Authors: Todd Gregory
Need (2 page)
He'd been like a brother to me, in so many ways.
I wiped at the wetness in my eyes. “Come on, it's just a couple of blocks.” I smiled into his eyes, willing him to start walking. “Use me for support if you can't stand up, okay? It'll be like that mixer with the Kappas, remember?”
“Okay, buddy,” he replied, and laughed. “Stupid Kappa
bitches.
”
bitches.
”
A wave of emotion washed over me. That was what he'd always called them, and for a brief moment I remembered the days we'd shared a room at the Beta Kappa house at Ole Miss. The laughs we shared together, the joy in friendship and the bond of brotherhood, and the innocence of two boys growing from teenagers into men together.
It seemed like a million years ago.
I took a deep breath and started walking him along the sidewalk. Most of his two hundred or so pounds rested on me. Had I still been just a mortal, there was no way I could have supported him, and we both would have fallen to the ground. But I was no longer mortal, and while I had not matured into my full strength as a vampireâJean-Paul said it would take another fifty or so mortal years for that to happenâI was a lot stronger than the twenty-year-old college student I'd been when I'd been turned. We shuffled our way through Jackson Square and past the Presbytere. No one was really paying any attention to us. It was an all too common sight in the French QuarterâJared looked like every other young man who'd had too much to drink and needed to be helped back to his hotel. We turned and headed down the narrow alley between the Presbytere and the cathedral. The alley was empty and silent other than our footsteps against the stone. Even though I was stronger, I was still having trouble drawing breath by the time we reached Royal Street. We headed up Orleans, past the crowds on Bourbon and the dancing hand grenade in front of Tropical Isle, and before I knew it, I was helping him up the steps of Jean-Paul's house between Dauphine and Burgundy Streets. I put the key in the lock and helped him into the house, setting him down on the couch in the double parlor just inside the front door.
As I turned to shut and lock the door, I stared at the ruins of the little Creole cottage directly across the street. It was still in the process of being rebuilt after the fire. It was there that Jean-Paul had rescued me from the witch Sebastian and brought my dying body back across the street to this house. It was on that very couch where Jared now lay that Jean-Paul had opened the vein in his arm and had me drink his blood, the blood that finished transforming me into the creature I am now, something no longer quite human. I shut the door and drew the curtains shut with a shiver, flipping the light switch. The overhead chandelier came to life, casting strange shadows into every corner of the enormous room.
I knelt beside Jared. His eyes were now fully closed and his breathing was shallow and labored. His skin felt cold, looked slightly bluish, and I pressed my fingers against his wrist. His heart was beating, but not strongly. The wounds on his neck had stopped bleeding yet still were open and angry. I put my hand to my mouth in order to open another wound in a finger, but stopped.
Think about it, Cord. You must be doing something wrong. You've done this before a thousand times and it always, always works. What's different about this time ?
But no matter how much I thought about it, as hard as I tried to remember, there was simply nothing else I could remember doing differently that I wasn't doing now. It was very simple, reallyâyou merely opened a wound and rubbed some of your blood over the mortal's wounds. Within seconds, those wounds would close just as your own would.
I shook my head and punctured my thumb.
I pressed my thumb over his wounds, rubbed gently, and pulled my thumb away. Even as the wound in my thumb closed, the wounds in Jared's neck remained clearly visible.
I took a deep breath and tried not to panic.
Jared opened his eyes again and smiled weakly. “Cord, buddy. I knew you weren't dead.” He reached with a cool hand and touched the side of my face. “I just knew. Everyone said you were deadâthey had a funeral and everythingâbut I knew.” His face clouded with confusion. “But how . . . I don't understand . . .”
“Shhhh,” I whispered, pressing my index finger against his cold lips. My mind was racing as I tried to figure out what to do.
This was precisely why Jean-Paul had forbidden me to return to New Orleans. He was right again, as usual.
Yes, I know you're not from there, but you do know people who are, and they all think you're dead. You cannot risk going back there. What are you going to do if one of them sees you? How are you going to explain being alive? There is no explanation, Cord, and you will have to kill them.
Yes, I know you're not from there, but you do know people who are, and they all think you're dead. You cannot risk going back there. What are you going to do if one of them sees you? How are you going to explain being alive? There is no explanation, Cord, and you will have to kill them.
And even though Jared had been one of my best friends, one of my fraternity brothers, I knew if Jean-Paul knew what was happening here, he would order me to kill Jared without a second thought. Kill him, and make sure the body was never found.
If you don't kill him, you risk exposing yourself. And everyone else in the vampire worldâis that what you want, Cord? To prove to them that vampires DO exist? They would hunt us all down and kill us. It's either him or us, Cord. You know what you have to do . . . and don't worry. People disappear in New Orleans all the time.
“I feel funny,” Jared said, shifting around on the couch. His eyes opened even farther. They weren't as glassy and unfocused as they had been earlier; that at least was a step in the right direction.
Maybe he would recover normally.
I placed my fingers back on his wrist. His pulse felt stronger.
The wounds on his neck were scabbing over.
Well, that's betterâscabbing over means they are healing, but it's still not normal. My blood should have healed the damned things! What's wrong? Maybe Jared somehow is different than other humans?
But that doesn't make any sense. Humans are humans; their blood types might be different, but ultimately they are all the same. Vampiric blood could heal them, in small doses, without converting them. It has always been this way, and surely Jean-Paul would have told me there were some humans whose bodies reacted differently than the rest of them.
Or he knew and just didn't tell me for some reason. But why wouldn't he? It didn't make sense. But none of this made sense.
“Kiss me,” Jared whispered, smiling at me. His eyes glittered in the light from the chandelier.
“What?” I stared at him. “You can't be serious.” My heart began beating faster, in spite of myself.
“I want you,” he whispered. His smile grew wider, his white, perfectly straight teeth glistening. “I've always wanted you, Cord. Always. You never noticed, but I always did.”
I gulped. In the three years at Ole Miss I'd known Jared, I'd never once gotten the slightest inkling he was gay, or even the slightest bit curious. We'd pledged together, shared a room at the house, and become as close as brothers. Almost from the moment we met during Rush Week, we clicked. Our personalities just seemed to mesh together. He was like the brother I'd never had. There wasn't anything I couldn't tell him, and vice versa. Jared had confided in me about everything, from his darkest desires to his biggest fears. Jared was the only person in the house I'd come out toâand he'd been supportive, even going with me to Memphis to a gay bar. It had been Jared's idea to stay with his parents for Mardi Gras, and his idea to help me break away from the other fraternity brothers who'd also come down so I could go to the gay bars and, in his words, “get my gay on.”
Obviously, neither of us had any way of knowing the trip would result in my becoming a vampireâwell, Jared just thought I'd been killed, burned to death in the fire.
I'd always been attracted to Jared but never considered acting on itâno matter how drunk or high either one of us might have been. He was one of the most beautiful boys I'd ever met in my life.
And in the two years since I'd seen him, he'd somehow managed to become even sexier than he had been.
And it was very tempting. How many times had I fantasized this very moment? How many times had I jacked off, imagining how it would feel to press my lips against his, to run my hands down his chest, or how his cock would taste in my mouth? He was beautiful; he always had been. The first time I'd seen him at fraternity rush I'd wanted him. All of my high school crushes were forgotten the moment I laid eyes on Jared, with his lean muscles and hard bubble butt. I used to watch him sleep in our roomâhe always slept on his stomach with that phenomenal ass up, so perfectly formed under the white cotton underwear he always wore. Sometimes it rode up a bit, revealing the smooth white skin with almost invisible golden hairs. He also had never had a problem with walking around in front of me in just his underwear or even nude. I'd always appreciated that fearlessness, that degree of comfort with me and my sexuality. Sometimes I wondered if he wanted me to try something, if he wanted me to make the first move, if the comfort I so appreciated was, in truth, an invitation.
But I'd never touched him, never tried anything at allâno matter how much I wanted to. Because I couldn't be sure, and the last thing I wanted was to offend him. He was the only friend I trusted with my truthâand I wasn't willing to throw that away on the slight chance he'd welcome an overture from me.
“Jaredâ”
“I mean it.” He licked his lips. “I was too much of a coward to ever do anything before, Cord. I've always wanted you. That time we went to the bar in Memphis . . . I wanted to kiss you that night. It broke my heart when you died, Cord. And now you're alive. I'm not going to miss this chance. I've been sorry ever since you died that I never had the courage to do anything with you.” He smiled again. “But now you aren't dead.” He reached out and touched my hair. “Somehow, I knew you weren't. I knew that wasn't you in that house. I knew it. I knew I'd know if you were really dead.”
Tears filled my eyes. Oh, how I'd longed to hear those words from him! How I'd longed to kiss him, to put my arms around him, to put my mouth on his cock, to let him fill me up with his. But this didn't feel right; it was wrong, like somehow my biting him and sucking his blood had done this to himâwas making him think and react in a way that wasn't natural to him.
But his wounds hadn't healed, either. That wasn't natural, either.
He reached up and kissed me.
It felt like an electrical current ran through my body.
Not even kissing Jean-Paul had felt like this.
I felt my cock growing hard inside my jeans, and as Jared's tongue slipped in between my lips and inside my mouth, I could see he was getting hard, too. I reached down and caressed the thick hardness beneath the denim, and he moaned, never removing his tongue from inside my mouth. He began stroking my chest with his hands, pulling and tweaking at my erect and sensitive nipples, and I pushed him back down on the couch, climbing on top of him, our hips beginning to move back and forth as we ground our crotches against each other.
I pulled my mouth away from his lips. He smiled up at me. “I love you, Cord,” he breathed. “I always have.”
Jean-Paul never said that to me. Not once, no matter how badly I wanted him to.
I wanted to believe him.
I wanted him more than I ever had before. Yet, despite the animalistic need driving me, threatening to take control of my mind and body, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. This somehow wasn't right, and there was still time to stop this before it went any furtherâ
His hands came up, caressing my hardness through my pants, and pleasure shot through my body. His touch was gentle and sensual, and my rising desire pushed all other thoughts out of my mind.
I reached down and undid my pants, freeing my cock. He smiled up at me and licked his thumb. He started running it over the head of my cock.
“Ooooooh,” I moaned. It felt incredible.
I pushed my pants down as he kept rubbing away. Unable to stand it anymore, I grabbed the front of his pants and pulled, the riveted buttons holding his fly closed popping and flying away. I got to my knees and yanked his pants down, freeing his long, beautiful cock. As I yanked, I heard the denim tearing and once they were free, I tossed them aside like the torn rags they now were. I reached for the bottle of lube that was always sitting on the side table, and squirted some onto his erection.
“I want to be inside you,” he breathed as I mounted him, spreading my butt cheeks and lowering myself on top of his cock.
The pressure against my anus was sharp and painful; then my muscles relaxed and I slid down, feeling his urgency filling me. I gasped and moaned as I continued to slide, settling down onto him when I felt his thick balls pressing against my cheeks.
His entire body began to tremble, his eyes closing partway as I started moving up and down. He tried to push up into me as I went upward, but I held his hips down with my hands. He struggled against my strength at first, to no avail. I was much stronger than heâhe had no idea of how strong, nor did I want him to find out. I was still not completely used to how much power my muscles now contained, and I was afraid if we started struggling, I might accidentally hurt him.
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