Flutter (11 page)

I would’ve loved some time to catch up with Jack, but
I felt drained from the trip. Being away from home had been much
harder than I had thought. Jack wanted to go to bed with me, and
even with my exhaustion, I would’ve been happy to oblige.

Except I knew the only reason he
insisted so hard was because Peter slept across from me, and I
refused to let his paranoia control our relationship. He had to get
used to Peter being around, and I needed to get some rest before
trying to be
alone
with Jack.

Jack walked me up to his room, kissing me on the
forehead before going back down to the den to sleep. I curled up in
his unmade bed, falling asleep in his mass of blankets almost
immediately. It felt so good to be home.

When I woke up, I felt an instant relief being in my
own bed. After a long trip away, nothing felt better than that.
Well, almost nothing.

I stretched, working the stiffness from my limbs. My
reunion with Jack had been anticlimactic. I allowed myself to get
distracted by my brother’s new boyfriend and Jack’s worry over
Finland. I’d have to have a very long talk with Milo about this
Bobby fellow, but I had more pressing needs in mind.

Along with that familiar thirst burning just
below the surface, I had a desperate ache for Jack. A bit of jet
lag and stress made it too bittersweet for me to greet him the way
he deserved, and I had to rectify that immediately.

When I walked out into the hall, I could
smell Bobby. That sweet, delightful scent of hot blood coursing
through his veins. His heart pounded quickly, like a frightened
rabbit.

I tensed up, thinking he was in some kind of
danger, but I realized he was just excited. This was confirmed by a
happy moan from him, and a throaty laugh from Milo. My stomach
tightened with nausea and anxiety as I thought about what Milo was
doing in the room next to mine.

It was completely unforgivable that he would
have a sex life before I did. The “talk” was becoming more
imminent, but I did not want to walk in on whatever they were doing
right now to administer it.

Peter’s bedroom door opened, making me jump.
I’d brought him home, but it was still a shock to see someone in
his room. It had been shut off for so long, like a shrine for a
dead loved one, even though it was the exact opposite of that.

“
Oh. Hey,” Peter said,
nodding at me.

“
Hey,” I replied. We stood
across from each other, staring awkwardly, so I assumed I should
make conversation. “Did you sleep okay? I bet its nice being back
in your own bed.”

“
Yeah. It is.” Peter nodded
again and shifted uncomfortably.

“
You’re up!” Jack announced
too loudly from the bottom of the stairs and raced up to us. He was
happy to see me, but the arm he threw around my shoulder was too
tight to be anything but for show. “I thought you were going to
sleep all day!”

“
Sorry. I guess I had sleep
to catch up on,” I smiled at him. His grip around my shoulders was
borderline painful.

“
I’m just gonna… go,” Peter
said. He turned and walked down the stairs, ignoring the look on
Jack’s face.

Once Peter was out of sight, I wriggled out
of Jack’s arms. It felt weird to pull away from him, but I wasn’t a
big fan of his jealousy. Jack realized what he was doing, and his
expression changed to one of a little boy that got caught with his
hand in the cookie jar. He shoved his hands in his pockets and
looked apologetically at me.

“
Sorry,” Jack shrugged. “I’m
just getting used to this. You’ve had all this time to readjust to
Peter but the last time I saw him…” He shivered and looked away
from me. I’m not sure what he was thinking about exactly, but it
was either Peter kissing me or trying to kill him.

“
It’s okay.” I put my hand
on his chest. His muscles felt warm and strong, and his heart beat
gently. I leaned in towards him, preparing to give him the kiss I
had been wanting to give him for ages, but a fresh scent completely
diverted my attention.

Just down the hall, Milo had apparently drawn
blood from Bobby, and the scent of his blood was so strong and
intoxicating, my mouth instantly began to water. My stomach didn’t
exactly growl, but it was suddenly ravenous. Bobby’s heart rate
quickened even more, and I could associate the sound with the
smell, making it irresistible. My body flushed with heat, and all I
could think/hear/feel was his blood, and how badly I needed it.

The bloodlust had taken me over entirely.

- 12 –

I had my hand on Jack’s chest, and the next
thing I knew, I was racing down the hall, to Milo’s room in the
turret. I awoke in the moment with Jack’s hand tightly clamped on
my arm. He stopped me from getting very far, but it was disturbing
that I had blacked out for a second and had no control over myself.
I’d been in a trance, and I wasn’t completely out of it yet. At
least now I was aware of what was happening, but my desire to feed
didn’t lessen.

“
You need to eat,” Jack
said.

“
Yeah, no kidding.” I went
towards Milo’s room again, but he stopped me.

“
No, not him.”

He pulled me in the opposite direction, away
from the blood. The rational part of me understood what he was
doing, that I did not want to feed on my brother’s boyfriend. But
my thirst made me irate that he would take me away from the
blood.

“
Come on, Alice. There’s
food downstairs.”

“
Not good food!” I
protested.

I’d never had fresh blood as a vampire, so I
didn’t have anything to compare with it. But fresh blood smelled so
much better than bag blood. My body craved it far more intensely,
making it almost impossible to resist.

Jack was stronger than me, and at least some
of me knew he was right, so I let him drag me away.

Mae was just coming up from the basement when
we got downstairs, her arms overflowing with cold bags of blood.
Apparently, Ezra was eating more than normal too. She saw the look
on my face and gave me a bag before I changed my mind about sparing
Bobby.

As I gulped it down, loving the exotic rush
of pleasure that ran through me, I overheard her talking to Jack.
Ezra was still weak and required lots of rest and food, and Peter
had left to do something. She was vague on the details, but I’m not
sure if that was for Jack’s sake or because she really didn’t
know.

By the time I finished my bag, she
disappeared back into her bedroom to tend to Ezra, and that deep
wooziness hit me. I’d just woken up, and I was preparing to pass
out again.

I grabbed onto Jack, hoping that hanging onto
him would make me more alert. He laughed at my struggle against
sleep, and it resounded through me. He kissed my forehead and held
me in his arms, and that was too comfortable for me to fight to
stay awake anymore.

I was curled up in the crook
of his arm when I woke up, and the faint sounds of Depeche Mode
filled the bedroom. Jack had one arm around me, and the other one
held a graphic novel,
The Killing
Joke
. It was one of his favorites, so it
was battered and beaten. He was so into it that he didn’t even
notice when I opened my eyes.

“
Hey,” I smiled up at him.
He pulled his head back so he could look down at me, already
setting the book aside. “Sorry I just passed out like
that.”

“
No, it’s cool. I
understand,” he grinned.

“
I missed you.” I snuggled
closer to him, pressing my body against his, and his heart sped
up.

“
For awhile there, I wasn’t
sure if you’d ever come back.” When he pushed a strand of hair from
my eyes, his face went stormy, re-imagining all the horrible things
he had thought happened to me in Finland.

“
But here we are!” I hurried
to erase his dark thoughts, rubbing my hand over his chest. “In
your room, in your bed,
alone
.” My expression faltered, and
his face fell with concern. “We are alone, aren’t we?”

“
What do you mean?” His arm
tensed up around me, and his voice had an edge to it. He
incorrectly assumed that I was thinking of Peter, but he was the
furthest thing from my mind.

“
Milo and his new ‘friend.’”
I nodded to the thin wall that separated our rooms.

Listening to Milo and Bobby
fool around earlier had been rather nauseating, and I didn’t like
the idea of them overhearing me messing around with Jack. I was
really, really hoping to
finally
take things to next level with Jack, and I wanted
it to be as intimate and private as possible.

“
Oh, no, they’re long gone,”
Jack smiled and relaxed next to me. “They went to a club a few
hours ago.”

“
A club?” I arched my
eyebrow and knew I was ruining the mood, but I couldn’t shake my
concern. “Is that safe?”

“
Yeah,” he shrugged. “Milo
is a vampire. He can handle himself.”

“
What about Bobby?” I didn’t
really care much for his safety, but Milo would, and if other
vampires moved on him, I wasn’t sure how wisely Milo would
respond.

“
They’re okay,” he said.
“And if they weren’t, they have cell phones, which they know how to
use. Unlike
some
people.” So he hadn’t entirely forgiven me for not calling him
from Finland, but that was okay. I planned on making up for
it.

“
So what you’re saying is
that Milo is gone, Peter is gone, and Mae and Ezra are too
preoccupied to notice anything? And we are completely, entirely,
alone?” I said, sliding my leg up over his.

“
It would appear that way,”
Jack smiled wickedly.

I tilted my head up towards him and his mouth
pressed softly against mine. The kiss was only gentle for a minute,
though. As soon as I felt his lips searching mine, this frantic
need took over me.

Throwing one leg over him, I moved so I was
sitting on top of him, straddling him between my legs. Jack moaned,
but it was barely audible through our kisses. His hands searched my
body, and his skin was already smoldering. My temperature would
soon match his, and I felt the warmth racing through me.

I pulled away long enough to tear off my
shirt, and he smiled appreciatively at me. He looked like he wanted
to say something, so I silenced him with kisses. I loved talking to
him, but right now, words weren’t enough.

We’d been forbidden from being together
almost since day one, and even after I turned into a vampire, we’d
been forced to stay at arms length.

After he slipped off his shirt, I took a
moment to take him in. His skin was tan and soft over the smooth
muscles of his chest and stomach. Jack was completely perfect. A
painful happiness spread over me as I thought about how lucky I was
that he wanted me. I leaned over, peppering him with kisses, on his
mouth, cheeks, chest, everywhere.

When my lips came to his
neck, a delicious heat surged through me. I could feel and smell
and
taste
his
blood through his skin, and I remembered how wonderful it felt when
I drank it to turn. All of his love and pleasure had coursed
through me, filling me with the most intense heat. Every other
emotion paled in comparison.

“
Alice, no,” Jack breathed
heavily, but he sounded reluctant to stop me.

If I pushed it, I knew he would let me drink
from him. It’d feel almost as amazing for him as it would me, but
it was dangerous. As much as I wanted Jack, it would be nearly
impossible for me to stop once I got started.

“
Sorry,” I whispered, using
all my strength to pry my lips from his neck.

His hands on my back slid below my pants,
pressing me even harder against him. His kisses had gotten hungrier
and more aggressive, and I knew it was a battle for him to keep
from biting me as well. It would be too easy for me to get out of
control, even if I was the one being bled.

Jack started pushing down my pants, and my
body started to tremble with excitement.

I heard the bedroom door open, but it was a
secondary sensation. My hunger for Jack blotted out everything
else. He was slightly more grounded than I was, and thinking
quickly, he pulled the covers up to hide me, since I was almost
entirely naked.

He had stopped kissing me, but there was a
fog over my mind where I could still taste him. It took a moment to
clear, and I realized Milo and Bobby were standing in the doorway.
Bobby looked embarrassed, but Milo just looked grossed out and
disapproving.

“
What the hell are you
doing?” I was almost screaming. I had probably never been as pissed
at my brother as I was then.

“
What are
you
doing?” Milo
countered, crossing his arms firmly over his chest and glaring down
at us.

Jack sat up so he could shield me somewhat,
and I wrapped his comforter around me. Bobby snuck an admiring
glance at him, and I moved closer to Jack.

“
I don’t think that’s really
any of your business,” I snapped.

“
Whatever.” Milo rolled his
eyes. “You both know you’re not supposed to be alone like this. And
for once, its not you I’m worried about, Alice. You could kill him,
and he’d be happy to let you.” His words stung as true, and feeling
ashamed, I pulled the blankets more securely around me.