Eyes of Ice (Eyes of Ice Erotica Series) (23 page)

             
“I don’t … know what you’re talking about,” Cecelia whimpered. “You’re scaring me.”

             
He set his mouth into a grim line, and as she watched, his eyes unshaded, pupils gradually shrinking back to their ordinary shape and, as if being diluted, shifting back to a deep sapphire. Thinking that this perhaps meant that he had returned to his senses, was no longer muddled by the blood, Cecelia tried to jerk away, but he still held her firmly.
Please, please, please, let us reach the lobby
, Cecelia’s begged inwardly.

             
“Don’t play stupid,” he repeated, his voice slow and heavy. She looked to his eye again to see that they were narrowed. “I wanted you that night at the dance, not your
friend
as a substitute,
you
.” He spat the word
friend
like it was poison in his mouth, and Cecelia jerked her head back for an extra few inches away from him, smacking it painfully against the wall. “But I needed to be good to Andrew, so I said, go ahead, take the girl you want, it’s not a problem for me, don’t worry about me, and then … you were so much more than that, weren’t you?
Weren’t you?
”

             
Cecelia opened her mouth to try and form some kind of answer, but all that emerged was a kind of senseless moan. With a cheerful ding, the elevator reached the lobby, but of course there was no way she could sidestep or escape Devon’s entrapment.

             
“Yes, and then I had to listen to him go on and on about how good you were, how pure you were, how ideal you were for him and what he had never known he needed, oh, and how he wanted to be good for
you
. And how wonderful it was that each of us knew that we had found a place where we belonged – him with you, and I with
Alexandra
,” he laughed without happiness, a pain sounding in every syllable as he went on, “You know – you know that I have watched you and wanted you and tried to hide it. You
know
.”

             
No words would come to Cecelia’s lips; but Devon slowly, deliberately, inclined his head towards hers, stopping them. Cecelia’s blood was pounding in her ears again. Devon’s lips were strange and new against hers, after the familiarity of Andrew’s – and there was a purposeful firmness to the kiss, one that imbued all of a tender longing and restrained passion.
I have always wanted you,
he had said, desperation and need in his voice, and she felt it in his kiss, in his body now pressed hard against hers, pinning her to the elevator wall. She felt it in the gentle and patient movement of his lips against her still ones.

             
I have always wanted you,
she thought, the words no longer an echo of Devon’s voice in her mind, but her own. Something snapped in Cecelia, and without fully realizing it, she began kissing him in return, her hands clenched into fists on his shirt. His hips moved roughly against her, and she opened her legs wider, anticipating his entrance. She felt him smile into the next kiss grip her thigh, moving into the space she had provided for him – she opened her eyes then, wanting to look into his face as the level of intimacy intensified. She expected to see Andrew as such passion had conditioned her to – but saw Devon’s chiseled features as if through a drunken daze. Horror gripped her.

             
What have I
done?
It’s Andrew that I want – not Devon!
She brought her hands to Devon’s chest and pushed him away, hard. Caught off guard more than anything else, he stumbled back, startled.

             
“I …” she began, and then could say no more. She just ran. Ran out of the elevator and out of the building to the street, not caring that anyone could see her. Stumbling out into the daylight, she managed to zip up the back of her dress – now she wasn’t half-naked, at least, but she was still bleeding and shaking. Numbly, she wondered why she wasn’t dead yet, why Devon or Andrew hadn’t come charging out of the building after her, broken her neck, and dragged her back in again before anyone was the wiser.

             
I have to get away from here.

             
The air felt unbearably thick – thick to breathe through a raw throat, and thick to struggle through, as Cecelia glimpsed a yellow cab idling across the street.

             
I have to get away from here.

             
She ran across traffic, the yellow cab the only thing she saw, oblivious to the honking and screeching of tires. She wrenched open the cab’s passenger-side door and collapsed inside, saying to the startled driver: “University place, please. Please, please hurry.”

             
He turned back to look at her, but she was at that moment sweeping her hair around the side of her neck. She felt it sticking to the warm blood, tangling in her necklaces, but it performed the task of hiding her injury and much of her face.

             
“Ma’am?”

             
“What?” Cecelia asked.

             
“University place…?” the cabbie said uncertainly.

             
Cecelia blinked. Somehow, they had arrived. She stared out the window at the familiar façade. No Andrew. No Devon. From here she could see the entire, recessed doorway; neither of the vampires hid in the shadows, and unless they had found time to disguise themselves, they were nowhere on the street.

             
I just have to get to the lobby, and then there’s the security guard
, Cecelia reassured herself, but somehow the lobby felt miles away, across a street that yawned before her, stretching to twice its distance as if in an agoraphobic’s nightmare.

             
“Ma’am?” she distantly heard the cabbie say again.

             
“Will you walk me to the door?” she asked, snapping around to face him.
Maybe
, she thought, clinging to a pathetic and panicked hope,
Andrew or Devon won’t attack me if I’m with somebody else – somebody who doesn’t know about them, and will call the police if I’m taken.

             
Through the screen, though, the cabbie’s face contorted into further confusion. “To the door, ma’am?”

             
“Yes, please. Listen, I ….” She wracked her brain for an excuse, but found none. “I’ll give you a twenty.”

             
Quick as a flash, he was opening her door for her, and walked her across the street, his hand upheld authoritatively to pause the oncoming traffic. She had never met this man and apparently couldn’t remember half their time together, yet she wanted to cling to his arm in fright as they bridged the gap from the cab to her door.

             
Upstairs, her room was empty. Checking the clock that hung above their door, Cecelia realized that Mags must be out with friends. Though she was thankful, Cecelia knew that she couldn’t expect her roommate to be gone for long. She fumbled through her purse for a twenty, went downstairs on shaky legs and handed it to the patiently waiting cabbie, then, heart thudding, asked the guard to walk her back upstairs.

             
“I forgot my key,” she told him, hiding it behind her back in a hand rigid with fear.

             
Grumbling, he led her upstairs and unlocked her door for her, and Cecelia closed it quickly as soon as she had reentered the room.

             
In front of the bathroom mirror, she swept her hair away from her neck, wincing as it pulled dried blood from her skin. Grabbing a nearby washcloth – she couldn’t imagine closing her eyes in a shower, at this moment – she scrubbed away the blood with warm water, until her skin began to glow pink from the irritation.

             
Looking at herself in the mirror, she knew.
I am going to die. I am going to die.
It thrummed in her ears like an evil beat.
Who knows when Mags is going to get back, and when she does, I’ll already be dead.
Her eyes stared back at her out of a haunted, pale face.
I already look like a ghost of myself.

             
Impulsively, she wrenched the sapphire jewels from her neck, breaking the clasp and letting them clatter into the sink, sparkling up at her.
Who will it be? Andrew or Devon?

             
Her lips burned with their kisses.

             
But she couldn’t remember that now. Couldn’t remember the feeling of Andrew’s lips on hers, his hands on her; or Devon’s.

             
Before she knew it, Cecelia was sitting in front of her computer, composing an email with a blank subject and no body. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything more to type. She could only address the email to the Chicago Herald, attach her news story -- her last letter to the world -- and hit
Send.

             
Then there was nothing to do but wait for the sound of footsteps outside her door.