The Fangover (2 page)

Which aroused Stella.

Wyatt was a good-looking guy. He had caramel-colored hair that skimmed his shoulders and a seductive mouth. Which was now on hers, kissing her with more finesse than she would have thought possible. Wyatt and Johnny had been two vampiric peas in an undead pod. Both jokesters, both happy-go-lucky, though truthfully, Wyatt was way more thoughtful and far less selfish than Johnny. She’d never thought of Wyatt as being a ladies’ man either, like her brother had been, though how Johnny had ever managed that was still a mystery to Stella.

Yet for never having a girlfriend that she could remember, Wyatt sure in the hell knew how to kiss. His lips were taking skilled possession of hers, warm and confident. It was the kind of kiss that made you want to keep kissing, for hours and hours or until you were naked, whichever came first. Stella gave a soft moan and opened her mouth.

But Wyatt pulled back. “That better?”

Yes and no. She nodded. “Do it again.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure?”

Instead of arguing with him, Stella just went up on her tiptoes, buried her fingers in his hair, and went at his mouth with her own. She was definitely not as smooth in her moves as he had been but it was effective. Within seconds, his tongue was sliding between her lips and tangling with hers. A sharp kick of lust between her thighs had her running her fingers over his hard chest and down to cup his suddenly obvious and quite impressive erection.

He tore his mouth off of hers, breathing hard. “Stella.”

“What?” She bent over and unzipped him, drawing that hard length out of his jeans.

“What are you doing?”

Forgetting. Distracting herself. Trying to feel alive, when for the first time in eight decades, she felt the weight of mortality. In a hazy fog of alcohol and grief, desire sliced through the murkiness and gave her something to hold on to.

Her nipples beaded as she enclosed her mouth around his swollen cock. She figured that was a good enough answer to his question.

“Holy shit. Ahh.” His words were strangled, and he gripped her shoulders with enough pressure to cause bruising. “Damn, that feels so good.”

It did. It felt like she was back in control. As his breathing deepened, she stroked faster, feeling her own body respond. It had been years since she’d had sex. Probably since the ’80s, if she wanted to get technical about it. Mortals never seemed able to satisfy her and they moved in such a small world of vampires, there hadn’t really been any men she’d been interested in. Now she was wondering why the hell she hadn’t tried a little harder because this felt delightful. Vibrant.

Wyatt had a perfect penis, the kind that filled her mouth so completely she couldn’t help but imagine what it would do to another part of her.

He must have had the same thought because suddenly Wyatt was pulling back, pushing her off him and against the kitchen counter. Popping the button on her jeans, he stared at her intently. “Can I?”

Part of her insanely wanted to correct his grammar, another part of her was touched that he would ask, that he would give her an opportunity to say no. But the rest of her just wanted him inside her without any hesitation or interruptions.

“Yes. Yes.” She unzipped her jeans herself to lend credence to her words.

“Oh, Stella,” Wyatt groaned. Bending over, he took her mouth again, his tongue doing a delicious slide into her mouth while he took her jeans down to her knees in one swift motion.

Then he bit her bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood. He lapped at it, breathing deeply in through his nose as he took in her scent. It was Stella’s turn to moan. The last time someone had bitten her, she’d been wearing bell bottoms and a mohair vest, and that had been by a nutjob trying to become a vampire.

This was much better. This was electric. Each lap with the tip of Wyatt’s tongue, taking in her tangy blood, was an erotic jolt between her thighs. His thumb skimmed over her clitoris and she felt frantic, fumbling with her fingers to grab him, guide him to her. Wyatt was way ahead of her. Before she could even voice her desperate need, his cock thrust inside her with such impact that she was actually lifted up onto her tiptoes.

She let out a startled moan. He swore. And she shivered in delight as he started to move in and out. Wyatt put his hand on the small of her back so that she wouldn’t slam into the counter as he picked up speed, gritting his teeth, eyes boring into her.

“You’re so tight. You feel so good,” he told her.

There was no way she could actually speak. She was too busy trying not to shatter into a thousand pieces and drop to the kitchen floor. Her senses were being assaulted: the feel of his grip on her hip, the lingering smell of her drying blood, the rustle of his jeans, the hot blast of his breath on her. And most of all, the thick pounding of his cock into her slick, warm wetness.

“Oh, oh,” was all she could manage before she completely lost it and came with a startled shout. It was amazing how good it felt, how overwhelming and all-consuming it was. There was nothing but her body and his, and tight ecstasy.

Wyatt stopped pumping for a brief second, then resumed as his orgasm joined hers. Together they gripped and groaned and stared deep into each other’s eyes. It was a moment so intense Stella shook her head slightly in disbelief at the raw, deep connection she felt with Wyatt.

Then he pulled out and she came back to reality. As he ran his fingers through his hair and wiggled his ass a little to get his stuff back into his jeans, Stella felt her cheeks flame. What the frickety frack was that? She had just had rabbit sex with her brother’s best friend thirty minutes after finding her brother’s body—or what was left of it.

She was appalled. She was speechless. She was still feeling the effects of the vodka. And she was wishing that her body didn’t feel so goddamn satisfied.

What she finally managed to say was, “Sorry.”

Which said nothing.

It seemed to confuse Wyatt. He frowned as he zipped his jeans. His jaw worked, like he was going to say something, then changed his mind. “I’ll, uh, just call the band and let them know what’s going on.”

Right. Yeah. They needed to deal with the situation at hand. “Okay, thanks.”

“We could plan a wake for tomorrow or the night after. Probably tomorrow since we don’t have to work. We could use the riverboat where we played that gig last Mardi Gras.”

Stella wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the reality of her brother’s death, but she just felt numb, incapable of thinking. So she nodded, and let Wyatt handle it all. “I need to get out of here.”

“Go ahead, that’s fine. I’ll take care of everything.”

Fumbling to pull up her own jeans as she walked, Stella lost her footing. Going down on one knee, she caught her fall.

With her hand in Johnny. Pulling it back, she stared in horror at the layer of ash now coating her skin. Seriously? Could this night suck any more?

Johnny didn’t even own a dustpan. So she wasn’t even sure how she was supposed to clean up his final mess.

Wyatt’s firm grip on her waist yanked her out of her pity party. Actually, it yanked her right off the floor and upright.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Um, no she wasn’t. Her brother was dead. She was a random slut. And she was the clumsiest vampire ever. “I’m all alone, Wyatt,” she repeated, the tears returning. Johnny was dead. What the hell.

“You’re not alone.” Wyatt leaned in, brown eyes dark with desire, and something else. “I love you, Stella.”

Oh, yeah. This night could get worse and that was it. Why would Wyatt say that? And why did him saying those words strike a fear almost greater than death in her heart?

“Thanks,” she said, in what was arguably the lamest response ever. “I have to go.”

And she bolted. Like a slutty, ash-covered coward.

Maybe she and Johnny weren’t so different after all.

Chapter Two

THE WAKE

(Or What They Remembered of It)

W
YATT
was grateful that he’d played “Carry On Wayward Son” approximately nine thousand times in his years playing with The Impalers on Bourbon Street, because he was completely distracted at Johnny’s wake.

Johnny was dead and he’d slept with Stella.

He’d told Stella he loved her and she’d run away.

He wasn’t even sure why he’d said that. He had meant it more in the way of reassurance that she wasn’t alone. That he cared about her. He did love her. He wasn’t exactly sure to what extent, but he totally did.

But what kind of crap-ass timing had that been? Her brother was dead, they had just spontaneously screwed, and oh yeah, I love you.

He would have run from that.

So basically, everything sucked and he wanted to crawl into a coffin and sleep for a century. He hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours and his eyes felt like sandpaper with an overlay of crushed glass. He had actually even reached up to wipe something off his cheek at one point during his eulogy for Johnny and had discovered it was a blood tear. Never in his whole 150 years of life had he been so mortified. Except for when he’d told Stella he loved her and she’d said thanks and left. There was that.

How could Johnny have committed suicide? And how could Wyatt have blurted out some weird random vow of love to his sister over his ashes?

Stupid. Stupid, stupid. Now he was standing onstage at Johnny’s wake in a haze of grief and liquor, staring out at the crowd of vampires who were mingling, talking, drinking, dancing in remembrance of a life, if not well lived, at least fairly long lived.

Wyatt’s eyes followed Stella, worried about her. He’d been happy to handle all the arrangements of collecting Johnny and planning the wake, to lessen her burden. He’d also been quite happy to stick his dick in her. Who did that? He was absolutely disgusted with himself. The only thing he could say in his own defense was that he hadn’t experienced the death of a friend in a very long time. Clearly, he didn’t know how to do grief anymore. He just knew how to do Stella.

Now he was playing by rote, wondering if she had enjoyed their five-minute encounter as much as he had. She seemed to have been into it while it was happening. He was positive she’d even had an orgasm. He’d felt it, that tightening around his cock, that shiver of her inner muscles, and the catch of her breath before she had called out . . .

Wyatt shifted his guitar in front of his newly sprung erection. Yeah, he was a sick bastard.

A bastard who didn’t want to be there. He’d never been big on funerals or wakes. Back in his mortal days out West, someone died, you dug them a hole, and kept on riding. There was none of this fuss and bother, and the good thing about that was you had the luxury of ignoring your feelings. You didn’t have to stand around and acknowledge that you felt lousy that you’d lost someone important to you. You could just stuff your grief down inside and never deal with it. It was the man’s way of handling death.

Saxon was showing off on the keyboard, adding unnecessary notes left and right, and Wyatt wanted to hit him on the head with his guitar. He also wanted to whisk Stella off and spend a few days naked with her until this whole thing blew over.

Then he wanted to find a way to convince her that they really should be a couple.

He settled for flicking a guitar pick at Saxon, bouncing it off his shoulder, but the satisfaction was short-lived when the keyboardist didn’t even notice, too busy flinging his long hair back over his shoulder.

Then Wyatt saw Stella. She was standing by the bar, a glass in her hand, which she drained with one smooth tilt of her head. She looked pale, even for a vampire. The dusting of freckles on her pert nose was visible from across the room, and there was a droop to her shoulders, which he imagined was from lack of sleep. Every minute or two, a vampire approached her, offered a few murmured words, sometimes a hug. Stella nodded, gave tight smiles, stiffly accepted embraces. But the whole time she clung to the bar, leaning on it, gesturing to the bartender, Jacob, to fill her empty glass no less than four times.

In all the years Wyatt had known her, she’d never been a drinker. Now twice in twenty-four hours, he’d seen her tossing them back. Apparently she didn’t know how to deal with grief any better than he did. But at least she wasn’t crying. Wyatt couldn’t take it when women cried. He found himself promising everything from diamonds to puppies to unlimited oral sex just to get them to stop. Wait. Maybe he should offer Stella that anyway—the oral sex, not a puppy.

His erection throbbed again. He needed a drink himself.

What he wasn’t going to offer Stella was a look at the second note he’d found from Johnny in the cookie jar shaped like a bust of Elvis. Going off his suicide note, Wyatt had checked for the fifty bucks referenced after he had cleaned up Johnny’s ashes. But there weren’t cookies or cash in the jar. Just another note from Johnny that read, “Stella, you’re a sucka. You know I’m broke as a joke. Love, your brother.”

So Wyatt had put Johnny in the cookie jar. He figured that was fitting.

“Yo, dude, I need a break,” Saxon said over his shoulder. “I lost my ChapStick. And this is harshin’ my mellow.”

Wyatt didn’t even bother to ask what exactly was bothering Saxon. He just nodded and turned to Cort. “Five?” he asked.

Cort nodded and at the end of the song, they put down their instruments and picked up their drinks. It was a nightly ritual they were all familiar with. They had been playing together for years and while Wyatt could do without yet another set crammed with Journey, Bon Jovi, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, he enjoyed watching the crowds. It beat the hell out of playing some glittery game of baseball.

Setting down his five-string Spector bass, he went in search of Stella and another beer. He wanted to make sure she was okay. The beer he just needed in order to survive another hour of this weird night.

He didn’t have to look far. With a wave at Raven, a pretentious vampire who played in a rival band on Bourbon, Stella barreled across the room toward him, a little unsteady, clutching her purse strap. For years, she’d been wearing a uniform of tight jeans, combat boots, a variety of rock T-shirts, and a banged-up cross-body bag in worn brown leather. You’d think it was her baby the way she always cuddled it to her breasts. He had to admit he was just a little bit jealous of that leather bag.

“How are you doing?” he asked her, reaching for her hand, wanting to touch her.

She ignored the question and his reach, leaving his hand floating in midair. “Do you have Johnny’s blood vial?”

“Um . . . no.” Caught off guard he let his hand drop. “I left it on the breakfast bar.”

Frowning, she said, “I was just at Johnny’s apartment. It wasn’t there.”

“You probably just missed it.” It was a small necklace, a tiny skull filled with a drop of Johnny’s blood. He could see why Stella would want to keep it, but it would be easy to have looked around the room and not have seen it. “So how are you holding up?”

*   *   *

STELLA FELT INCREDIBLY
impatient with the way Wyatt was talking to her and looking at her. Like he thought she was going to collapse in a screaming, kicking heap on the floor of the
Natchez
. Which, granted, he might have reason to believe given her behavior the night before, but she was fine. Damn it. So she’d had a meltdown, what of it? It wasn’t every day you found your brother lying there like last night’s campfire. What was she supposed to do, toast a fucking marshmallow? She had cried a little. Screamed. Thrown a lamp or two. Had sex with Wyatt. What woman wouldn’t?

Her cheeks burned a little. Okay, probably most women wouldn’t have done that, but she hadn’t been thinking straight.

She regretted it. For the most part. Ignoring the fact that her nipples were suddenly pert, Stella shook her head. “I looked on the counter. It wasn’t there.”

“We can go there later and look for it. It couldn’t have walked away.”

There was nothing she’d rather do less than go back to Johnny’s empty apartment, but she wanted that necklace. It had meant everything to Johnny and if it were lost she would freak out. How it could just disappear was a mystery to her, unless someone else had been in the apartment at some point, which of course made no sense. She was the only one with a key. “What did you do with his . . . you know. Ashes.”

Wyatt hesitated. Then he gave her a sheepish look. “I put them in the Elvis cookie jar.”

“Seriously? That’s just weird.”

“Well, it was a good, solid container. With a lid. The head really locks into that jumpsuit collar.”

Oh, my God, was she really having this conversation? “I’m going outside.” She wanted out on the deck, in the fresh air. The March air was still crisp at midnight, not wet and oppressively hot the way it would be in another six weeks. The riverboat they had rented for the wake had a wraparound deck, and as she pushed open the door and stepped out, cool air greeted her. That was better.

Leaning over the railing, she took a deep breath, waiting for the tears to come. They kept showing up at random intervals when she was least expecting them. But there were tears now.

“It’s hard to believe he’s gone.”

Shit. Wyatt had followed her. Where had he gotten the impression that she wanted his company? She was embarrassed to be around him. She had yanked down his zipper in what was arguably the strangest move she’d made in her whole life. For no apparent reason, at the absolute worst time. It was mortifying.

Not wanting to look at him because she felt so pathetic and just not herself, Stella just said, “Yeah.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. She’d ranted and raved the night before and now she was just tired and numb and she wanted Johnny’s necklace and her bed. She wanted to wake up and have everything be normal again, her brother spending money he didn’t have and toying with the affections of mortal women, while she went about her business never knowing how large Wyatt’s penis was.

Was that too much to ask for?

“So, about last night.”

Oh, no. He was going to bring up the unbring-upable. She refused to comment, gripping the railing as tightly as possible without breaking her fingers.

“I know that what we, uh, did, was sort of unexpected, but the thing is, it’s something I’ve actually thought about a lot. It’s something I would like to, you know, repeat.”

Could someone please arrive and jam ice picks in her ears? Stella couldn’t deal with this. Like she really, really couldn’t cope. Part of her was, of course, flattered that he was admitting he’d been attracted to her. Part of her was intrigued by the idea of going another round with Wyatt.

But mostly, she was just horrified and mortified and petrified.

This so wasn’t the time or place to talk about their inappropriate dick-stick session.

“I really can’t talk about this right now.” Stella finally forced herself to look at him, lifting her purse off of her shoulder. It was irritating her skin for some reason. Wyatt looked . . . soulful. It was unnerving.

“I don’t mean it to be disrespectful. What I’m talking about is us, you know. Us dating, trying out a relationship. This isn’t about sex.”

It wasn’t? Now she was thoroughly freaked out. “There isn’t an us.”

“I just want to establish—”

“No! No establishing!” Tension whipped through her like a hurricane and she gripped her bag in her hands, suddenly wanting to pummel him until he went away. Until all of this just went away. Gone.

“But—”

“Gah!” she shrieked.

Wyatt’s eyes went huge. “Okay, damn, calm down. We won’t talk about anything important, how’s that? We’ll talk about the weather. It’s a nice night, isn’t it?”

Okay, now he was being petulant. It wasn’t her problem. Even if she felt a tiny bit bad. A lot bad. It wasn’t his fault that this was lousy timing. It wasn’t his fault Johnny was dead and Stella had thrown herself at him.

Feeling contrite, she said, “I’ve had better nights. But thank you for being here for me. I do appreciate it.”

His stiff shoulders relaxed. “You’re welcome. Let me know if you need any help with Johnny’s apartment.”

Yet another thing she didn’t want to think about. Going through Johnny’s stuff. Which reminded her. She reiterated, “That necklace wasn’t there, Wyatt. I would have seen it.”

“It has to be there. But what are you going to do with it anyway? Take Johnny’s blood and clone him?”

Oh, no he didn’t. “Excuse me?” she asked, her voice steely and unnatural even to her own ears.

“It’s there,” he insisted.

Stella followed up on her earlier impulse and whacked him on the arm with her purse.

“What the hell? What’s the matter with you?”

“You’re the matter with me! How could you even say something like that to me?” She hit him again, for good measure. Her purse tipped on its side and all its contents spilled all over the deck of the boat. “Shit!” She started chasing a rolling lipstick.

He bent over to help her and she held her hand up. “I’ve got it!”

Wyatt hesitated a second, but then he just shook his head. “Fine. You know where to find me if you need me.”

Stella sat back on her butt on the deck, deflated, watching him stomp off. He had a valid question. What the hell
was
the matter with her? She was pissing off the one person who was offering to help her. The other guys in the band had given her condolences but not a single one had offered to help with the arrangements for the wake or with Johnny’s effects. Just Wyatt. And she was shrieking at him like the banshees her mother had always told her about back in Ireland when she was a little girl.

After she cleaned up her purse mess, she should probably apologize. Or at least buy him a drink. Grappling around, she found her wallet, her keys, her compact. It was a bitch to apply makeup as a vampire because her skin was so pale, but she’d perfected the art of touch-and-go. Light powder, a swipe of nude lipstick. That was everything except her phone. Looking around, she didn’t see it. Fabulous. Her cell was gone.