by Elena Lawson
Frost took a long pull of the amber liquid and handed the bottle to me. It was rum. Mom drank a lot back before what happened. I think it was how she dealt with the knowledge that the creatures of the night lived among us—that they could be our neighbors, or night-time shoppers at the supermarket.
My mom and her mom and back and back and back for as long as out family line went on—we could all compel. And we all knew vampires existed. But it wasn’t until me that one of us decided to use our weird ability to do something about it.
“So,” Frost started, watching me grimace after a deep swallow of the rum.
“So?”
“Are you finished with your questions? Can I tell you why I’m here now?”
Straight to the point like always.
I remembered he had a proposition for me, and I shivered, imagining what it could be. “I have a few more questions,” I said, trying to prolong this—if only because I was afraid I wouldn’t like what he had to say.
Frost sealed his lips into a firm line—waiting for my next question. The low-lit lamp on my desk across the room was the only light—and the deep shadows played with the sharp lines of his features. I didn’t miss the fact he’d taken off his leather jacket sometime during the day. Now his biceps were bare, and I saw how his unblemished skin pulled tight over bulky muscle. The blue veins in his forearms bright against the paleness of his skin.
Fuck, he was beautiful.
I swallowed, setting the rum down on the short night table at the side of my twin bed. “Are you still you?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but I stopped him with a raised hand. “The truth,” I almost growled. I needed to know. Had becoming a vampire changed his mind…? Or was he still Frost, just with fangs and an appetite for blood.
His expression soured and his brows drew together as he considered my question carefully. After a few pulse-pounding minutes he lifted his head and replied. “I am—and I’m not.”
That was hardly an answer.
He drew in a breath and raked a hand through his hair. “It’s like there’s me—and there’s it. It is difficult to control. It wants blood. It’s…feral. But I’m stronger than it. It’s just a small part of me now. But up here,” he said tapping against the side of his skull. “It’s still all Frost, baby.”
A small crooked grin, and I saw him. He was telling the truth.
I hadn’t ever wondered what it would be like to fuck a vampire before. But I was wondering now. My eyes roving over my best friend with a hunger I was sure he didn’t miss.
“I believe you,” I told him, and tentatively reached out to touch his hand. His palms were calloused. My fingers trailed toward his wrist, finding the skin there was smooth as silk. Up and up some more—I scooted a bit closer on the bed to reach the bulge of his bicep, his shoulder, and with gritted teeth, his face.
A day’s worth of growth made his jaw rough. I settled my hand over the stubble, looking into his dark green eyes, wondering if he heard the raucous beating of my heart trying to escape my chest. Of course, he could. He’s a vampire.
His lips parted. “Rosie—what are you doing?” he asked, his own chest rising and falling more quickly now. The hunger I felt mirrored in his burning gaze.
It wasn’t just me then. He felt it, too—this undeniable connection between us.
It had been there from the very first moment I saw him. I just didn’t want to listen to it. But if he was still the same man I remembered then…
I had the stake out of the sheath—Frost on his back with me straddling his hips—and the cold metal tip aimed squarely at his heart. The metal pressing into the soft cotton of his t-shirt, a second away from drawing blood.
His hands raised and his eyes widened in surprise. I had him. “Rose,” he warned, and though I saw traces of fear, there was also something more primal there. He liked being dominated. His cock hardened beneath his jeans, pressing against the soft fabric of my satin panties.
I sealed my mouth against the urge to moan. “Can you control yourself?” I asked him, breathless, my voice somewhere between a hiss and a whisper. “Can you promise me that you’ll never take another human life again?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I can promise you that I don’t want to lose control—or take life,” he said, his voice staining as I pressed further into his flesh with the tip of my stake in response. It wasn’t good enough.
“I can promise you I will never stop trying to maintain control—with everything I have.”
I realized I couldn’t ask for more than that. Just like a drug addict could never promise they would remain clean for the rest of their life—Frost couldn’t promise me that he would never again—in his immortal life—lose control.
My hand shaking, I dropped the stake and it rolled from his chest, onto the bed and then clattered down to the floor. The ringing sound of metal on wood was like a dinner bell, breaking us out of our frozen states.
A growl tore from Frost’s chest as he yanked me down to him, our lips connecting with a force that was almost painful. Almost. My body came alive as he took a fist of my hair in his hand and the other slid down my back, securing me to him.
With a sharp tug against my hair, he separated our lips for an instant. “Don’t ever threaten me again.”
There was a flash of danger in him. The bad boy I remembered from school. The one nobody crossed. He’d been patient with me. Letting me ask him questions. Answering them as best he could. He didn’t chew my head off for leaving him or shoving him or any of the things I’d said—but now he was back to his old self.
And I couldn’t be happier to see him that way.
I grinned. “I make no promises,” I said, and his dark expression lightened with the twitch of a smile. Then he dipped his head to my neck, and I froze, ready to attack. But he only planted a hot kiss against the raised flesh of my scar. I shivered, a small whimper escaping my lips.
Taking a fistful of his silvery blond hair, I yanked him back up—kissing him with a passion and fury—pouring my pain into him and letting him take away the hurt and the loneliness of years spent without a friend, or anyone to share my time with.
It felt like finding home.
He groaned as I skimmed my teeth over his lower lip and snaked my hand down between us, popping the metal button from the loop on his jean—dragging the zipper down.
“Fuck, Rose,” he gasped when my hand found his cock beneath the denim, I marveled at his size, feeling the silky-smooth skin against my palm as I stroked him. His body trembled beneath me. Every one of his muscles tense.
I wondered how hard it was for him not to lose control. How much effort he was exerting to keep the monster at bay. Judging by the pleading look in his eyes and the quake in his limbs—I had to guess it was a lot.
“If this is too much—” I said, breathy, praying he wouldn’t ask me to stop.
“No,” he growled. “I want it all.”
His hand on my lower back lifted my dress and his other drew down, tearing my panties free from my body—baring my wetness to the cool temperature of the room. I sucked a breath in through my teeth and angled his cock up, settling myself onto him slowly at first, allowing my body to adjust to his length and girth, and then all at once he pushed the rest of the way into me. He filled me gloriously, and I shouted out at the pressure and the building of desire in my blood.
My fingernails dug into his chest, trying to find something—anything steady to hold on to as he ground his hips against me, his head tipped back in a silent moan of his own.
His big fingers kneaded my hips, gripping so tightly I’d be surprised if there weren’t bruises tomorrow. But I didn’t care. I could handle bruises. I could handle it all if it meant never having to stop.
Frost urged me to move—pulling me down and forward. I obliged, moving in time with each thrust of him inside of me. I moaned loudly now, the quickening already beginning somewhere deep inside. My sex throbbing with the build-up.
“Not
yet,” Frost said. “I’m nowhere near finished with you.”
Before I could blink, I was on my back and he was above me, his cock still hard and pulsing between my legs. He knew his way around a woman. I grinned.
Frost drew out painfully slow, watching my reaction with a lip between his teeth. A wicked grin split his face just before he plunged back in, forcing the breath from my body. I pulled him close, needing more. Faster.
“Faster,” I urged him, begging now, my claws digging into his back, trying to coax him to keep going.
He flicked my nose with his. “Not yet,” he told me, “Slow. I need it to be slow.”
I saw how hard he was working to keep up his control. And when his lips parted, I thought I saw his fangs begin to lower.
“Slow then,” I acquiesced and started to move against him, wishing there weren’t layers of clothing between us. I wanted to feel all of him. I wanted his mouth on my breasts and to see the broad expanse of his shoulders uncovered. The rock-hard abs I felt beneath his shirt but couldn’t see.
I started to peel back his shirt and he tore it off the rest of the way, never stopping in his slow thrusts. And then the same hand that tore off his shirt ripped a clean line down the middle of my dress, baring me to him fully. He took in the sight of my aching breasts—the small nipples hard and erect.
I glanced at the shreds that had become of my dress laid out on either side of me.
“Don’t worry,” Frost breathed, quickening his pace between my legs. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
Before I could reply, his mouth closed over my right breast and my hips bucked. His tongue rolled over the nipple, pressing flat against it and then flicking it over and over in time with his thrusts.
I moved against him faster, forcing him to bend to my desire. I was sure that if I didn’t come soon, I was going to lose my mind.
“Frost,” I shouted out and his mouth left my breast to silence me with a smothering kiss and he relented, matching my pace. I gripped the back of his neck, holding his body flat against my own. All hard and soft and tight and wet.
I moaned again—loudly—almost screaming.
“Now,” he growled against my lips and the command was all it took to undo me.
His back muscles stiffened under my fingers and he came into me. My orgasm exploded through my body, tightening muscle and sinew. Singing in my blood. It consumed me. Black spots bloomed in my vision and I clutched him, the pitch of my moan rising to meet the deep timbre of his replying growl.
“Mine,” he said between broken breaths.
I nodded, still dazed—my mind foggy and limbs suddenly heavy. “Yours.”
7
I’d sent Frost to get my duffle and lay, still naked, in the bed as he set it down next to me. “The hell you got in this thing?” he asked.
My gaze flicked up to meet him, biting back a smirk. “You don’t want to know.”
Beneath the few layers of clothes and leathers was an arsenal of weapons. Another set of stakes in case I misplaced mine, and a further pair of wooden ones if I lost those, too. A couple of daggers. A crossbow I was still hopeless at. And my Katana. I was still learning how to use that—but I was dead set on mastering it.
Another way to kill a vamp without plunging a stake in its heart was to remove the head. And my katana was forged by a master in Japan—I’d paid almost two thousand for it and waited the two months for it to be made and shipped all the way here.
It was sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel. If he was lucky, maybe I’d show him someday. I dug through the clothes, pulling out a simple shirt and skirt combo. I wasn’t a dresses and skirts kind of girl, but it was hard to conceal my stakes when I had to wear the garter and belt over top of a pair of jeans. Much easier to hide them beneath the hem of a skirt or dress. And no one ever expected a girl to store weapons up there. At least, not the kind that killed.
I drew out a cigarette and lighter from the side pocket and flopped back onto the pillows, lighting it as I did.
“You smoke now?” Frost crooked a brow.
“Only after a particularly good lay,” I said a kicked at him playfully with my heel.
He shook his head, and I followed the trail of his gaze as he carved a path over my still-naked body, settling at the spot between my legs. A soft groan left his throat. “You should put your clothes back on or—”
“Or what?” I teased, maneuvering myself so my legs parted just a little, giving him a full view.
He stopped breathing. “As much as I would love to tear into that again,” he said, licking his lips, the gesture made me shiver. “We have to talk. We’ve been looking for you because—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, dipping my hand into my nightstand drawer to pull out the ashtray I kept inside. I ashed the cig and turned back to him, crossing my free arm over my chest. “This proposition,” I said, giving the words half an air quote with the hand that wasn’t covering my breasts from the cool air in the room.
Frost nodded. “That’s right.”
“I want to see the others,” I said, my tone demanding. “Ethan and Blake. I want to see them before I decide. You can tell me together what it is you want.”
I was afraid that if I declined, or didn’t like what he had to say, I would ruin my chance to see them. Would Frost still take me to them if I denied his request? I wasn’t about to risk it. I missed all of them so much. Frost was just a single piece of our puzzle of four souls.
He cocked his head, clucking his tongue as he considered. Annoyance in his expression. “I had a feeling you might say that.”
“I don’t see what the problem is?”
He sighed audibly, leaning over me to snag the bottle of rum from the nightstand. “They’re in Atlanta,” he said.
Atlanta? I had been there only a week ago.
“We got word that the Black Rose hit there a couple weeks back, so they’ve been scoping out the place looking for you.”
They were only a week behind me the whole time…it was a crazy though to know that they were so close to finding me—probably more than once.
When we heard there was a possible Black Rose murder in Oklahoma, they stayed there to keep searching—and I came here. I had this feeling you were on your way home. I couldn’t figure out why. I just knew if I came here that you’d find me.”
And he’d been right.
I frowned. “But Atlanta is on the other end of the country,” I complained.
“I can book us two red-eye tickets for tomorrow night.”
Tempting, but. “I won’t leave Betty,” I told him.
“Who?”
“Betty,” I repeated. “My truck.”
He looked toward the window as though he could see straight through the cardboard. “Black Betty. Real original, Rosie.”
I punched him in the arm. “Don’t talk about my Betty like that,” I chastised. “She’s a one of a kind woman.”
“Like her owner.”
I sat back, smugly. “Exactly.”
“Well,” said Frost, his chest expanding as he drew in a long breath. “Let’s get the corpse buried out back and hit the road. We’ve still got a good amount of moonlight to burn. If we leave tonight, we can be in Boise before dawn.”
Ha! He underestimated my abilities. You didn’t have to adhere to state traffic laws when you could just convince the officers you’d done no wrong with a few well-chosen words.
I’d have us to Salt Lake City by morning. Easy.
But first, coffee.
8
“Christ, woman!”
I’d just swerved around another transport going grandma speeds down the dark highway. There was only a small window of laneway before oncoming traffic would be on top of us and I’d just made it. Revving Betty’s engine to the precipice of what she could handle to get back into our lane before we were hit.
“You know,” I said with a sly grin. “For an immortal being, you really are a pansy, Frost.”
He guffawed, his hand agai
nst his chest as though he were deeply wounded by my remark. “It’s not me I’m worried about,” he said, exasperated. “How have you survived these last ten years driving like that?”
I shrugged innocently.
Frost underestimated me again. I’d always been a quick healer. And I swore my bones were denser than most.
Somehow, even being as short as I was, I managed to weigh nearly as much as a body builder with an extra foot of height on him. My mom had been the same. We were just built different. I liked to think maybe we were our own breed. Like shifters. Or Fae. Maybe we were born to fight vampires.
I didn’t like to consider the alternative—that maybe we were somehow like them. Part vampire? Half-dead. Half-living. Ugh. I shoved the thought away, shaking off the disgust.
I gestured for Frost to pass me another crème-filled donut. When I reached to take it from his hand, he swatted my fingertips away before I could snag it. “Eyes on the road,” he ordered and hand-fed me the thing until all that was left were the crumbs in my lap and a bit of crème on his index finger.
He went to pull away, glancing this way and that—I assumed looking for a napkin—but I leaned forward and took the crème coated digit into my mouth and sucked the sweetness off.
Frost gaped at me—I could see him from the corner of my eye, watching. “What?” I said, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t have any napkins.”
We sped at breakneck speeds—chewing the blacktop mile after mile. It became increasingly clear that we weren’t going to make it all the way to Salt Lake by sunrise. Maybe I’d been a little cocky back at the house. But we did make it well past Frost’s suggested daytime stop of Boise and had just crossed the state line.
“We should stop soon,” Frost said, and I followed the line of his gaze to see the sky had already begun to lighten. Not much. But enough to know that within the next half hour—the sun would rear its golden head and fry him to a crisp.