Existence

by Mel Teshco

  She frowned. “You’d give that kind of power to the vampire?”

  “He might have named me, but he doesn’t own me. Not anymore. After everything I’ve been through, the name fits me now. I’ll never go back to being the Jake I remember.”

  She nodded, blinking tiredly. “You’ve been through hell and back. I’m not about to pretend to understand how you survived. And you’re right, the bloodsucker doesn’t own you, he never did. Not like he wanted to. If he had, you’d never have wanted to leave the nest.”

  I turned inward for a moment, thinking back even as I had to shake away the memory of the death of each woman who had. I cleared my throat. “A pity it took forty-six years and you to make me realize I really could leave.”

  I was talking to myself. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was deep. I resisted touching the silken softness of her skin. I didn’t want to wake her. I knew firsthand how much hunger pains took out of the body. Sleep was the only way to fully recover.

  I stifled a yawn, not wanting to wake her. The danger of being on the run was almost as tiring. But I wasn’t about to go to sleep.

  I left the bed and the too-inviting warmth of Charley, before I dressed back in my ‘borrowed’ clothes and headed into the lounge room. Jasper’s toenails clicked on the faded linoleum floor as he followed me around while I triple-locked the front door and secured all the windows. I had no idea how the doctor had gone about safeguarding his house, but it would have been all for nothing if he’d opened the door to the vampire.

  I had no doubt the bloodsucker would have compelled the doctor to step outside.

  Satisfied the dark and rather dingy house was as secure as possible, I retrieved the bowl on the table and filled it with the soup. Placing the full-to-the brim container on the floor for Jasper, I watched with a half-smile as he wolfed down the food then licked his chops as he looked up for more.

  “Guess you want what’s left on the stove then,” I murmured, before spooning out more.

  The ginger cat pushed against my legs with a pitiful meow, as though we were now the best of friends, even as it glared menacingly at the dog.

  I unlocked the back door and glanced outside to the warmth of mid-morning sunlight and a small backyard that had been recently mown. It wasn’t much, but at least the dog and cats had somewhere to relieve themselves.

  The ginger cat raced outside first, followed by Jasper, who sniffed the yard suspiciously while the feline sharpened its claws on the rickety wooden fence. One of the tabby cats slid outside next and I sat on the step, watching the animals.

  I managed a smile. It was a beautiful winter day, the sun warm on my face and the animals making me yearn once again for a normal life.

  Charley’s sudden scream dissolved the fantasy quicker than ice dropped into boiling water.

  Chapter Ten

  “Charley?”

  I jerked my head up at the sound of the too-familiar cracked voice that was quickly followed by a curse and the staggering tread of my mother. She’d woken midafternoon yet again. Sleeping off another drug high.

  I suppressed my need to lecture her and instead used my ‘everything is fine’ voice. “Hi, Mom. I made you a late lunch. Your favorite. Corned beef and pickle sandwiches.”

  She dragged a hand over her face. “I’m not hungry, Charley. You know I never eat first thing in the morning.”

  Another reason my mother was thinner than a beanpole—aside from her drug addiction.

  I couldn’t help but sigh. “It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Give it a rest, Charley,” she chided in a raspy voice. “I’ve already got a stinking headache.”

  “Coffee then?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why not.”

  Another footfall sounded from the bedroom and my eyes widened at the tattooed little weed who was one of my mother’s drug dealers.

  She flipped a graying piece of dark hair behind her shoulder and added coyly, “You’d better make it two coffees.”

  My stomach dropped to my toes, my skin crawling with revulsion and my despair all but wiping out any lingering trace of hope that my mother would kick her self-destructive drug habit. Be thankful you didn’t wake up and heard the sounds of their fucking.

  I stared hard at my mom. “You’re screwing your dealer now, to get your drugs? Could you get any lower?”

  “Watch your mouth, Charley,” she snapped, her eyes cold with anger.

  Yeah, because my mother is such a great role model. I bit back my thoughts even as the dealer—Johnny or Jimmy, I wasn’t sure and didn’t care enough to know his name—grinned at me with leering, bloodshot eyes and rotten teeth.

  “You climb into bed with me, little spitfire, and I’ll give your mother all the blow, bud and pingers she’ll want for a month.”

  My lip curled even as my mother broke out with a gleeful, “Really?”

  My whole world bottomed out, my mother blurring in front of me. “You can’t be fucking serious?”

  Her eyes flashed with something between shock and guilt, then her face crumpled. “No! Of course not!” She blinked rapidly, her voice rising. “You know my addiction is an illness. But you must also know I love you more than anything else in the world.”

  My throat burned right along with the backs of my eyes. “Yet you seriously considered selling your only daughter to get your fix.”

  The dealer stepped in. “You’re of age. What’s the problem here? Lynette is your mother, you should be willing to help her out.”

  Tears threatened to spill, but I refused to show any weakness to them. “Yes, she is my mother, you piece of shit, which is why I don’t want you in her life, ruining whatever chance she has of being a real mother.”

  My mom pressed a hand to her mouth. “Charley, don’t speak to Jimmy like that. If it wasn’t for him—”

  “If it wasn’t for him,” I interjected hoarsely, “you might be clean and not fucking men for drugs!” I swiped at the tears pouring down my face, not even trying to stop them anymore. “I can’t watch you kill yourself like this even a minute longer. I really can’t.”

  My mom squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them again with a steely resolve I hadn’t seen for years. “Then leave my house and don’t come back.”

  I gaped, inwardly reeling. “You don’t mean that.” But she did mean it. I’d never seen her more determined. I swallowed hard. “Who’s going to look after you?”

  Jimmy put a limp arm around her waist. “I’ll be looking after Lynette, don’t you worry about that.”

  Bile rose in the back of my throat. The drug dealer would probably move into the house and set up shop for free. The bastard.

  I fisted my hands. “You can both go to hell.”

  I ran to my room to pack my few clothes and belongings, my mind screaming rejection and curses and everything in between. My mother would die without me, I had no doubt about it. But I also had no doubt she wanted only to join my father in the afterlife, even as she used those same drugs to make her forget about him.

  My inner screams rang loud in my ears when hands pressed down on me. I woke with a gasp, the hands on my shoulders gently shaking me awake.

  I blinked up at Alexander, my blurry vision making me realize I’d cried in my sleep. What the hell? “I woke you?” I asked him in a scratchy voice.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I heard your screams from outside.”

  I dragged a hand over my face. “Sorry. I had another damn nightmare.”

  “You have them often?”

  I looked back up at him, seeing his concern, his need to comfort. Bloody hell. How had I ever thought he was unfeeling? How had I ever thought he was a monster like the bloodsucker we’d left behind? My heart softened and warmed. He was more human than most of the people I’d ever known in my life.

  I cleared my throat. “I haven’t had that one for a while.”

  “So…it’s a recurring nightmare?”

  I exhaled a shuddering breath. “Yeah. A memory I seem to like
reliving from time to time.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

  I shook my head. “Don’t be. It’s hardly your fault.” I sat up and rubbed a hand over my face. “My upbringing wasn’t exactly stellar.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, not right now.” I smiled up at him, touching the bristles of his jawline and falling a little more for the man who’d taken me from girl to woman. I inwardly sighed, melting under his heated stare. “There’s something else I’d like you to do.”

  He covered my hand with his own, leaning into my touch as he asked, “You want to replace that memory with a better one?”

  My smile turned wobbly and all too heartfelt. “Yes.”

  He gathered me in his arms and I sank against him, soaking up his tenderness like a dry husk did rain. I needed this side of him more than I did the warrior I’d glimpsed beneath his detachment, needed the gentleman who’d take me to the place where new dreams could be made.

  I helped him strip off his clothes and we kissed even as we rolled over so that I was on top, his cock pressing along my mound and belly, my breasts flattened against his chest with its soft scrape of manly hairs. I pulled my head back, losing myself in his dark stare.

  “Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he said thickly.

  I shivered with yearning, with a deep emotion I didn’t want to dwell upon, not yet. “You’re not half bad yourself.”

  He curled his hands over my shoulders even as our mouths merged again as one, and I dragged my pussy along the flat of his cock, groaning into his mouth at the friction that wasn’t quite enough. I could all but feel my clitoris swelling against the ripple of veins. But I was desperate for more.

  I sat and gyrated along his rock-hard shaft, his taut jaw and glittering eyes revealing the willpower that’d helped him to survive for so long in the vampire’s nest.

  I closed my eyes momentarily, blocking out the thought. I needed to lose myself completely in this man. I slid down his body until I was straddling his thighs. I looked up. “I want to taste you.”

  He thinned his lips and his nostrils flared. “You don’t have to—”

  I took the tip of this cock into my mouth and sucked him to the back of my throat.

  “Jesus,” he groaned.

  I inwardly smiled. I loved being in control while watching him lose control. Loved the sticky pre-cum on my tongue, the heavy weight of his full-to-bursting ball sac in my hands. I moved my head moved up and down, swirling and flicking my tongue over his ridged shaft and the tip that seeped a little more of his fluid.

  The salty-sticky essence tasted divine and I sucked his cock even harder, making his back arch and a throaty growl escape his compressed mouth. I might be new to oral sex, but going by Alexander’s moans, I was doing a fine job. And damn if my pussy wasn’t drenched knowing how much pleasure I was giving him.

  His balls tightened under my hand and I released him before I missed out on all the fun. I climbed over him, and he stared at me as though I was a feast for his eyes. I grinned and said huskily, “I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like being on top.”

  His stare fairly glowed. “I hear practice makes perfect.”

  I bent and clasped his shaft before I sank inch by slow inch onto him, my inner muscles wrapping around him like a glove and pushing a growl out of my throat at the pleasure-pain of his sizeable cock.

  “Fuck, that feels amazing,” he groaned, the cords of his neck sticking out and his jaw locking tight.

  I waited until my muscles adjusted, and said, “It’s about to get better.”

  Moving my hips forward and back, then lifting up and down, I soon got into a rhythm, one that pushed me toward that special place Alexander had already taken me and that I wanted to experience again and again.

  He growled approval and placed outspread hands on my hips, leading me into a choreographed dance that had me grinding against him. Pressure built and built, an intensity that made me tremble even as I was just seconds away from the release I sought. I cried out his name at the climax tearing through my body, taking away my breath as I spiraled to dizzying heights.

  Alexander’s seed exploded inside me. His guttural groans pushed me to another climax that left me weightless for a long, out-of-body moment, before I finally collapsed on top of him.

  His arms surrounded my sweat-slicked body, keeping me in place with his wilting cock still embedded inside me. I breathed in his musky, sweat-moistened skin, running my hands over his glorious, masculine body.

  Emotions churned through my gut, tears pricking my eyes. I didn’t ever want this moment to end. I never wanted to be apart from this man, even though our odds of being together for much longer were slim to none.

  Breath shuddered from my lungs. Luckily for me, I’d never been a betting woman.

  “Want to talk about it now?” he asked gently, stroking my nape and reaching out with his other hand to caress my buttocks.

  “About how splendid it is to fuck you?” I asked, hoping my shrill voice didn’t give away how little I wanted to relive my nightmare…my past.

  “You can talk my ear off about that if you want,” he said, voice smug. “But sometimes it’s also good to discuss the things that are locked away in your head.”

  I swallowed, before pushing up to look him in the eye. “And sometimes it’s better to bury them as far away as possible. Besides, the vampire chasing us is enough of a nightmare to handle for the moment.”

  He sighed, his hands stilling on me. “Maybe one day you’ll trust me enough to share your past.”

  I smiled at him and murmured softly, “Yeah, maybe one day I will.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I woke alone in the bed with Charley’s imprint beside me cold to the touch. I shot bolt upright, scanning the room and listening for sound, then immediately relaxing at hearing her voice in the living area of the house.

  I released a long, slow breath. I didn’t recall falling asleep, but clearly I’d done so soon after our lovemaking.

  Lovemaking?

  I squeezed my eyes closed. There was no other word for the intimacy I’d shared with Charley. Sex had never felt so right, not just physically, but emotionally too. And I’d been aware of that connection from the very start.

  I was certain Charley had experienced that same bond.

  I ran a hand over my belly, both exhilarated and mystified as to why I’d not once felt the sharp stomach cramps of blood hunger. I’d become so conditioned to being permanently hungry, it was almost a high to feel so normal. I only hoped that when the pains came once again, I’d be able to handle them.

  What if I never get them again?

  My breath hissed, my mind spinning with possibilities. What if the vampire had kept me under control by giving me only a few drops of blood to have me craving more, when a decent amount of his blood would have satisfied my body once and for all?

  I pushed onto my feet and walked out of the bedroom. I guessed that time would tell if my assumptions were anywhere near correct. I wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions if it meant huge disappointment in the not too distant future.

  My thoughts evaporated as I stilled at the visual of Charley on her knees, rumpling Jasper’s ears and crooning to him as if he were her baby. My heart skipped a beat as yearning for a family and a normal life with someone like Charley filled my head.

  Be honest, you only want Charley.

  She turned then, her smile gleaming and her eyes bright. I swallowed. She looked for all the world as though we weren’t running from the most powerful being on the planet and there was nothing more to worry about than what to get on the next grocery order.

  “Alexander, hey. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  I shook my head even as I tried not to overthink things. “No. Actually, I never meant to fall asleep.”

  She smiled. “It’s been a rough couple of days. Little wonder your body needed some rest.”

  I stepped forward and crouched in fron
t of her, Jasper panting happily as he watched us. I cupped her chin and used my thumb to brush gently back and forth across her softer-than-soft skin. “Making love to the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever known might have something to do with it too.”

  Her lashes fluttered and her cheeks heated. “So I’m not just another woman in your bed?”

  I leaned forward and caught her mouth under my own, a tender scrape of lips that instantly heated my blood and made me want to possess her yet again. I leaned back, my eyes catching hers. “Not a chance. You know as much as I that we share something more than amazing sex.”

  She looked down, everything about her demure and self-conscious. “Yes, I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way.”

  I tilted her chin back up so that her gaze again met mine. “I’ve never felt anything like this before with a woman…not even my wife.”

  She gasped sharply, her eyes widening. “I… I don’t know what to say to that.”

  I smiled. “Then don’t say anything. Let’s just enjoy the rest of today.”

  She nodded and I straightened before I strode to the back door. Pulling it open, I noted the sun heading fast toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the ground.

  Jasper sniffed my hand and whined, and I gave him an absent pat even as dread slowly built. “Not long now before nightfall.”

  I sensed Charley behind me even before she spoke. “The bloodsucker will be out looking for us again.”

  I turned to her. “Without a doubt.”

  She didn’t appear to be nervous. In fact, her tension leaned more toward pent-up excitement. “I want to show you something.”

  She pivoted and I locked the back door before I followed as she strode to the end of the hallway. She reached up and pulled a cord from the ceiling, and a ladder clattered downward.

  “An attic,” I murmured as I looked up. “You’ve already been up there?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  I drew a hand across my brow. I must’ve been dead to the world to have slept through the racket of the ladder dropping down. Bloody hell, some protector I made. The vampire could have brainwashed any number of people to come find us, then take us to his nest…and I wouldn’t have even heard them break and enter the house.