any man who spent five hundred dollars on a pair of jeans. Behind him the young men staggered toward their truck, still glued together.

  “Was it?” he asked her as he bent over and lifted her into his arms. “I felt their confusion and lust as I glamored them. I daresay they will be happier now once the initial fuck is over with.” He tilted his head, considering this. “Or perhaps not. Either way, that is not your concern. Your only concern is to get in your vehicle and attempt to sober up long enough to drive us to your home.”

  “I need something to eat,” Chloe said as they reached her car. He op
ened the driver's side door and poured her into her seat. “And I don't have a home, remember?”

  “Your home is still your home,” he told her, “whether or not a faithless piece of shite has told you to never return.” With that he shut the door and strolled off toward the store.

  Chloe sat in her car and tried to do as he'd suggested. She knew she was going to have to drive him somewhere since he probably had no idea how to operate a motor vehicle; she was surprised he was willing to let her ferry him around. Then again he seemed surprisingly progressive for a guy who had last seen the world a century ago, but death probably liberalized one's views on things such as sex and women 'doing things.' The thought made her feel a bit more kindly disposed toward him and she attempted to rally. Unfortunately, biological imperative was against her. Chloe fell asleep and only jerked awake again when the vampire opened the passenger's side door and slid in.

  “Here,” he said, handing her a small bottle of orange juice and a packet of cookies. “Enjoy.”

  Weakly Chloe tore into the cookies, but as she ate and drank she began to regain her strength. Next to her the vampire sat perfectly still, watching her, and she wondered if he got a vicarious thrill out of watching her eat. Presumably he couldn't consume food any longer, but that didn't mean he didn't miss it.

  When she was done, the vampire gently took her trash and threw it out the window.

  “Don't litter,” Chloe said.

  He looked at her blankly.

  “Don't throw trash on the ground,” she clarified. “It's less biodegradable now than when you were last, uh, up and around.”

  “I am afraid that is something I cannot possibly even begin to care about,” he said. Chloe stiffened when he moved toward her, but all that happened was he grabbed the driver's seat and, with a screech of metal, bent it back into a rough approximation of its original shape.

  “Uh, thanks,” Chloe said.

  “Don't mention it. Now take me to your home. I require a place to rest for the day.”

  Chloe sighed. “I told you, I don't have a home any more.”

  He gazed at her with hooded eyes. “Yes,” he said. “You do. Take me there.”

  What can it hurt? Chloe thought. I mean, other than 'a lot'?

  She pushed her car into gear and drove.

  Chapter Four

  When Chloe pulled up in front of the small apartment block where she had lived the last three years with James, she hadn't expected to feel such a punch in the gut. Unfortunately, that was exactly what she felt.

  The old building had been put together some time in the early eighties when enrollment at the college had boomed, and it hadn't been renovated since. Peeling paint and dated wood patterns decorated the walls and balconies, but despite the fact that it was a rundown shithole Chloe had loved her time here. It was her first apartment after college. She and James had spent more nights than not curled on the couch in the living room watching TV, cooking dinner in the shitty little kitchen, making love in the old bedroom that still smelled faintly of cigarettes. It had been her shithole.

  Now, in the dark of the autumn night, it looked exactly the same as always... except it wasn't home any more. That hurt far more than it should have.

  Why had she been so stupid as to let James be the sole name on the lease? At the time it seemed like a good idea. He'd needed to build up his credit, and if they were ever going to make a life together they both needed to be on decent footing. Now she had no footing at all. The apartment had been her little haven away from the world, the launching pad of her life, and now she'd fallen below it. She was going to have to work her way all the way up to it again, and even when she did get another shitty little apartment it wasn't going to be the same.

  Her guts twisted, clenching like a fist.

  “You worry too much,” the vampire said. “It's bad for your health.”

  “What do you know about health?” Chloe snapped. “You're dead.”

  “Yes, so you keep mentioning,” he replied. “But I know quite a bit about it. The amount of pressure you are putting on your nerves is unhealthy.” To her shock, he reached across the car and patted one of her hands where it gripped the steering wheel. “Leave this all to me,” he said.

  Chloe suddenly had visions of the vampire attacking James and Jenny, draining their bodies of blood and leaving their desiccated corpses to rot in a cornfield. The thought was surprisingly cathartic, and Chloe didn't know whether to laugh or be disgusted with herself. She settled for trepidation as the vampire let himself out of the car and she followed. She hoped James hadn't changed the locks on the apartment yet. The keys in her hand seemed to weigh ten pounds. She stood in the parking lot for a minute, paralyzed.

  “We should really go to a hotel,” she said after a second.

  “We will be safer in your home,” the vampire replied. “Do not worry yourself overmuch. Your faithless fiance cannot stand up to my charms.”

  “That's what I'm afraid of,” Chloe said. “I don't want you to... to hurt him.”

  “Why not?” the vampire asked. “He hurt you.”

  “Yeah, but...” Chloe trailed off. “It wouldn't seem right,” she finally said. Even to her own ears it sounded lame.

  The vampire smiled. “Then I will persuade him in other ways. Show me your door.”

  Taking a deep breath, Chloe led him up the two flights of stairs to the third and top floor, then down the breezeway to the door of the apartment that used to be hers. Apartment five thirty-seven. Her hands trembling, Chloe fitted the key into the lock and prayed it would fit. It did. She turned it and opened the door.

  All the lights in the living room had been left on for some reason, and cheery, welcoming yellow light—no longer welcoming for her, though—flooded the breezeway. The familiar apartment smell hit her, too: stuffy, but with the overlay of old meals and incense. She burned incense all the time, trying to banish the cabbagey ghosts of the past in the kitchen. James had always claimed he could never smell it.

  “It reeks in here,” said the vampire.

  “Yeah, well.” Chloe sighed and stepped inside.

  “Aren't you going to invite me in?” the vampire said.

  Chloe turned and regarded him.

  He stood patiently at the threshold, his dark eyes glittering with borrowed light. He seemed to have no guile about him, and that was enough to put her on edge. An invitation? she thought. Did he need an invitation to enter her home? Should she refuse?

  They stared at each other for a long moment, the future balanced on a knife's edge.

  Then a stirring in the bedroom and James' sleepy voice calling out: “Who's there? Chloe?”

  Chloe gave the vampire her brightest smile. “Won't you come in?” she said.

  The vampire smiled back at her and passed through the door.

  Immediately he descended upon her, his hands running over her body, his mouth latching onto her throat. Chloe cried out in apprehension, afraid that he would yet again take her blood and this time might take too much, but she needn't have worried. The vampire didn't bite her.

  Instead, he swirled his tongue over her pulse and planted urgent, open-mouthed kisses from behind her ear down to her collarbone. His hands scooped and squeezed, massaged and kneaded, and wherever they went, flames followed beneath her skin.

  Without even meaning to, Chloe returned his passion, her fingers running over his shoulders, up his neck and into his hair. The coolness of him contrasted with the fierce heat of her wounded heart, and when she arched her body up into his, she felt as though he could soothe the burns left behind by a sweet, comfortable love denied. If only the desire he stoked in her didn't threaten to burn her with even more intensity...

  Hooking her leg over his hip, Chloe nudged his already-hard cock. Her ruined tights still clung to her full, curvy legs like spiderwebs, but the crotch was gone, leaving only a thin layer of soaked cotton between her pussy and him. He seemed to realize it, too, because his mouth found the swell of her shoulder a
nd he sucked hard on her skin, as if he could draw blood out through sheer willpower alone, and he bucked his pelvis into hers, grinding his cock into the soft, hot space between her thighs. Chloe moaned, her hands tugging at his ill-gotten clothes, wishing he were naked again so she could do wicked things to him, things that would haunt her forever, that she would always remember, that would make her forget...

  “What the hell is going on out here?”

  Chloe's eyes flew open and she gasped. She had somehow completely forgotten that James and Jenny were in the very next room. All that she had known was the vampire's need... and her own.

  In vain, she tried to push away from the vampire, but as though she were a mouse in the lion's paws, he held her effortlessly against him and continued his urgent kisses, moving from her collarbone down to the swell of her breasts. His strength held her up as he manipulated her into a backwards arc, exposing her completely to his questing mouth.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw James standing in the doorway of the bedroom, in a robe and boxers.

  "James?" Jenny called. Her voice was sleepy.

  And suddenly Chloe was angry. What did it matter if she'd gained a few pounds since they started going out? James was going bald, that didn't change the fact that he was a two-timing assface whose sole good points, she saw now, were only in comparison to her previous boyfriends, none of whom should ever have made it past the first date. She'd supported him while he finished school and looked for a job. She had been there for him. She didn't have an eating problem or a stress problem or any of that. She had a James problem. Although now that they were broken up, she supposed she just had a perspective problem.

  And she was going to take care of it right now.

  "Oh, haha," she said breathlessly as the vampire fastened his lips around her nipple and sucked hard. She could feel the draw of his mouth through her clothing and it made her dizzy with need. "I, um... I mean..."

  "What are you doing here?" James said. "I thought we had agreed to go our separate ways?"