I Am Lightning (Laurel Defense Series) (8 page)

“Yeah…” I sighed, tearing my eyes away from the way his chest filled that button-down shirt of his.  “His name is Paul.  He’s busy writing something for me to read.  I can’t he
ar him speak,” I explained, returning to my task.

There was a long moment of silence, the only noise that of onions sizzling and water boiling.  Suddenly I felt electricity crackling in the air.  I turned to see Paul getting up close and personal with Robert.  He seemed to be shouting.

“Paul!” I yelled.  “You leave my guest alone!”

“Don’t worry, Abby.  I can hear him, I’ll
take care of this,” Robert said in a manly tone of voice that said “Me Tarzan.”  He didn’t take his eyes off Paul.

“I can banish him,” I offered.

“That’s not very nice, Abby,” he said and held back a smile with a bit of effort.  “Paul you don’t belong here.  I know you think you’re taking care of Abby, but this is not your house anymore.  It’s hers.”

I listened as I cooked, even if I could only listen to one half of the conversation. 
The best half, in my humble opinion.  Robert’s voice was deep and soothing, trying to calm Paul down and talk some sense into him.  I, on the other hand, was daydreaming about having that voice tell me beautiful naughty things, preferably in my bedroom.

“Wouldn’t you rather take care of your own family?  There’s a place where you belong together with your loved ones,” Robert was saying.  I wondered how he planned on helping Paul get to “the other side,” or the place where Paul belonged, wherever that was.

They continued talking for a time, and I kept glancing to see what was going on.  Paul had calmed down and was asking questions, it seemed.  During one of them Paul looked at me, evidently asking a question about me.

“I can take care of her,” Robert offered Paul.  There was a pause while Paul said something and Robert chuckled. 
“Of course.  I would never do it otherwise.”

I frowned and approached the table with flatware and napkins.  They were talking about me with me in the room, and it was a subject that Robert had found amusing.  “Dinner is almost ready,” I said,
trying to sound nonchalant, like them talking about me didn’t bother me in the least.

“Before Paul leaves he wants to make sure you agree to me watching over you,” Robert explained.  He’d caught on to my state of mind and wanted
to get back on my good side.  That was smart of him, since I was the one feeding him.

I relaxed and got a hold of myself.  It wasn’t like they were having the conversation hidden from me.  I just couldn’t hear Paul.  If I had I’d have been able to understand.  “Oh, okay,” I said and turned back to face both men (or, rather, the ghost and the vampire).

Paul got near me to ask me the question directly.  Obviously I didn’t hear it, and I couldn’t read his lips either.  We’d spent almost a whole day with me trying to figure out his name when I first moved into the house.  “Do you accept Robert’s protection?” Robert said, translating.

“Oh, yes… yes I do,” I said looking at Paul.  He looked like he belonged in the forties.  Considering that the house had been built in the thirties, Paul was the right age.  He’d died young, around his late twenties.  Somet
imes I thought that was why he stuck around: he died before his time.

“Do you know what he is?” Robert said, translating for Paul again.

I looked at Paul in askance.  After all, Paul had been human when he was alive and not many humans knew about the supernatural beings living among them.  “Do you know what I am?”

Paul motioned a streak of lightning with his hands and then an explosion: lightning and thunder, that’s what I was to him.  I nodded.  “You didn’t
answer his question,” Robert said, even though Paul hadn’t moved his mouth to speak.

I looked through the translucent Paul, with his shades of brown and gray, at Robert.  He was waiting for my reply.  “A vampire,” I said, even though something in my gut told me I was wrong, or at least not completely right.

“Come, Paul.  It’s time to go,” Robert said, not saying anything else about what he was.  Did he expect me to guess?  I shook my head in disbelief.

I watched Robert and Paul as they stood in front of each other.  Robert closed his eyes and took a deep breath putting his hands out and into Paul.  Paul let him, even though it must have felt uncomfortable.  As far as I knew ghosts didn’t like to have people inside them anymore than regular people liked to have ghosts inside them.  Robert didn’t take his hands away either.  Suddenly Paul started to light up, like an incandescent bulb.  I watched mesmerized, unable to take my eyes off either of them.  Paul became so bright that I couldn’t see him anymore: he was light.  Then he was gone.  With a quiet whoosh he disappeared into nothing and my kitchen looked dark in comparison.

“What did you do?” I asked moving closer.  I couldn’t feel Paul anymore.  He was nowhere in the house.

“I helped him cross over.”

“That’s not in the vampire set of abilities,” I pointed out.

“Maybe it’s a wizard thing,” Robert said and smiled slyly.  I didn’t believe him for a
second, but I was hungry and dinner was ready.  The conversation would have to wait.

“I never imagined I’d have a vampire for dinner.  I didn’t know vampires ate,” I said, once we were seated.  Robert was devouring his plate with gusto.  His table manners were not the best, but I wasn’t concerned about that.  He looked adorable with sauce all over his cheeks and chin.  I wanted to lick it clean.

“Only me,” he said between bites.  That was the second time he’d said that.  I frowned and watched him eat, trying once again to decipher what he’d been.  “It took Ifan and me a while to figure out I needed food as well as blood.”

“I can imagine,” I muttered and stuffed my face to keep from saying anything else stupid.  We continued eating in silence until Robert ate everything I’d given him.  “There’s more,” I said, reaching for his plate and starting to get up.

He put his hand on mine and got up himself.  “If you don’t mind, I would like some more.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I said, smiling to myself.  I was no gourmet cook for him to be eating like it would be his last meal.  Either he was really hungry or he was trying to win points with me.  He got another plateful and sat down, getting his shirt dirty with sauce now.  His gray shirt would need some intimate time with a washer soon.  There was nothing to be done for it now.  He might as well finish his m
eal and get the shirt as dirty as it could get.

In the course of eating I noticed his fangs lengthening.  It was the first time I’d seen them at all.  I ate and stared until he caught me, then he looked embarrassed.  “I’m afraid my table manners are off.  Ifan always says…”

“I’m looking at your fangs,” I interrupted.  I didn’t care about his table manners.  He was hungry and hungry men make messes.  But his fangs… “I’ve never seen them come out before.”

Robert covered his mouth with a napkin and started cleaning up.  Something told me he was embarrassed for a different reason now. 
Weird.  “You don’t have to cover them up.  They don’t bother me none.”

He finished cleaning his mouth (not doing a very good job) and put down the napkin.  The tips of his fangs were just over his lower lip, mismatched with the troubled look on his face.  “They come out when I’m feeling satisfied,” he explained.

I bit my lip and didn’t say anything.  Something about that statement wasn’t right.  For one, I didn’t believe him.  For two, he hadn’t been sure if he was hungry when we were in the car, and he was obviously starving.  We finished eating and I enticed him with ice cream and cake.  He ate his dessert with as much enthusiasm as he ate his dinner, his fangs running out completely.  I wanted to touch them, but instead made myself focus on my own dessert.

I started cleaning up with his help, teaming up to tackle the dishes and the pots and pans.  “I hope you liked dinner,” I said.

“I liked it very much.  I would like to return the favor but I’m not a very good cook.  Perhaps you wouldn’t mind teaching me…” he suggested and smiled.  His mouth was still dirty with all kinds of stuff.

“I’ll teach you.  It’s easy,” I said as I moistened a paper towel with water.  I motioned for him to get closer and wiped his face and lips.  “Your whole face is full of tomato sauce and ice cream,” I giggled and turned away to throw out the dirty paper towel.

“Touch me again,” he said in the softest voice.  I turned around to make sure Robert had spoken or if I had imagined it.  He was staring at me intently, but not in a seductive way.  He looked almost scared.  “Please.”

I quarreled with my common sense for a split second before I offered my hand and pulled him to my small living room.  I sat on my flowery couch and patted my lap.  I w
asn’t expecting him to sit on my lap, but he caught on quick.  He sat and reclined at the same time that I put a toss pillow on my lap for his head.

“You can take off your shoes and get comfortable,” I said, already caressing his hair.  He looked
up, his eyes hooded, and studied me for a moment.  The whole time I tried to keep my hormones in check.  His head was really close to where they would manifest.

Robe
rt closed his eyes and turned to his side, snuggling deeper into the couch.  I sent him a soft jolt, the kind I knew he liked, and heard his sigh.  I continued caressing his hair, enjoying this simple pleasure.  After a minute or so he stopped moving altogether: no breathing, no twitching.  His body relaxed completely and I wondered if he had fallen asleep.

“Robert?” I said very softly.  If he was awake he would answer, but he didn’t.  This was a problem.  How tired was he that he had fallen asleep the moment he closed his eyes?  How tired was he that he would sleep into the morning?  He would burn in my living room unless I did something.

I closed all the blinds and doubled them with the curtains.  I knew this wouldn’t keep out the sun completely, so I got several quilts from my upstairs linen closet.  Robert didn’t sweat, nor did he need to breathe, even though he did it all the time while awake.  Having a mountain of quilts over him wouldn’t bother him.  I covered all of him, including his face.  Not once did he move.  He must have been exhausted.

One final thing: I couldn’t leave my guest sleeping by himself in my living room.  He might wake up disoriented and take off the quilts.  I changed into some PJ’s and snuggled into a large side chair.  It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it would do.  Before I fell asleep I lifted the quilts.  Robert’s face looked peaceful, an expression I hadn’t yet seen on him.  His fangs were still out.  They looked long and sharp.  I covered him up feeling a little like a pervert.  The poor guy was helpless, and here I was ogling.

I snuggled back into my chair and wondered, not for the first time, why Robert had been so hungry and tired.  The obvious reason was because he hadn’t eaten or rested enough, but why?  After everything Ifan must have done for him, the least Robert could do would be to make sure he remained healthy.  Ifan’s words rang inside my head.  He’d found Robert very ill.  I wondered if it was right after being turned into a vampire.  I fell asleep with a thousand questions running through my head.

CHAPTER
7

I woke up to the sound of rain.  The soft whooshing was comforting in
its own way, like a lullaby.  I rearranged myself on the large chair where I’d slept and checked on Robert.  He didn’t seem to have moved.  The clock announced it was nearly eleven in the morning, time to start my day.  But I didn’t wanna.  What was there to do anyway?  Laundry?  Clean something?  Vacuum?  Eh…

Robert murmured something and moved from lying on his side to lie face up.  There
was just enough of the quilts left over for that, but if he moved any more the quilts would bunch up on one side and expose him.  I jumped from my seat and fell on him.  “Don’t move!”

“Abby?” he asked, his voice groggy.  He yawned under the quilts and seemed to snuggle under me.  “It must be daytime,” he mumbled.

“Yes, I had to cover you.  Let me fix the quilts, okay?  Don’t move.”  I started tugging on the quilts slowly, trying not to lift them.  I wasn’t sure just how much light he could stand.  My living room was dark with the drawn curtains and the gloomy day outside, but it was by no means pitch black.

“I fell asleep in your house,” he commented.  It was like his brain was getting back in gear slowly, picking up speed from neutral, like a car rolling downhill.

“It’s okay,” I said, running my hand over where his shoulder should have been.  “I just want to make sure you’re covered.  I’m sorry I don’t have a light-tight room.  Are you hungry?”

“Yes, hungry,” Robert grumbled.  I felt his hands try to reach for my waist under the quilts.  Seeing as I was practically draped over him, he found me easily and held me.  He took a deep breath, then another,
then let out a loud expletive.

I was startled.  I’d never heard him curse before.  “What happened?  Am I hurting you?”  I started to get up but he held me tighter even through the quilts.

“I can’t make the fangs retract.  I’m hungry,” he explained.  That made more sense than what he’d said last night, about the fangs coming out when he was satisfied.

“Okay, I’ll make you something to eat.”

“For blood,” he qualified.

I was silent for a little bit.  But I could help, I figured.  “If you don’t mind me driving your car I can go see Isabelle and bring you some… unless… do you have your suit in your car?” I asked.  This time he let me get up.

“No, the suit is in my locker at the office, and I can’t wear the mask in public.  It’s all right, I promise not to move, but I do need blood,” he said.  I couldn’t see him but he sounded as if needing blood was a great nuisance.

I frowned.  He didn’t have a very easy existence.  “Drop your keys on the floor.  I don’t want to lift those quilts until it’s absolutely necessary,” I said and he did so.  “I’ll be back in a few.”

Still wearing my PJ’s, I stepped into some rain boots and my raincoat, grabbed my purse and headed out.  The rain was coming down in buckets, and the red and yellow leaves on the ground made for a nice, slippery runway as I slid my way to the car.  The wind shook some larger drops of rain on me from the tree in front of my house and I cursed under my breath.  Rainy days were only good for one thing: sleeping.

The drive was only five minutes long, but I wasn’t used to driving standard, so I stalled a couple of times, or five.  That made the drive ten minutes long.  Thankfully neither of those times was uphill.  When I got to HQ I bypassed the office and went straight to the infirmary.  Isabelle was at her desk typing on the computer when I entered her office.

“Abby!  So nice to see you!  Are you feeling well?” she asked, taking in my disheveled, rain-soaked look.  The latest fashion trend, says me.

“I’m fine.  Listen, Robert says he’s hungry for blood.  Do you have some I can take to him?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t the kind to gossip about her coworkers.  I didn’t tell her that Robert had spent the night at my house, but I was sure she could guess it.  Then I decided that I didn’t care.  I was single and Robert was single, so there would be nothing wrong with us spending the night together.

Isabelle left me for a couple of minutes and returned with a small cooler.  “There are four pints here.  Put them in your fridge as soon as you get home.  He might need them all.”

I frowned again.  I was doing that a lot lately.  “Why do you say that?”

“Robert hasn’t fed as often as he should.  Vampires as young as him feed almost nightly.”

“Really?
  He said weekly…”

“That’s because he doesn’t like to go out and procure, so he gorges whenever I can get him to actually drink.  He drank the most when you helped him,” Isabelle explained and handed me the cooler.

“I’ll make sure he drinks,” I said, convinced I could.

“If anybody can, it would be you,” she said rather cryptically.  I didn’t want to stick around and find out what she meant.  I had a hungry vampire at home, plus I myself was in need of some sustenance.

For once I had my priorities straight, though.  I went home and managed to stall the car only once when I’d already parked.  I left all the rainy gear to drip on the foyer while I put the bags of blood inside the fridge.  Human blood looked no different than sprite blood, but still, to know that I was handling some human’s blood was a little creepy.

“Robert?” I approached the small mountain on my sofa with a bag of blood.  “The blood is cold, should I heat it up?”

“God, no!  That will bring out the flavor,” he said.  I closed my eyes and shook my head.  So gross.  No wonder he didn’t like it.

“How do we do this, then?”

“Help me sit up,” he said.  I put the blood down on my coffee table (yuk!) and rearranged the quilts as he sat up slowly.  I snuck in under the quilts holding the bag of blood and trying not to squeeze it.  I arranged myself on his lap with some help because I couldn’t see anything.  Robert held me like he’d done the first time I’d helped him and reached for the bag of blood.

“I can hold it if you like,” I offered.

Robert didn’t say anything and brought me closer.  I settled my head on his shoulder and felt his breath on my neck.  The soft sucking sound started and I relaxed.  I’d worried that he wouldn’t drink.  I closed my eyes and took short breaths.  It was beginning to get stuffy under the blankets, but I could deal with it for a little bit.  Robert’s gentle caress over my arm made me get goose bumps.  I reached up and caressed the side of his neck, feeling the movement of his throat as he swallowed what he needed to survive.  If I thought about the blood that way, it didn’t seem as icky.

“I’ll make breakfast as soon as you’re done,” I said.  He tightened his grip on me in response.  As soon as he was done and without asking, I snuck out of the quilts and brought back another bag.  We repeated the process with the second bag, but this time, when he was done, he assured me he didn’t need another.

I moved to try to sneak back out and make some breakfast, but Robert held me tight.  It took me a moment to realize that he was hugging me.  In the darkness I could only feel him.  I hugged him back.  There was something incredibly vulnerable about him with me.  I kept putting pieces of the puzzle together, but the largest piece was still missing.  I still felt as if he wanted to tell me but was embarrassed.  I didn’t understand it.  I did know that I wanted to be the one to comfort him.  I didn’t want to hurt him anymore with my insensitive remarks.  I wasn’t scared of falling in love with him.  I was only scared of hurting him.

With Robert’s nose still buried in my neck, our arms wrapped around each other, I felt a kind of intimacy that went beyond sex.  It was something I’d never experienced before.  Whether or not he felt the same way, I do not know.  I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with his spicy scent.  I thought it was stronger than before, and of course, it was.  He was aroused again.  This time my body reacted, preparing to receive him, even if I had no intention of following through.  My skin lit from within with the heat I was generating, and suddenly I could see under the quilts.

“Oh!” I surprised myself.  That didn’t happen often.

“Oh…” Robert said, echoing me.  He wasn’t so much surprised as admiring.  He took a deep breath and hummed long and low.  “Your scent is amazing.”  I felt a soft kiss on my neck, and another as his hand moved from around me to cup my face.  We ended up looking at each other.  His eyes shifted from my eyes to my lips and back, as if asking the question.

“Kiss me,” I said without thinking it through.

That strange light flashed in his eyes, and his energy began filling me.  I discharged as our mouths met and I almost melted from the sensation.  It was like heaven.  Robert’s kisses were soft, almost shy pecks, and I relished every single one.  His lips plied mine gently, deliberately.  I took deep breaths, feeling like my bones were turning to jelly.  So this is what it felt like to kiss someone you loved.  I whimpered when he pulled away, but he did so he could look at me.  The hand on my face moved to caress my hair.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze roaming from my hair to my eyes to my lips then down.  He put his hand on my chest, on my heart and closed his eyes.  My skin began to lose its luminosity the longer we sat still.  “You’re so full of life and your smell…”

“Is that why you like me? 
My smell?” I asked, feeling hot for a different reason.

“No, but I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect woman than you.  Everything about you is attractive to me, even what’s in here,” he pushed gently on my chest.  My heart began pounding harder at his words, and he could feel every beat.  I saw him smile as my skin perked up again.

“I’m like a nightlight,” I commented.  We laughed together and then hugged each other.  “Let me go make something to eat, okay?  Is there anything you would like for breakfast?  Are you in the mood for anything in particular?”

“Whatever you make is fine,” he answered and gave me a squeeze.  “I don’t know how to thank you for taking care of me.”

I pulled away from our embrace so I could look at him, so he would know.  “You already did,” I said and leaned close, planting a soft kiss squarely on his lips.

I snuck out of the quilts, careful not to lift them, and set to work in the kitchen.  I went all out and made pancakes, eggs, sausage and biscuits (the Pillsbury kind).  Too bad I didn’t have any fruit, but I had strawberry jam to put on the biscuits.  Perfect!

“Do you like strawberry jam on your biscuit?” I called from the kitchen.

“Yes,” was Robert’s muffled answer; a man after my own heart.  I felt bad that I had him all tucked and covered in my living room, but I had no other ready idea to make sure the sun wouldn’t hurt him.  Besides, the sun would set at around six.  It was only a few hours, and I would keep him company.

I brought him a plate covered with Saran wrap and a travel mug with black coffee.  I sneaked them both into his mountain of quilts and then went to get my own.  Then we both settled comfortably to eat.

“Do you always cook so much?” he asked between bites.  I could hear his fork clinking on the plate, so I knew he was a busy mountain.

“No, not very often.  If I had made breakfast just for me I would have made a ton of pancakes and nothing else.  But you probably need something a bit healthier, so I gave you protein.  Sorry about the lack of Vitamin C.  Do you want some orange juice?”

Robert laughed and declined.  “I’ll be too full to put anything else in my stomach when I’m done.”

“Good, I’m glad.  You seemed very hungry yesterday, I was worried.”

“You would be,” he mumbled, but I heard him.  “You care for me,” he said a little louder.

“Yes I do.  Why were you so hungry and so tired?  I don’t mind feeding you and letting you crash here, but… I care for you.  So what’s the deal?”

There was a pause and I heard him set the fork down on the plate.  “I find that when I’m well-fed and strong, I have little control over my fangs.  They come out at the slightest provocation.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  “So you were starving yourself!  Robert!”

“I hate what I am,” he said in a growl.

That shut me up good.  I knew most vampires had been turned against their will, but I never thought they hated their existence afterwards.  What had been done to Robert?  My heart broke.  And here I’d been pushing him away because he was a vampire and I didn’t want to hurt him.  Instead I’d ended up hurting him more.

I set my half-eaten plate on the coffee table and snuck back under the quilts.  I couldn’t see but he let me sit back on his lap, placing his plate on my lap.  I was going to try to soothe him, but words failed.  I put my head on his shoulder and gave him a soft jolt, feeling his chest fill up with air and the sweet trembling of his body.

“Please don’t do this out of pity.  I couldn’t stand it,” he said, his voice shaky.

“Robert,” I warned him with my voice.  “If you say something like that ever again, I will hit you.  Or better yet, I will zap you.”  He scoffed.  I continued.  “Fine, don’t believe me, but stop assuming you know what I’m feeling for you when you don’t.  Why don’t you ask me outright?”

“I’m afraid of the answer.”

“You shouldn’t be.  I barely ever lie, and you already know that I can’t seem to shut up around you.”