Cherry Stem (Vampire Cherry Book 1)

by Sotia Lazu

For a human.

  I wished I wouldn’t come to regret it.

  Chapter Five

  I WAS JUST DONE RELOOPING the laces through my bustier’s tiny eyelets, when the bedside light was switched on.

  “What’s with the leather again?” Alex lay on his side, propped up on one elbow, his cheek cradled in his palm. “I brought you clothes. You can wear those around the house.”

  I pursed my lips, thinking of the contents of the bag he’d brought. Not the most flattering fit. A dazzling smile blossomed on his lips, and I had to smile back.

  “Or you could wear nothing.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  I looked away. If I spent a couple more seconds looking at the curve of his hip, his white teeth nibbling at his lower lip, or the way he invitingly caressed the sheet in front of him, I’d forget what I had to do, and jump back under the covers with him. “I have to go.” My traitorous gaze returned to him.

  He turned on his back and pulled the sheet up all the way to his chest in a gesture so prudish it’d be funny if I didn’t want to rip the covers off him. “To the council?”

  I shook my head. “No. Someone else first. I want to see if he can arrange a meeting.” I’d showered again but hadn’t paid enough attention to towel drying, and it was a bitch putting my boots on, which worked out fine since fighting to pull them up meant I didn’t have to look at him.

  “He?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him run a hand through his hair. “Should I be jealous?”

  My worry that maybe he should be, that my meeting Constantine was a horrible idea, was what made me snap at him. “You have no right to be jealous.” I shouldn’t feel bad for saying that; he wasn’t my boyfriend.

  Ha. The boots were finally in place. I trained my gaze on him.

  Alex nodded.

  Right. So I felt bad. And I’d pop by my place to change into something less sexy before visiting my ex. “Will you be okay?” I expected him to say I had no right to ask that.

  He surprised me. “It depends. Will you be back?” He wasn’t facing me, but I made out the muscle ticking in his jaw. I liked knowing it took effort for him to be so calm and civil—and God, did that make me a horrible person.

  I should keep my distance. Especially after the way I felt last night. I should go see Constantine, have a quickie for old times’ sake, and only contact Alex when I knew something about the case. “Don’t you plan on going home at some point? Oversee the repairmen?”

  Why did he have to have that boyish grin? “Nope. No need to. Gas company guys know what they’re doing.” He shrugged. “And I have everything I need here.” The look he threw me indicated he was referring to much more than groceries. “So will you be back?”

  “Yeah. It won’t take long.” Not if my brain still worked after seeing Constantine for the first time since I broke up with him.

  Alex held out a hand to me. I closed the distance to the bed, took it, and leaned over so I could kiss him goodbye.

  CONSTANTINE’S HUMAN butler, Wesley, opened the heavy mahogany door. There was no sign of recognition on his ancient face even after I gave him my name. It stung that he didn’t remember me—not like he’d seen me almost daily for two years.

  He let me in and told me Constantine was waiting for me in his boudoir. His smile when I groaned at the thought of meeting my ex in his bedroom took twenty years off his wrinkled face. “I suggested the parlor, but when Master Constantine is set on something, there is no talking him out of it,” he said.

  Tell me about it. I’d been yelling at the stubborn ass to leave me alone for four years now. Constantine didn’t relent one bit in his pursuit and still called me at least twice a week, to see how I was doing and ask if I’d reconsidered.

  I followed the human inside with a nod, trying not to scoff at parlor. Why would a vampire need one unless he was a pretentious bastard? Never mind, I got my answer right there. I scratched out the thought that I’d considered his flashiness part of his charm when we were together. I’d been too smitten to be objective.

  Not staring at the blatant expressions of wealth along the corridor that led to the stairway took a lot of effort. The tapestry was embroidered with what I knew was real gold. I couldn’t help but compare my ex’s lifestyle with Alex’s. It both relieved and scared me that in my mind, Alex won, hands down.

  The thick carpet enveloped our feet, drowning out the sounds of our footsteps as we took the stairs down.

  Constantine heard us, nevertheless. “Come in, darling,” he called from behind the closed door of his bedroom. “We won’t be needing you, Wesley.”

  The old man reached for the doorknob, but I placed my hand on it and shook my head. “I got it.”

  I expected him to insist, but he gave me a small bow, his joints creaking, and disappeared up the stairs faster than I considered possible.

  I so didn’t want to open that door.

  The knob felt cold under my palm, uninviting. I turned it and pushed anyway, to reveal a sight that would have taken my breath away, if I had any.

  I’d called before dropping by, in hopes Constantine would be decent by the time I went to his mansion. I ought to have known better. The light of at least ten dozen candles showered a room twice as big as my apartment, in the center of which stood a bed double the width and length of a king-size. The deep-purple silken duvet matched the color of the walls and made stark contrast with Constantine’s naked upper body.

  He was waiting for me in bed.

  Fortunately he was covered from the waist down. His long legs were bent at the knees, and he had one arm folded behind his head, the other lying loosely at his side. His hair, long and golden, framed his head, making him look like an angel. I knew no angel would be as wicked as he was or have as perfect a body.

  His height—I confess, I like my men tall—and absurd sexiness were the only similarities between him and Alex. Alex’s well-built body and short, wavy hair, that perfectly black that even the best colorist wouldn’t be able to duplicate, brought to mind a Greek god. Constantine’s lean and sinewy frame, his long blond hair, and blue eyes made me think of a Norse deity. One that pillaged and made love for hours.

  That was definitely not how I should be thinking of him.

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t enter the room or back out of it and run like I wanted to.

  He reached out, much like Alex had when I left him earlier that evening, and beckoned me to him with his index finger.

  For a moment, seeing his bare skin gleam in the candlelight, I forgot everything. I forgot how he crushed my heart underfoot after I gave it to him. I forgot that he was a cheater and that he filled me with insecurities even before I knew he was sleeping with someone else. I shut the door and stepped closer.

  His beautiful, sexy, promising smile was what snapped me out of it. It was too self-satisfied for my taste. That lift of his sensual lips said, I knew you’d come to me. Once upon a time, that would have been enough for me to strip and jump him. Now I was glad I’d taken the time to go by my apartment and change into a pair of blue jeans, a hoodie, and sneakers. It was a small victory that I hadn’t dressed up for him.

  I stopped at the foot of the bed and said, “We have to talk.”

  He pouted, and I felt like a loser for wanting to pull his jutting lower lip between my own. “Do we have to?” he asked.

  Why would he still have an accent? He’d been in the States for a couple of centuries, long enough to speak like he was born here. Was he keeping it only to make me want him?

  “Yes. We do.” Go me, for sounding so sure.

  “Can’t we kiss hello, first? That’s what my people do.”

  “You’re not Italian, Constantine.” That wasn’t even his real name, not that I could talk. He’d changed his name when he moved here, going for something more sophisticated. “Your people probably decapitated one another as a greeting.” Okay, I was being stupid, but all that hotness put me on my defensive mode.

  He laughed, and the sound felt like a caress.
He used to laugh like that when he reduced me to a pile of goo after hours and hours of amazing sex. Gah. Could I stop thinking about that, please? I hadn’t been the only one he liked goo-ifying.

  “How about a kiss because you want to, then?”

  I scowled. I didn’t want to kiss him, did I?

  “I guess that’s a no.” He raised his arms in defeat. “Fine. We’ll talk, then.” I was about to sigh in relief, when he folded the quilt back from his legs and slid out of bed.

  He was naked.

  And hard.

  And walking toward me.

  Telling him to put something on took all the self-control I possessed, and I was drained by the time he draped a dark-blue robe over his shoulders. It didn’t hide anything, but if I opened my mouth to tell him that, I’d drool.

  There was nothing in the room we could sit on except the bed, so I reluctantly parked my butt at its edge. I had to hop a bit to manage that, but I did so as gracefully as possible and locked gazes with him. Big mistake. He was the only vampire I knew whose eyes changed color according to his mood. Their current violet meant he was hungry. And not for blood.

  That was the way his eyes had looked every time his lips sought mine. Every time I took him inside me.

  That was the way his eyes had looked the day I found him balls-deep inside the woman who’d created him.

  I didn’t need the visual that came to mind uninvited. The she-devil had been on her knees, facing the door, and he was slamming inside her, making her breasts bounce. She’d seen me first, smirked, and urged him on, which he had no objection to until he noticed me. Even then, when he’d frozen, she kept fucking herself onto his cock.

  I had to focus on what was important, not the way he’d had his face buried in her golden mane. “I need you to arrange a meeting with the council.”

  “I need you too.” He covered my hand with his and brought it to his chest, over his heart. “This almost beat when I was with you.” He sounded sincere, which was unsettling.

  What was more unsettling was that I cared. I tried to speak, but nothing came out of my mouth. Unless you count that mewling sound I wished I could take back.

  “This is serious, Constantine.” This time I formed words, but my voice lacked conviction.

  “This is serious too.” He moved between my legs and guided my hand down his front, to his cock.

  I pulled away like I’d been burned. “No. That”—I pointed to his groin—“is stupid. You don’t want me. You just hate having lost me.”

  “I hate having lost you because I want you.”

  “To complete your collection?” Why was I letting him pull me into that talk? We’d had it over the phone, more times than I could count.

  “Because I can’t live without you.”

  “You’re already dead. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I made a mistake, Cherry. I’ve apologized a million times, and I will apologize a million more. It meant nothing.”

  Yeah, sure. It meant nothing. According to him, that was why it had happened often—because it meant nothing. “Vampires are overly sexual beings,” he kept telling me, back when we were together. “We are driven by our passions and our lust.” When I said that made us animals, he countered that it made us superhuman; the way we let our wants dictate our actions held us above society’s rules and conventions.

  I’d said that was bullshit, and he’d said I was too young to know better. I’d wanted him to be monogamous, something rare in our kind. He’d made an effort for me, which was why he’d only been fucking Ádísa. Because it meant nothing.

  Well, it meant a lot to me, and I said so now, as I had then.

  He grabbed my wrist, and when I moved to slap him with my free hand, managed to trap that too. “I love that you’re so stubborn.”

  Then the asshole kissed me.

  It was nothing like the kisses Alex and I exchanged the last two days, although it did have the same bone-jellifying effect. It was dominant and possessive, and I didn’t want it.

  For four years, I’d avoided meeting him, despite calls and letters that begged me to do so, because I’d been afraid I’d give in to the passion he always ignited in me. And before Alex, I probably would have. After Alex, however, hot and irresistible as Constantine might be, it was only my body that wanted him. The body has its own memory. It remembers how a touch made it shiver once—remembers how it felt to be taken by an experienced lover.

  Sadly for my ex, those memories weren’t enough to overcome the memory of his betrayal, or the memory of another lover, a considerate one, waiting for me.

  I freed my hands and shoved him back so hard, he’d have flown across the room if he were human. As it was, he barely saved himself the embarrassment of falling on his ass.

  “You don’t get to kiss me.” I stabbed the air with my index finger. “You don’t get to touch me and make me want you. We’ve been over this.”

  “I love—”

  “You don’t get to do that, either. You’d convinced me I was nothing without you, and you hate that I know better now.”

  His face hardened, and I had the niggling suspicion I wasn’t entirely right on that account. Not that I cared. I didn’t. Wouldn’t. Even if part of me wanted to hug him and hold him close.

  “You’re not getting me back, Constantine. Ever.” I hated that he squeezed his eyes shut with something akin to pain at my words. I hated that I cared.

  He tightened his robe around him. “I’ll let you know when I’ve spoken to the council.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  “They may ask what it’s about.” He turned his back to me and walked to the door. I reassessed my earlier reflection on similarities between him and Alex and added one. They both swaggered with a feline grace that made me feel like a klutz.

  I followed, happy my legs were steady. “I think there is a rogue out there.”

  His step faltered for a split second.

  He opened the door and held it for me. “If you change your mind—ever—I will be waiting.”

  “I won’t.” I couldn’t do more than whisper, but I was reasonably confident that I meant what I said.

  He bobbed his head once. “I will be here, regardless.”

  I cupped his chin, allowing myself to take in the lines of his face, his cheekbones, his high brow, his square jaw. “Thank you.”

  I was halfway up the stairs when he said, “Please be careful.”

  I WAS TOO STRESSED to fly after leaving Constantine’s place, so I took a stroll, let the night air calm my nerves.

  The way things had been going the past couple of days, it made sense that my little walk would end up frazzling me even further.

  The conversation with my ex went well, all in all. I felt bad for causing him pain, but at the same time, I felt vindicated. Besides, I’d hurt him less than he hurt me. At the end of the day, we’d been mostly civilized, had long-overdue closure, and he would talk to the council for me. I hoped they’d agree to see me, and that they weren’t the grudge-holding type.

  When the new council was first formed, they asked me to voice my approval of them when interacting with other vampires. I didn’t refuse, but I didn’t socialize with any vampires other than Constantine, so it’s not like I really helped them. I hoped the former lack of active support on my part wouldn’t make them think twice about helping me now.

  I flared my nostrils as a car drove slowly by. The driver, fortunately alone, was drunk but extremely polite when he stopped and asked if I needed a lift. I locked gazes with him, declined, and ordered him to go straight home and never again drive inebriated.

  The alcohol on his breath and the smells of the night—trees, flowers, a cat or two, the earth itself—made me think of another smell. Blood. The emotional roller coaster seeing Constantine put me through had me on edge, and I needed to feed.

  A couple turned the corner, coming my way. They were holding hands, and the boy, who couldn’t be older than seventeen, with saggy hair and baggy clo
thes, leaned to whisper something in the girl’s ear. She laughed, her earrings jingling, and turned to him for a kiss, her auburn hair catching the streetlight and showing red streaks.

  Red.

  Blood.

  I could have a quick snack on the spot and be on my way without either of them remembering what had happened. Their throbbing pulse called for me to do just that. I didn’t even have to go for the neck. A nibble on the bend of the arm would be more than fine.

  No. Even if they didn’t remember the violation of a happy, carefree moment, I would. I didn’t want to burst their bubble. They had a few more years ahead, before they absolutely had to face the cruelty of the world. My stomach protested my altruism, but I ignored it.

  They smiled when they passed me by, and I returned the smile, fully meaning it. I

  I’m a really scary vampire, aren’t I? But they were so cute and so obviously in love.

  Love. Love is something beautiful, something that should be treasured, and something not all people find in a lifetime. Many take it for granted, failing to recognize its magnificence. I am not one of them. I know love needs nurturing to thrive, and at that moment, I felt too scattered to focus on that nurturing. If I let myself go, what I felt for Alex would become deep enough, but I doubted I’d be able to handle it. Perhaps once I had my shit together, if he was interested in something more than sex and could wait that long...

  Time was something I had in spades, barring an impromptu staking, decapitation, or burning, but Alex was mortal. Even if he fell head over heels for me, he would one day want more—a family, someone to grow old with. I would never grow old with anyone.

  Thinking of Alex made my head hurt. It wasn’t just my future that turned complicated when I tried to factor him in, but my present too. Would I drink from him again? Another rumble from my belly reminded me I should drink from someone, and soon. The thing was, I couldn’t wrap my mind around going to a bar or club and hitting on anyone other than Alex. Sinking my fangs into someone else’s throat and sucking wasn’t appetizing at all, for some reason.