by Anna Rainn
“Fine. I like it dirty,” I said. I never thought I liked it, dirty or otherwise, but in the light of today’s events, the statement seemed accurate enough.
He hesitated for a second, contemplating breaking his promise, then deciding he should be a gentleman in at least one thing today, he rolled off me.
“Nick,” I started.
“Yes?” there was a satisfied hum in his voice. I loved the sound of it.
“The thing at the door. It wasn’t human.”
“I know,” he said.
“It’s real. The door was shaking.”
He reached out to me and started playing with my hair in gentle, soothing strokes. “It’s all right. You handled this exactly right.” He pulled one hair strand off my face and rolled it between his fingers. “He couldn’t have gotten in uninvited, even if he had broken the door. He was trying to scare you into doing something stupid like leaving the house.”
I rolled to my side and laid my head on his broad chest, taking refuge in his warm body. The hard muscles were relaxed for once. I cuddled closer to him. He wrapped his strong arm around me. “Nobody will hurt you. Not while I’m here.”
There was an intensity in his voice that I haven’t heard before. I looked at him. He was looking down on me.
“I wasn’t seeing things that night, Nick. It’s true,” I repeated, shaking between his arms. He just held me, the thick muscles of his arms squeezing me deep into his strong body, surrounding me. I stayed.
“Why were you dressed that way?” I asked, tracing imaginary lines on his chest. In the brief seconds I managed to look at him before our clothes started disappearing, I saw that Nick had on a ripped band T-shirt, ripped acid wash jeans, and black military boots. His usual attire was far from formal, but it wasn’t this punk.
“I was collecting intel,” he said cryptically.
“Intel on vampires?”
Nick stayed silent for a few seconds, then he sat up and pulled me opposite him on the sofa.
“We need to talk.”
Chapter 12
“What do you mean you were at a vampire club? Are you insane?”
Nick had casually told me he had been spending some time at an exclusive hangout, long fags only when I called him screaming.
“I do what I do for a reason,” he answered patiently. “I know my way in the underworld.”
“And they just let you walk among them without attacking you?” All of a sudden, I wasn’t feeling so good about Nick doing this, even for me. This just isn’t a job with a remotely decent life expectancy. Being a cop was bad enough. This was even worse.
“Believe it or not, vampires don’t feed on every human they meet,” Nick said impatiently, “Will you let me tell you what I have learned?”
Okay, yes, I didn’t want him to have risked his life for nothing. I waited patiently to show him I can be a good listener.
“The vampire who attacked you that night isn’t alone. Of course, you have seen his partner today, standing behind your door, but this was news to me then.”
“Did they tell you why they were after me?”
“The faction doesn’t know why. They claim that they have nothing to do with this. They didn’t even know you were being chased, according to them.”
“And do we believe them?” I asked.
“I’d say yes. Human attacks are much rarer than you would think, especially in such a public fashion. Vampires usually feed off volunteers, and when they do attack, they ensure it won’t be detected by law enforcement. For a vampire to get so reckless, the reason must be one of two things. The first is if they are starving, and that wasn’t the case with your attack. And the second is if they are outcasts. Usually, it is the two factors working together when murders happen in such a careless way. Justin and Tyler were far from outcasts; they were new recruits, but they were rising stars in their faction, and they sure as hell weren’t hungry.”
“Wait, the vampires’ names are Tyler and Justin?” What was wrong with the world? I mean being attacked by vampires was one thing, but you would at least expect them to have vampiric names like Lestat or something.
Nick wasn’t happy to hear my thoughts.
“Lestat? You are upset their name is not Lestat?” He was grinding his teeth.
“I’m not upset; I’m just saying it is not what one would expect.”
He nodded once, then again. I could tell he was trying to keep his cool.
“Well, they don’t come from 17th century France; they are young American vampires. I hope that explains things. May I continue?”
I wanted to tell him that Lestat was most definitely not french and that he was confusing him with Louis, but I bit my tongue and waited patiently for him to tell me more about Justin and Tyler.
"As I was saying, Justin and Tyler were popular in the red faction. But one week ago, they simply fell off the grid. They didn’t tell any of their faction mates anything about their intentions or their whereabouts.”
“Then days later, they killed Bianca, and started chasing me.”
Nick sighed audibly, “Chasing you makes sense. They are chasing you because you saw Justin’s face, and you saw him commit a crime. What doesn’t make a shred of sense is why they murdered Bianca, and why they did it so recklessly. They didn’t kill her just to feed; there must’ve been a reason to make them act without any consideration for consequences.”
My conversation with Caleb was coming back to me. If Bianca’s murder was so out of the ordinary, even in the vampire world, her presence at my parking lot was also very unusual.
“But how do we know they are both trying to hurt me.”
Nick looked at me uncomprehendingly.
I took a deep breath and started explaining my theory. “Bianca had threatened me several times after I got her fired, she wanted revenge. Caleb told me her life collapsed because of what happened,” I tried to say the words fast, but my tongue couldn’t outrun the shame of what I had caused. I pushed the guilt into the corner it had occupied all these years, and continued, "Caleb thinks maybe the vampire was after Bianca to protect me, or to keep her from doing something stupid. I don’t know.”
“So basically a young vampire would care about Bianca’s worthless human life, or your worthless human life, why again?”
There was no why. I shrugged.
“That’s impossible. It is out of the realm of possibility.”
“My worthless human life, ha?” I tried to move on without commenting on his word choice, but I failed. He was so infuriating. Even in detective mode, he drove me insane.
He nodded, grinning.
“To them, of course,” he said innocently, adjusting a few strands of hair around my face.
“To me, it is far less worthless,” his fingers had innocently left my hair and were now running down my neck, making their way down. Oh, no!
“Get your hands off me, Nicholas!” I jumped off the sofa, trying to put as much distance as possible between us.
He backed off in his seat comically, painting a fake expression of alarm on his face.
“What now?” he asked as if talking to a child.
“I know what you’re trying to do, looking at me like that,” I turned and glared at him.
“Come on,” he jumped off the sofa and walked toward me. I took two steps back.
“Stop! We are not having sex again.”
“You are working extra hard to resist what’s happening between us.” He was smiling down at me.
“Nothing is happening between us. There is no us.”
“We were just together. Minutes ago, you were curled on my chest like a kitten, and we were dissecting a case together. It doesn’t get better than this.” Well, he had a weird outlook at romance.
“You’re not good for me, Nicholas. This was a moment of weakness,” I said.
“Moments,” he corrected.
“Fine, there were moments of weakness, but now your hands are off me, and I am in full control.”
“So you admit my touch drives you wild.” Damn him; it’s like I am talking about something and he is completely focused on something else!
“That’s beside the point,” I rolled my eyes at him, “This is my brain talking, and it is saying NO.”
“Why not? Why don’t you want us to be together? We are good together; we like the same things. I make you happy, and you make me happy.”
“Yes, in bed, until you see fit to walk away without a single word.” The words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them. Nick froze. I fiddled with my hair. The long locks were spilled across my bust, giving me a minimum degree of modesty.
“I never could stop thinking about you, Marissa,” he finally said, diverting his eyes away from me. The confession made him nervous, I could see as he stood in front of me, shifting on his feet. “I know you didn’t forget me too,” he looked at me now, his eyes challenging me to deny what he was saying. I didn’t. Instead, I turned my back to him and left.
Taking advantage of my head start, I slipped into the bathroom, locked the bathroom door, and started the shower. Nick caught up a few seconds later, but it was already too late; he was locked out. Good, this will give him some time to think about what he did.
“Marissa,” he knocked.
I ignored him, then I felt a little bad for him, standing there naked and neglected.
“What?” I asked, rubbing my legs with the foamy loofah, probably harder than necessary.
“Would you please let me in?”
“No!”
When I finally left the shower wrapped in a bathrobe, he was still waiting by the door. Before he could say anything, I threw him a fresh towel.
“The bathroom is all yours now.”
I wasn’t a bad host; he shouldn’t feel like he can’t shower at my place, right?
“Really?” he said.
I nodded.
“Thanks,” he stepped toward the bathroom door, then sneakily pulled my bathrobe’s belt.
“You dick!” I yelled at him, but he had already slipped inside the bathroom, and I heard the door lock turn.
Chapter 13
I only had microwave noodles, so we were eating those. Well, I was eating the noodles. Nick just scrunched his nose at the hot bowl and pushed it away on the counter, declaring he wasn’t hungry. What I really wanted was to call for a pizza, but Nick vetoed that, just as he had vetoed going out for dinner. In an attempt to give the semblance of a real dinner, I poured us two glasses of dry red. This Nick didn’t mind drinking.
Like everything about my apartment, my kitchen was small, yet chic. The cabinets were a glossy shade of white that worked well with the wooden floors and the natural light I usually get through most of the day. A glossy quartz counter stretched separating the kitchen from the rest of the house, and two long stools, also white, were perched in front of the counter. That’s where Nick and I were sitting exchanging words over drinks like responsible young adults.
Nick was back in his underground vampire attire, and I had slipped a pair of lace underwear on, topped with a long T-shirt to look like I wasn’t trying, which I kind of was, to be honest. I was unprepared when he peeled my clothes off earlier, but there is no reason not to look my best even if I wasn’t planning to lose any more undergarments.
“Will they come back?” I asked Nick, slurping noodles.
“I don’t know. This case is not by the book. I cannot tell why they are acting the way they are, and I cannot tell what will happen next. Did you see the vampire who had been trying to break the door leave?”
“No, I was hiding in the kitchen. And the sofa was in front of the door by this point. I couldn’t have looked even if I wanted to.”
Nick just shook his head, resting his elbows on the grey counter, and playing with the stem of his wine glass. “You told me Bianca threatened you. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I didn’t know. She didn’t make any direct threats to me. Caleb told me yesterday that she had been thinking about revenge after she left work.”
“Caleb?”
“Black and Foam’s manager. He worked with Bianca and me before he joined Black and Foam.”
“And you never knew about her intentions?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t Caleb tell you this before?”
“He said he didn’t want me to feel more guilty than I already did.”
“And does Caleb have any reason to believe Bianca still felt that way about you?”
“No, they hadn’t spoken for years.”
“According to him,” Nick said.
“Yes, according to him,” I challenged him to doubt Caleb’s story.
He didn’t.
“So your friend can’t tell us anything about Bianca’s life now, anything that can help us make the connection between her and the two vampires?”
“No, he would’ve told me.”
“Caleb,” Nick said, tilting his head at me.
“I honestly don’t know what you’re going for.” It was bad enough that we had sex, now he was acting as if he had a right to ask about the men in my life.
“You have no right to be jealous,” I blurted.
“I’m not jealous,” his tone was defensive.
“You are, and you have no right, Nicholas. I’m not your girlfriend.”
“You are kind of my girlfriend,” he countered.
“Well, it has to be mutual, you know. I am not sure what your understanding of relationships is, but for two people to date, they both have to accept that they are in a relationship together.”
“We had relations,” he smirked.
I wanted to kick him so bad, but I didn’t want to risk him spilling red wine on my counter.
“Having relations and being in a relationship are two very different things.” It was my turn to spell things out for him as if he was five.
“I think there is something special between us.”
I pushed my hair out of my face and glared at him. “Yes, it is called sex. And it is over, done, finished.”
He shook his head. “No, that’s not it. You bring out the worst in me,” he said suggestively.
Acting cute was going to get him nowhere. Now that my hormones weren’t in charge, the anger I lived with this past year was coming back to me, anger at him and at myself. Not only had Nick hurt my feelings that night when I woke up in bed alone, but he also dealt a deep blow to everything I believed in relationship-wise, and I wasn’t going to forgive him for that.
“Would you please stop it? A year ago, you walked out on me. Last night I invited you in, and you said no!”
“I didn’t want to take advantage.” He conveniently ignored the first part of the accusation.
“And today you decided taking advantage was okay?”
He didn’t say anything to that. Good!
“Listen,” he started after a few minutes of silence. “I’m sorry.”
His blue eyes shot to me reproachfully. It was a weird expression to see on the usually shameless face. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he mumbled, “shouldn’t have left.”
I expected an explanation, I expected a stream of apologies, but instead, I got this: three short sentences. And it was more effective somehow. It was probably the look in his transparent blue eyes, genuine, guilty, and trying so hard not to be pleading. It stabbed at my heart. But letting him in was a considerable risk, a risk I couldn’t endure right now. Not with Black and Foam closed and supernatural murderers on my trail.
“Fine, I accept your apology,” I said to him, sipping on my wine to busy myself. “But we’re not together.”
“You stubborn bull-head.” he groaned, attacking me. Thankfully, I didn’t spill any wine.
Chapter 14
It was hot. The crisp cold sheets of last night had become wrinkled and sticky during the night. I woke up breathing heavily and covered in sweat. It was as though I was stuck in a spider’s web. I pushed wet hair strands out of my face and kicked
at the messy sheets. The heat wasn’t the only thing that had changed in the hours I spent moving from one nightmare to the other; Nick was gone. Again.
Sitting up straight in bed, I went through the five stages of grief in a single minute. I couldn’t believe this happened to me again. The room turned red; I was furious. This time, I know how to find him. I will go after him, and I will slap him, cop or no cop, I don’t care, I decided. Before I did anything to follow through with my plan, came the guilt. I shouldn’t have invited him in, shouldn’t have put myself in that situation for the second time. I let him take advantage of me again last night, not once, but twice. I said the right words, put on my brave face, acted as if I was wonder woman, but then he touched me and it was like that night his hands crept up my thigh in a bar; I forgot about everything. It was my fault.
By this point, the tears that had been stinging my eyes started spilling. They weren’t tears of anger; this kind I didn’t mind; these tears were the worst kind; they were tears of regret. I should have known better. People don’t change. Men don’t change. And the few who do sure don’t change by repeating old patterns.
I fell back on the inhospitable bed and pulled a pillow over my face. Too much sunlight, my apartment got too much sunlight. The seeping light is good on the rare weekends I take off where I stay home cooking early breakfasts and dancing to the top 100 playlist, but on days when you don’t feel like facing the world, sunlight was hell.
Eventually, I was too hot and too annoyed. I got out of bed and wandered outside. The house smelled funny, and the sofa was still lying diagonally across the area outside. We hadn’t gotten around to pushing it back in our haste to rush from kitchen to bedroom. I envisioned a mental shield closing around my body. From this point forward, I will ice him like no vampire could. Nick the dick.
I had two coffee machines at home. One was professional-grade, and the other was a quick capsule machine. I don’t know what my sister Melissa was thinking gifting a barista a coffee capsule machine for Christmas; maybe she thought being a barista, I would like anything coffee related. It is the worst present I ever got, I had decided when I opened the box last December to find the machine along with a few single origin capsule sleeves. At least Melissa got that right; I love single origin coffee. The machine stayed untouched on the counter for a week, then one morning I couldn’t open my eyes long enough to grind my beans, and I didn’t think it wise to drive in my state of sleepiness in order to get to Black and Foam where Caleb can fix me a cup. So, I ended up popping a capsule in the small machine and pushing a button. So, there you go! Sometimes, I drink capsule packaged espresso shots in the morning; this remains my most shameful and well-kept secret. Okay, it is my second most shameful and well-kept secret after the one night stand I had last year. The third if we count yesterday’s events.