1 Dicey Grenor (20 page)

 
I rolled away from him. He’d just screwed with
my orgasm, one Aaron and I desperately needed. I wasn’t pleased. “I don’t know
what you’re talking about.”

“Like hell you don’t.”
He grabbed my arm to swing me back around to face him, but I didn’t budge. “Willow,
you switched us didn’t you? You…”

He removed his
hand like he couldn’t bear touching me. I turned to him expecting to still find
anger but saw disappointment and hurt instead.

“Aw,
Remi
.
Don’t look like that. I just wanted
Aaron to have the experience.”

“No. You just
wanted Aaron.” He got up and jammed his legs into his underwear. “You found out
he was a pussy and you used me.” I watched as he put on the rest of his
clothes. “I thought we had something. I thought you finally wanted me inside
you because you liked me.” He laughed sharply. “I can’t believe it was a ruse
just to lay with Aaron. That’s fucked up.”

Anticipating his
next move was opening the
door,
I grabbed the
comforter to cover myself from the sunlight and sunk on the floor next to the
bed.
Right in the nick of time.
He slammed the door on
his way out.

I threw the cover
off and stared at the ceiling. I’d really fucked up.

Too
much fucking up, not enough fucking.

Chapter 24

I had half a brain
to call Franco and tell him I wasn’t coming in tonight. I felt like stinking
poop and my attitude wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. After pacing my room
with the tiny four walls, I decided to go in anyway. Didn’t want to be stuck in
my room all night with my thoughts…and I needed to collect more blood. My
refrigerator stash was dwindling.

Should
have stayed in my room.

First thing I
encountered at work was Ivan. And right after I grimaced at Ivan’s smirk,
Franco introduced him as the newest employee. But no, he wouldn’t be a cocktail
waitress. Due to overwhelming demands from
Hades’s
rising female customers, Ivan was our first male performer. He’d be putting his
magic tongue to good use. And Franco was giving me the pleasure of showing Ivan
around. I had the wonderful task of helping him acclimate to the workplace.

Great.

Ivan walked behind
me the whole time. I could feel his eyes on my ass, the heat radiating from his
body. Yep. He wanted to fuck. I knew the minute he was about to open his mouth
and ask about hooking up later. Turning toward him just before he did, I
inhaled his familiar scent, thinking about how I owed him a beat down for
hurting me.
 

“And that
completes your tour,” I rushed to say before I thought too hard about revenge.

“Go out with me.”

“Fuck off.”
 
We had to work together but we’d never be
best buds. I turned to storm off, but before I took a step, I fell asleep.

What a whack exit.

When I was able to
open my eyes again, I recommitted myself to finding a cure for narcolepsy. I
was going to die if something was not done soon. This was a vulnerability I
didn’t need,
dammit
.

I didn’t care that
Ivan had caught me and kept me from hitting the floor. First thing I saw when I
opened my eyes were his thick dark eyebrows and intense sapphires. I thought
about how they’d looked from this angle the first time I’d opened my legs for
him. How painful it had been, how gentle he’d tried to be. Then I thought of
the other women who’d had close-ups just like this when Ivan was supposed to be
my man.
Scoundrel.

At least Max was
open and honest about his many brides.

I pushed away from
Ivan. Even though I couldn’t…or
wouldn’t
kill him, I was glad to have at
least used my power of captivation. There was some closure, some revenge in
that. When he let me go, I stormed off.
Finally.

And
wha’d’ya’know
—I ran right into Ming.
Again.
We had to stop making a habit of this. Was she following me or something?

“Are you following
me?” she laughed.

“I was just about
to ask you the same thing.”

“Of
course not.
But hey—you
wanna
get a drink at
the bar? We can get to know each other a little better.”

Drinks were free
for employees, but I obviously never made good on that fringe benefit.
“No, thanks.”

Her lips thinned
to a disappointed line. “Okay. I get it. I’m the new girl. No one wants to give
me the time of day. If I was hot like the new guy…well, then that would be
different. You were just falling all over him.” Then she turned to walk away.

“Ming, I
fell
on
him. As in, I fell asleep.”

“Oh.” She turned
back towards me and stuck her chin out proudly. “Sorry.” She licked her lips
and threw her head back, succeeding at moving the hair from her neck, exposing
a beautiful neckline. I gritted my teeth. “So it’s this place? Yeah. You
probably would rather go somewhere else to have a drink. How ’bout after work?
Say—Belvedere?” She batted her thick lashes.
“My treat.”

Was she coming on
to me? “Uh…I have plans.
Maybe another time.”
I walked
away as fast as I could then
yelled
over my shoulder. “By
the way, you
are
hot like the new guy.”

Work was cool.
Nothing to scream about.
I was busy trying to figure out how
to make amends with
Remi
. I’d have to explain myself…but
what exactly could I explain that would make this situation better?

Maybe I’d have
better luck figuring out what was going on with Aaron’s mind and fixing that. I’d
been captivating
Remi
for a while with no major side
effects. What had changed?
The frequency?
It had gone
from once a week to every night. Had that made a significant difference? Was it
the stress of having his nose bitten off? Or having my blood heal him?

When I exited
Hades’s
back door, I had a brief moment of anxiety…no,
excitement. For the past few nights Aaron had been waiting there for me so my
mind told me he’d be there tonight as well.

No such luck.

Focusing on him
all week had robbed me of any time I normally spent enjoying the darkness and
fresh night air. It was perfect for clearing my head. Yeah…a nice leisurely
stroll was just what I needed to iron out conflicting thoughts and pesky
feelings. I found myself casually walking through an overgrown cemetery and
realized that was where I needed to be. Plopping down on an unmarked plot, I
closed my eyes to appreciate the peace and stillness.

Not sure whether
God still listened to me, I prayed anyway.
But not for
myself.
Didn’t waste time on that.
I prayed for
Aaron.
His body, his soul, his spirit.

By the time I got to
my room I felt better, more settled, calmer. I had come to grips with a truth I
hadn’t wanted to accept. I was an evil being. I’d died and instead of letting
nature take its course and allowing my soul to journey toward my destined
eternity, I’d made a deal with an evil being. I was no better than the man who’d
made a deal with Franco or whatever the hell his name was. I’d willingly traded
my human life for “immortality” in an animated shell of my former self. The
real kicker was the magic that animated my body was probably satanic since it
also came with the need to survive off others to exist. What kind of being
could have done what I’d done to Aaron?
Certainly not a Godly
one.

I had to accept
that I was soulless. No salvation for me. No heaven in my future. I could only
hope there were different levels of hell.
Maybe a purgatory ’cause
no paradise was waiting for me.
Ninety degrees had to be better than one
thousand degrees of fire, right? If it was possible to be punished for my
transgressions with some leniency, I’d aim for that. No way of knowing if that
option was available, but one thing I was finally certain of—I was headed to
hell or some other place where the soulless went once I met my final death. My
reasons for becoming a vampire didn’t matter.

Another
realization: I was responsible for watching over Aaron as long as he lived
since I was the cause of his current degenerative state. As a vampire, I was
unredeemable, but
dammit
there was still hope for
him. I’d do whatever needed to be done to protect him. At least one of us had a
stab at a heavenly hereafter.

I stopped abruptly
once I got to my door. It was ajar and I never made the mistake of leaving it
open
even when I was most distracted.

Someone had been
here, had been
in
here.

Looking around to
see if anyone was waiting to ambush me, or if there were witnesses, or if there
was anything unusual, I saw no one. Whoever had been here was either long gone
or still inside.

I stepped in
cautiously then shut the door behind me.

My room had been
turned upside down as if someone had been searching for something. My bedside
lamp was on, clothes were strewn about,
each
drawer
was pulled out and left in various parts of the room. Even the beautiful
bouquet Aaron had given me was in ruins. Surprisingly, my laptop was still on
the desk which meant it had not been a random burglary. Aaron’s camera was
still in one of the dislodged drawers which meant
Rafe
hadn’t found me and tried to steal evidence against him. In fact, nothing
seemed to be missing.

I inhaled, hoping
to pick up a scent and did. Oh, no…

Listening for
sounds, I detected a subtle drip in the bathroom. No…

Hair on my arms
and back of my neck stood. What eyes couldn’t see through the closed bathroom
door, my other senses picked up and were already on red alert. Smelling blood
in my bathtub where water had been running recently was not a good sign.

I slowly opened
the door half-expecting the Boogie Man to jump out, but he didn’t. The strong
aroma of death greeted me instead. I didn’t have to cut the light on to see the
body lying in the tub of overflowing water. I cut it on anyway to verify the
identity of what my senses were already processing.

Ivan was lying
naked in a pool of his own blood waiting for me to find him.

And wasn’t that a
perfect ending to a fucking fantastic day.

Chapter 25

Don’t know how
long I stood leaning against the doorjamb reflecting back on good times with
Ivan. He was my first love after all. Funny how we can only remember things we
liked about people after they’re gone. The fact that he was a cheater meant
nothing now. He didn’t deserve this.

He’d been so sweet
to me when we first met. And yes, he loved for me to sit on his face back then
too. Now that I think back, that must have been his thing. He probably didn’t
have the courage to tell me as I didn’t have the self-confidence to do it
often. He didn’t have the extra tongue speed or the bonus of tuning into my
head so that he knew exactly what worked and when like Max did. But he was
great at it, nonetheless, especially for a human.

Water
under a bridge.

He was dead now
and I hadn’t even given him the courtesy of a stranger when I’d last seen him.

Looking his body
over, I finally shook the cobwebs from my head and considered my predicament:
there was a dead body in my motel tub. What if the person or supernatural
who’d
done this had also called the cops? Who could already
be on the
way.
I’d be fucked. Blood was everywhere,
all over the floor, ceiling, mirror,
commode
. He’d
actually been killed here.

Ordinarily, seeing
this much blood would have thrown me into a blood thirsty tailspin.
But no.
I wanted to throw up instead, especially with his
beautiful sapphire blues frozen straight ahead.

I sure hoped he
hadn’t suffered.

Who could have
done this to him?
Couldn’t have been Max.
First off,
there would have been no blood left. Secondly, Max would be here to take me out
too.

Then it dawned on
me: whoever killed him and left
him
here had intended
to set me up.
Boy, that
really lit a match under my
ass. I had to clean this mess up ASAP, get rid of his body…wait—what would I do
with it? Dump him in the dumpster?

I went to sit on
the edge of my bed. Before I knew it, I was calling Franco and explaining it
all to him. He was completely calm and after I told him where to find me, said
he was on the way stat.

Somehow, instinct
told me he’d know how to handle this. And
Saybree
had
said I could trust him.

I could tell the
moment he and Punch arrived because I started twitching all over, my body
responding to Punch’s energy. Finding a spot on the floor to focus my eyes on,
I meditated on darkness and void until the twitching was gone. I simply felt
relieved they were both here to help. Franco made sure I was okay then they put
on gloves and got busy. They wrapped the body in Aaron’s old blanket and loaded
him on the back of Punch’s truck. Then they cleaned up the mess while I sat on
the bed hugging my knees, wandering how much trouble I was in and what to do
about it now.

“Get your things.
Best for you to come with us,” Franco said.

I didn’t question
it.
Didn’t argue.
Didn’t stall.
I’d asked for his help and I was taking it.