by Sophie Stern
I’d never actually done this before, but I was thinking about what Clarissa said. If a vampire was going to feed from me, I didn’t want Colin to be the first. I wanted to know what I was getting into, especially if it ended up being a really sexual experience. From what I’d heard around the hospital, vampires feeding was mostly just slightly painful, rather than arousing.
The driver didn’t need to be told twice. His fangs descended and he plunged them into my wrist. Oliver started sucking against my skin right away. He didn’t hold back. While this may have been a “first” for me, it obviously wasn’t for him.
“Ouch,” I grit my teeth as he sucked on my wrist. I could feel the blood pouring from me into him. Almost instantly, I felt light-headed. Okay, he was definitely taking more than I thought he would, and this was definitely more than I’d planned for.
When people came in to donate blood, everything was carefully measured and calculated. This was...raw. I closed my eyes as he fed, but I was shocked when I felt him suddenly fly back from my arm. His teeth were ripped away from me. I opened my eyes to see the car door open with a vamp standing beside it. Who was my would-be savior? None other than Colin.
He was standing beside the car. He’d pulled the cabbie out of the vehicle. The driver was now sitting on the driveway flat on his ass looking bothered and upset. Why wouldn’t he be? I’d offered something freely, but Colin had put a fast stop to it.
“Taking a taste?” Colin asked.
“Uh, I, uh,” the vampire said.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I was just tipping. You know, for my ride.”
I looked at my wrist. It was still dripping with blood. Oliver had done a number on me, but I’d given him my permission.
“I don’t want anyone else tasting you,” Colin said.
“Uh, okay.”
“Get out of the car,” Colin said. “That needs to be sealed.”
Without argument, I got out of the vehicle. Oliver was still sprawled on the driveway, and Colin was standing with one foot on the guy’s chest. Colin looked pissed, but I didn’t really get why. Colin and I weren’t exactly a couple.
“Let him go, Colin.”
“You’re mine,” Colin told me. “Until I say otherwise.”
“Hey,” Oliver the vampire said. “You didn’t tell me he was your master.”
“He’s not.”
“Give me your wrist,” Colin said. I held it out because I really was bleeding. I didn’t feel like dying on my first day as a vampire servant girl or whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing here. He pressed his lips to the wound and licked it, sealing it. He didn’t seem to care that someone else had bitten me or that I might have vampire slobber on my wrist from the other guy. He just seemed content to clean me up.
“Thank you,” I said, looking at my wrist. I couldn’t even tell there had been a bite there. He’d done a good job sealing the wound. I twisted it around, checking. There wasn’t even a scab or a scar. There was nothing.
“You are welcome,” Colin said. Then he moved his foot, releasing Oliver from beneath him. The driver scrambled to his feet and hopped back in the car. He seemed anxious to leave and more than a little happy to be escaping alive.
“Wait!” I said before he could leave. “My bag!”
I reached into the backseat and grabbed my backpack, tugging it out. I slammed the door just as I heard Oliver shift the car into gear. He was ready to go, all right.
“Don’t call me,” the vampire driver said, and then he drove off. If this had been a movie, I would have been left in a cloud of dust and debris as he sped away, but it was real life, so I was left staring at the lights on the back of the car as he hurried as far away from Darkvale Manor as he could get.
Colin turned to me, looking at me with confusion. I met his gaze, wondering what the problem was. It was hard not to stare at Colin, though. Even though it was easy to tease him for his obviously-vampiric clothing choices, he was handsome, and I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
“Why did he say not to call you?” Colin didn’t sound jealous. He just sounded confused.
I held out the vampire’s card with his name and number, as well as the services he offered. Apparently, he was more than just a cabby. He also offered “dates.” Okay, so I’d been bitten by a vampire pimp. Awesome. That wasn’t really what I’d been expecting.
Colin took the card, flipping it over. He read Oliver’s name out loud and his eyes widened slightly when he saw all of the additional services that were offered. Colin growled a little, his eyes narrowing. Then he ripped up the card into little pieces and tossed it on the ground.
“That’s littering, you know.” I gestured to the space on the ground where the little flecks of paper were sprinkled like snow.
“I’m aware.” His voice was deep and pensive. Cool, so I got to hang out with a broody vampire! Awesome.
“Um, okay,” I said, staring at the ground where he’d dropped the pieces of paper. Apparently, littering wasn’t a big deal in vampire world. “So, what now?”
“Now we’re going inside,” he said. “You need a shower.” He stated this matter-of-factly, as though he was telling me that I needed to buy bread or milk. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that telling someone they needed a shower was kind of rude and abrupt. I tried not to let it bother me.
“I mean, probably. I did just get off work.” I raised my arm and sniffed, smelling myself. I didn’t think I smelled that bad. I was little offended at the idea, actually. I worked hard to make sure that I was hygienic and clean. Yeah, I was on my feet a lot at the hospital and I was always running around doing things, but I didn’t think I was smelly.
“Then we’ll have dinner,” Colin said. Again, this was very matter-of-fact. I was going to have to get used to that. I’d lived on my own for long enough that having someone tell me our schedule and the order in which we were going to do things felt a bit strange and awkward. I knew Colin had summoned me here for a reason – to be his blood toy – but I still felt slightly annoyed at his attitude.
“Dinner? I’m actually not super hungry.” I wasn’t trying to take back control. I wasn’t. My answer was truthful. I wasn’t hungry. I’d had a granola bar during my shift, and that was more than enough food to tide me over until breakfast. I didn’t need dinner. It had nothing to do with the fact that Colin was wildly intimidating or the fact that I wanted to be his dinner.
The look he gave me let me know perfectly well that my argument was not necessary, nor was it accepted. Instead, he took my arm and guided me up the stairs and into the mansion. We stopped just inside the doorway and he turned to look at me. I bit my lip, wondering if he was going to kiss me. Would he be gentle? Rough? Would he bite me a little?
I was disappointed when he didn’t kiss me. Instead, he pressed his lips to my ear, lowered his voice, and whispered.
“Tell no one why you are here.”
Was he serious?
I tried not to sound disappointed. Okay, so I may have been hoping for a super-hot, wildly spicy vampire kiss inside of the doors. After all, wouldn’t that be a good way to start our night together? It would be like, “Hey, welcome to the mansion! Let’s make out and have some fun while you’re here!” Instead, he just didn’t want anyone to know what he was doing with a lame-ass human like me. Cool.
“Okay.” That was fine with me. Maybe I didn’t want anyone to know why I was with the vampire, either.
“Okay? Just like that?”
“Whatever. Where’s the shower?” I blinked innocently, looking up at him. I wasn’t about to let him know that I was annoyed by his treatment of me. No, I didn’t expect this guy to be my boyfriend or to want to fuck me right away, but he was a vampire, after all. Was kissing really out of the question? Was it so wrong for a girl to want to be seduced a little bit before someone fed from her?
Colin stared at me, as though he thought this was some sort of trick. He cocked his head, looking at my eyes. He was searching fo
r something there. Lies, maybe. The truth? I didn’t know.
“You aren’t going to ask me why I don’t want anyone knowing your true purpose?”
“Not particularly,” I said. “I’m perfectly fine if people don’t know we’re about to be swapping spit.”
“Not spit,” he said.
“It’s a figure of speech, old man. Where’s the shower?”
Colin grabbed me by the throat and pushed me up against the wall. This was starting to become a habit with him. Instantly, I was wet, and I wildly regretted that. He could probably smell my arousal right now, and he could probably tell exactly how much I wanted him in this moment. Okay, I shouldn’t have made a stupid comment about swapping spit. I definitely shouldn’t have called him old, but oh, having his hand against my throat right now? It was so fucking good.
“Respect is important to me,” he said, growling the words against my mouth. His lips were so close to mine that if I leaned forward, we’d be kissing. I could steal a kiss from the vampire if I wanted to. Instead, I decided to growl right back at him.
“Respect is earned,” I said, matching his attitude.
“It’s freely given to me,” he told me. “And you will demonstrate respect to me in all things.”
“Understood,” I said. I was suddenly too tired to argue.
He didn’t kiss me, which was unfortunate. Instead, he dropped me to my feet, took my hand once more, and led me up the stairs. He silently guided me to what I assumed was his own private hallway. It was very wide. You could probably fit four people side-by-side in the hallway. It was a wild difference from my own tiny apartment home.
The walls were lined with paintings and portraits. There were paintings of men and women and of couples. Most of the pictures looked like they were of the same couple, but their faces were often hidden, so it was difficult to tell. I tried not to stare too much as we walked down the hallway, but I noticed that some of the pictures were of someone who looked like a vampire queen.
His wife.
Colin’s wife.
I knew without even asking that it was her. I bit my tongue and kept on walking. If he wanted to talk about her, he would, but I wasn’t about to bring up the fact that the love of his life had been killed. There was no way that had been easy for him. I didn’t even like talking about the fact that my parents had died, and that was totally different from losing someone you were in love with.
Colin had cared so deeply for Elizabeth that everyone in Darkvale knew it. Their relationship was wildly legendary. He had probably known my brother, too. After all, Matt worked closely with Elizabeth. Was Colin the kind of guy who would remember someone like Matt?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
I didn’t know if Colin was hands-on when it came to his wife’s safety. I didn’t know whether her employees or her guards were people that Colin associated with during her life. I just knew that when they were a couple, they were both always busy. He was building Darkvale and creating this wonderful haven where everyone could live peacefully, and she’d worked to ensure that both the humans and vampires had felt safe and cared for.
Colin looked over at me as we walked down the hallway. He grabbed my hand and gave it a little squeeze, but it wasn’t exactly comforting. It almost felt more like a warning. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me next, but I did know something. I was in over my head.
Like, so totally, completely, one-hundred-percent in over my head.
4
Colin
SHE WAS LOVELY.
That was going to be a major problem for me. As we walked down the hallway together, I gripped her hand, tugging her along. I tried to focus on the things I didn’t like about her. After all, she had screwed up my order. She’d messed up my plans for the week. She’d caused me trouble, but all I could think about was her scent.
The human shouldn’t have smelled as good as she did. I was lying when I said she stank. Oh, I could smell the sweat on her, and I knew she’d been busy working hard at the hospital, but there was more to it than all of that. She wasn’t smelly. She was perfect, and she was wonderful, and I loved the way that she looked.
When I saw Juliet, it was impossible to focus on anything else in the world. All I could think about was the way she seemed to glide along when she moved. She had an air of dignity about her that not many humans had, but more than that, she was hot as hell. I loved her confidence. I couldn’t quite believe she’d offered her wrist to the driver as a tip. Who the hell did that? It was incredible though, and sexy. My dick had gotten hard when I’d tasted her blood. It was perfection.
She walked alongside me down the hall. She kept looking around at the space around us. Her eyes roamed as she looked at each of the paintings that were hanging on the wall. They’d been carefully arranged, and if you stood and looked at them each in order, you’d see that they told a story about eternal love.
“My late wife painted those,” I told Juliet. I rarely talked about Elizabeth. I wasn’t quite sure why I was sharing this with her now. It just seemed appropriate, somehow. Most of the time, the other vampires in the house avoided talking about Elizabeth. She had been with us for many years, and then she was dust. There wasn’t exactly much to say.
“I know,” she said. Juliet looked over at me and blinked a few times. She knew? How did she know? There was no label indicating that the paintings had been created by my late wife. There was nothing to indicate or to show that Elizabeth was the artist. She’d spent years perfecting the way she painted. She’d labored over perfecting each brush stroke, and it showed.
“You know?”
“Everyone knows she was a talented artist,” Juliet said with a shrug.
Interesting.
I didn’t know what the humans said about me or my wife. I didn’t know how they felt about me in particular. I definitely didn’t have any clue that they’d thought Elizabeth was talented. I certainly had felt that way. The idea that other people had noticed was a bit wonderful, in my opinion. I liked knowing that Elizabeth was somehow admired, even if it was from afar.
“What else do people know?”
“That she died,” Juliet said, looking over at me. “My brother did, too.”
“Your brother?”
She nodded, but she didn’t say anything else. It was a moment where I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Although I usually considered myself to be a total asshole, I didn’t want to be a dick about this. Losing someone sucked. It didn’t matter whether you were a vampire or whether you were human or whether they were a good person or a terrible, horrible creature.
What mattered was that when you lost someone you cared about, your heart cracked just a little, and it was very difficult to recover from that.
“This is my room,” I said, changing the subject. It was a terrible way to transition into letting her see the place, but we had arrived, and there was no point in dilly-dallying.
“Okay,” Juliet said. She walked past me into the bedroom and stood, taking it all in. “Nice place,” she finally said. The room was twice as big as the one my brother was staying in. There was a huge bed in the center of the room that was undoubtedly big enough for five or six people. I knew because Elizabeth and I had shared that bed many times with our friends. Vampires weren’t exactly known for being monogamous.
“Thank you,” I said. “You can set your things on the dresser. The bathroom is through there.”
I pointed toward the en-suite. She looked at me for a moment before kicking her shoes off, setting her backpack on the table, and then heading toward the bathroom. I closed the bedroom door and locked it. Soon I’d have to go meet my brother for dinner. Juliet would accompany me, of course, but I hadn’t decided what I was going to tell my brother about her.
I didn’t want him to know that she was interesting to me or that I’d basically blackmailed her into staying.
“Thanks,” Juliet called over her shoulder. “I won’t be too long.”
I chuckle
d quietly. She thought I was letting her shower alone? Oh, no. Sweetie, no. Once I made sure that my door was locked and we wouldn’t be disturbed, I headed into the bathroom where Juliet was undressing. She jumped when she saw me and covered herself. She was in her bra and panties, and the water was running.
“Don’t cover yourself.”
“But I’m practically naked,” she said.
“Not naked yet.”
“I’m about to be.”
“And you think you can hide yourself from me? Juliet, the entire point of you coming here is that I’m going to see you naked.”
“There were other reasons, too,” she whispered. “You have to eat.”
“Yes, you,” I said. “Now finish undressing. I want to watch.”
“You want to watch me?”
“Yes.”
Slowly, she pulled down her panties, revealing her soft, shaved pussy and her tight, curved bottom. She reached behind herself to unclasp the bra. Then she let that fall to the floor, too.
“How’s that?” She asked, looking at me.
She looked fucking delightful. She was soft and curvy in all of the right places. People always thought guys wanted women who were waifs, and while I was a firm believer that every body was beautiful, I had a special place in my heart for girls who had just the slightest bit of fluff.
Juliet was lovely indeed.
“Very nice,” I managed to get out.
“Are you going to watch me shower?”
“I’m going to join you,” I told her.
“Do I get to watch you undress?”
“If you like.”
“I’d like that.”
She stood with her hands at her sides and stared while I unbuttoned my shirt. I liked that she was no longer hiding herself. It was as though she’d realized that she was going to be naked here more often than not, so she might as well enjoy it.
“You look lovely,” I told her.
“I’m sure I look like a normal human.”
She spoke in a way that made me suspect she’d been hurt before. Had she? Had someone been cruel to the little human? Had someone been unkind to her? That bothered me. What had happened to irritate sweet Juliet when it came to talking about her body?