Scorned (3 page)

Her tousled hair, blonde/black and long,
splayed across the red satin pillow case. There was a look on her
pale, pale face that could only be described as a hungry lust.

I approached her, my own lust taking over as
I watched her move sensuously in the sheets. I knelt on the bed and
crawled to her slowly on my hands and knees. She smiled at me. The
tips of her porcelain fangs barely showed between her red,
kiss-swollen lips. For one moment, I was on top of her. Then we
were spinning, faster than possible, and I had her on the edge of
the bed, one arm tucked under her chin, the other pressed against
her forehead so her neck was vulnerable. She smiled at me. I licked
the side of her neck and caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror
across the room.

Though I was darker-skinned, there was a
paleness to me. My short, black hair and eyes stood out starkly. I
was bared to the waist where I was clad in dark leather, nothing
else. I was an attractive man.

I pressed my nose to my lover’s neck and
took in a deep breath. There was no scent of life like there is
with humans. The scent of blood was light, soft. It hadn’t pumped
through her veins in a long time. I opened my mouth and sank my
fangs into the soft flesh of her neck.

The sweet, metallic taste of blood ran over
my tongue and filled my mouth...

I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until
Pierce flopped down on the edge of the single bed and I rolled
toward him. I blinked up at him, my disturbing dream making it hard
to focus. I tried to push it to the back of my mind and forget it
for the time being.

The storm hit while I was asleep. The dark
threatening clouds had finally released their fury upon the earth.
Dinner was ready, but I wanted to go play in the freezing winter
rain. It took me forty-five minutes to convince Pierce that he
wanted to come with me.

We stepped out onto the porch and I closed
the door. The rain fell in torrents. The dirt patch that made up
most of the small front yard was flooded.

“Come on.” I grabbed Pierce’s hand and
pulled as I stepped into the rain and mud and wind. He was
reluctant to follow, offering every excuse he could think of.

“I’m not wearing a shirt.”

“I didn’t tell you to strip,” I countered,
though I didn’t mind his shirtlessness. “The rain might be good for
your aches and pains,” I teased and he gave me that
you’re-so-full-of-it look.

“It’s cold,” he complained some more. “I
might get pneumonia. You know how easily I catch a cold.”

“Then we can take a hot shower after.” I’d
been with him long enough to know how to counter even his most
ridiculous claims. He knew it too, and finally quit complaining,
though the pout never wavered.

I resolved to wipe the pout from his face
and pulled him close, pressing my lips against his hard enough for
him to catch the hint. Immediately, he tensed, sensing my
intentions, and kissed me quickly, trying to make the contact
between us as brief as possible. It was like a wall went up between
his body and his emotions, cutting them off completely. I
understood why he did it. Per his insistence, we were waiting for
marriage to have sex. In the five years we’d been together he
hadn’t told me exactly why, but I knew it was important to him.

Not being a virgin himself there were
certain acts that made it more difficult for him to refrain.
Kissing was one of those acts, and the last thing I wanted was to
make it harder on him than it needed to be.

Like I said, I understand but that doesn’t
make it any easier. I’ve tried, on multiple occasions, to make him
understand how rejected I feel when he shuts himself off from me. I
don’t know if he understands or not. He’s a man of few words.

Still, I need things to make this work too.
Kissing is one of them.

“Please,” I whispered desperately against
his lips. “Please, kiss me.”

He did. His lips were soft against mine. He
smelled of man and rain and warmth and, as always, that soft,
underlying scent of sawdust. I pressed my lips harder against his,
his scent turning me on more than anything, and that little jolt of
electricity that usually accompanies his touch ran through me like
adrenaline. It wrapped me in its energy as I wrapped my arms around
his neck and pulled him closer. I felt his hands on my hips. They
were still, but there was tension in them. He was holding back.

I knew I wasn’t being fair when I slipped my
hands over his back and lightly scratched his skin. I knew I was
making things harder on him than was prudent, but at the moment it
wasn’t something I cared about.

The wall that he put up between his body and
his emotions was stronger than that, though. He’s had more practice
than I in matters like this, and it showed whenever he thought he
might lose control. I felt nothing from him as we kissed in the
downpour, except for his lips, his tongue, his hands still resting
on my hips, but not as gently as they had first been. That should
have been enough.

Nothing kills the mood better than an
uninvited audience. It wouldn’t have bothered me if it was one of
the neighbors or even Gable. They’d all seen us kiss before. But I
felt the eyes on me from every direction, watching and intent. It
was like they were trying to make me uncomfortable, and they were
succeeding. I tried to ignore it, hoping it would go away, but the
more I ignored it the stronger the presence became until I thought
I was going to scream.

I pulled away from Pierce and he frowned at
me. “Let’s go inside,” I said, panting. “Someone’s watching.”

Pierce looked around, the frown still
creasing his forehead. “I don’t see anyone.” His voice was husky,
and I suddenly realized that he was on the verge of giving in, of
putting down those cursed walls of his and kissing me the way I
wanted.

Dammit!

“Trust me,” I told him, and tugged him
toward the house. He came willingly, but the frown never left his
face. I dragged him through the door and closed it before I finally
let go of his hand. My clothes dripped a trail across the floor as
I stalked back to the room and I began to shiver before I even hit
the bedroom door.

“Get your clothes off,” Pierce commanded in
his deep, concerned voice. “I’ll start the shower.”

I rubbed my cheek against the red satin
night gown and listened to my lover’s heartbeat. She could make it
beat for me. Though I loved her and she me, I could kill her
without a thought.

I took a deep breath and smelled several
things. First was the ever present undercurrent of blood. No matter
where I went or what I did, the smell of blood perfumed the air
until it was almost unbearable.

The next scent I caught was the sweet, musky
aroma of sex still lingering in the air and clinging to the sheets
and our skin. I turned my nose into the fabric and breathed her
scent until I knew I could drown in it. Faintly, underneath it all
was the smell of the satin and the dye used to color it.

I felt her fingers tangle in my hair and
pull until I was face to face with her. She tilted her chin up in a
gesture I knew as her begging for a kiss and I acquiesced, pressing
my lips to hers until I could taste her. Her lipstick was gone, had
been for a while, so all I tasted was her lips and what still
lingered of me on her tongue.

She pulled away slowly a moment later and
pushed me off her so she could sit up.

“
What is it?” I asked, and the voice was
deep and sensual, accented with that strange accent.

She shook her head. “We’ve been summoned,”
she told me.

“
What is it about?”

Again, she shook her head. “I wasn’t told.
Just that we’re needed.”

“
When?” It was a simple question, but it
carried an accusation that she picked up on. She turned to me
sheepishly, with a look of apology. Instantly, I was angry.

“
Perdita!” I leapt from the bed and
landed on my feet. Anger rolled off me like a thunder storm, and
the porcelain-skinned woman cowered under my glare. I rattled off
curses in Latin, before I began to yell again. “Why do you do this?
Why do you always insist on doing this? Do you not believe in our
cause?”

“
Not whole-heartedly, no.”

I was stunned speechless. “No?”

“
No, I honestly am not wholly in it,
Lucretious. I’m sorry, but I believe our time could be better spent
elsewhere.”

“
So?”

My perspective changed suddenly and I was me
again, LeKrista, watching her from his eyes.

“
So, I am in this as far as you are. You
know that. Just don’t hold it against me when I don’t find these
things as important as you do.”

Lucretious closed his eyes against his fiery
anger and took a deep breath. “When do they want to meet?”

“
Tomorrow night.”

Lucretious rolled his neck and it popped
several times. Perdita kept her eyes on her fidgeting hands in her
satin covered lap. The red sheets made the paleness of her skin
shine and I felt Lucretious’ anger melt away as his lust over took
him.

“
You know you will have to be punished
for this,” he told her, but his voice was so sensual that she
looked up and I saw a matching lust in her eyes.

“
What do you have in mind?”

Lucretious crawled up on the bed on all
fours and Perdita mirrored him. They crawled toward each other like
two cats in heat. Lucretious made the first move, and it was so
lightning fast that I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been seeing
through his eyes. He grabbed Perdita by her long hair and threw her
to the mattress on her back. Then he spun her around and pulled her
underneath him in less than a second, trapping her body with
his.

“
I want to taste your heartbeat,” he
whispered, against the flesh of her cleavage. I could feel the
woman’s alarm, but she did as was requested of her. Was this her
punishment? Possible death?

The sound of cloth ripping filled the air,
and I looked through Lucretious’ eyes to see that he’d ripped her
satin gown all the way down the front with no effort at all. And
she was naked. I looked down at her because I had no choice. Her
skin was flawless white, more pale than she should have been. Her
breasts were well formed and perky and I had a moment of jealousy
wishing mine were perfect like hers. Even set against her white,
white skin her nipples were too pale to be healthy.

Without preamble, no explanation, no
assurances to her safety, Lucretious bit into the flesh around the
right nipple. Perdita gasped. Maybe it hurt, but not by much that I
could tell. She arched her back, pressing her breast into his face,
and he latched on with his lips, sucking at her nipple and the
puncture marks he’d made. Perdita moaned so loud she was almost
yelling. The taste of blood filled my mouth as with before and I
liked it. I knew I wasn’t in my own body. I knew I wasn’t really
drinking this woman’s blood, but the idea that I could ever like
the taste of blood was almost too much.

Without removing his lips from Perdita’s
breast, Lucretious removed his pants and rose up over her body,
positioning himself. When he entered her, it was with such force
that I was sure he’d broken her, but if Perdita was hurt I couldn’t
tell. She cried out, but not in pain. I tried not to watch or feel.
I tried not to hear, but I was experiencing through someone else’s
body and there was nothing I could do to shut off the sensations. I
felt my own arousal rise up, and it wasn’t long before I was
teetering on the edge of pleasure. Lucretious growled in
frustration as he pumped his hips faster and faster, trying to
achieve the climax that my parasitical mind had brought on too
early. But, when Perdita screamed as she came, Lucretious stopped
fighting and we both flew over the edge together into a place I
never knew I could go.

My eyes flew open as I came and I looked up
into Pierce’s amused eyes. Had I been talking in my sleep?

Oh god I hope not!

My hand went over my mouth automatically,
partly from embarrassment and mostly to keep from moaning out loud.
My body shuddered as the waves of pleasure crashed over me. I felt
Pierce’s hand slip into the waistband of my jeans. I clenched my
teeth together to keep from making noise and let him touch me until
I couldn’t keep from giggling because it tickled a little bit.

Pierce kissed me hard on the lips, before he
asked, “Good dream?”

I laughed, because it was a little
funny.

It took a moment for me to recover enough to
sit up as Pierce set a plate of steak and potato chips in front of
me. I cut a piece off the corner and stuck it in my mouth. It was
good, salty as usual, but tender and I realized I was starving.

Did I skip lunch, too? Probably.

“You gave Petrice some?” I asked as he
flipped through the channels. It seemed we did more channel
flipping than actual TV watching. Like a true man, he never let me
have the remote. I don’t understand the allure of channel surfing.
He left it on a channel long enough to get me into a show, then
changed it when they’re about to explain something important. Not
cool.

I ignored the TV, mostly because it would
only make me irritated and grumpy, and concentrated on eating. I
saved the nasty chips for last, chewing and swallowing the steak
and trying not to remember that dream or the taste of blood in my
mouth. I put my plate down and stood up to stretch, hoping to get
the blood flowing, hoping to come out of the post-orgasm stupor
enough that I didn’t choke on my food. I never had dreams like
that, and while I wasn’t freaked out, I was confused. Why was I
dreaming about vampires and sex?

“What’s wrong?” Pierce asked. “Something
wrong with the meat?”