Eyes of Ice (Eyes of Ice Erotica Series) (19 page)

“Keep watching,” Andrew said. He drew out of her almost to his tip – she screamed, the emptiness of her agony – and filled her a quarter of the way, half way, back to a quarter of the way.

“You want me. You want all of me,” Andrew murmured into her ear. He ran his tongue along her neck and she shivered.

“Yes, please,” she begged, hearing her voice high and supplicating. “I want all of your cock –
Ahhh!
”

He slammed into her fully, knocking the air out of her in a long,
tearing scream. Crammed with his manhood at last, she came instantly, raking her nails down his arms and shuddering with the intensity of her pleasure.

When her shaking orgasm subsided, she raised herself off of him and groggily lowered her feet to the floor. She felt as tired and weak as if she had run a hundred miles, but something was glowing inside of her, in spite of her pain in every limb and at her core. Andrew, meanwhile,
seemed as well-rested and full of energy as ever. He was on his feet and on his way to his bedroom before she had stood, calling: “Wait there, I have something for you.”

When he returned, he placed a
long, thin chain around her neck. A charm the shape of a teardrop turned on its head dangled between her breasts.

“Do you like it?” Andrew asked, cupping her cheek in one of his cool hands.

“It’s beautiful,” Cecelia told him, honestly. It shined up at her, catching the light, cool against her skin.

“The chain is long so you can take it off easily,” he said. “And put it over my head if you’re frightened.”

“You’re not worried that I’ll do it just for fun?” she teased.

He sat on the edge of the
couch. “No, you truly aren’t interested in hurting me.” he paused, staring out the window for a long moment, and then asked abruptly: “Did you wish to hear more about vampires? I think the time has come.”

Cecelia almost rejected the offer, she was so exhausted.
Stay awake. Stay awake. Say yes. The article. Think of the article,
she ordered herself sternly.

“Won’t Devon be angry? Won’t the
clan be angry?” Cecelia asked. Yes, this was exactly the kind of specifics that her article needed right now. But she didn’t have a pen and paper and she was naked to boot.

“I think he believes that you know too much about us already. I’ll risk it,” Andrew said, moving over her and kissing her waiting lips. Tired as she was, Cecelia wished the kiss would go on forever, and felt slightly resentful as Andrew pulled himself away to lay on his side next to her.

“Infection,” he said, his eyes darkening perceptibly, “there’s a ritual involved, which is why we can bite humans without them turning. One must be bitten at five points; if venom isn’t equally distributed through the dying body, then the remaining blood will not fully turn. Thus, bites at the ankles, wrists, and neck,” his eyes strayed to Cecelia neck, naked and pale on the pillow, and Cecelia remembered his kisses there.

             
“It’s very painful,” he said. “It reanimates almost instantly. We’re not allowed by clan law to change more than one or two humans in a lifetime, and even then it has to be for a very good reason.”

             
“Like what?” Cecelia asked.

             
Andrew shrugged, running a finger over her hip. “Family, very rarely. Someone who could be considered valuable to our cause – a congressman, a mayor, a lawmaker, a police commissioner,” he reached her lower thigh and lowered his palm to her skin, beginning a slow ascent. “But that is rare, also. Most of us are somewhat illegal, selfish accidents allowed by the fact that we already exist and might as well be put to good use.”

             
“Hasn’t anyone … discovered you and tried to kill you as a … I don’t know, a species?” Cecelia wondered.

             
“Hunters? Yes. But you can’t hunt the hunter, can you?” he returned. “At least, not without loss of life.”

             
“So then where do the rumors come from?” Cecelia asked.

             
“We didn’t always have clans, of course. Those only formed in the twentieth century – as I’ve said before, cooperation and coexistence with our own goes against our predatory nature. To amass an army, to become all-powerful – these wishes are very human, and run counter to a species that largely lives based off an instinct for mere survival. Most vampires until the formation of clans kept quiet because they recognized that they were not all-powerful and still feared persecution. But it was a time of greater religious orthodoxy – some would rather kill themselves than live as the demon they appeared to be, and many eventually succeeded,” Andrew’s eyes shaded again, and Cecelia recalled Devon’s story of Andrew’s own suicide attempts. Andrew continued. “There were exceptions, of course. But they usually took care of themselves.”

             
“So there’s just … vampires all over the world now … pretending to be human?” Cecelia asked, her mind just beginning to grasp the vastness of the situation.

             
Andrew nodded. “Strongly regulated, confined to our own districts, living lives counter to our nature – having learned long ago that humans, too, live lives counter to their own nature of lust and violence.”

             
Cecelia’s head pounded violently, and she half-imagined she was going to be sick again. She tried to breathe deeply.

             
“Is there anyone like us?” she asked.

             
“What do you mean?”

             
“Are there any vampires that … love humans?”

             
He rose suddenly, leaning over her. “No. There are vampires who keep humans as pets, vampires who keep humans as entertainment, but there is always darker motive. Always.”

             
“Not with you,” Cecelia said, her hand holding  the silver teardrop.

             
“No,” he said quietly. “Not with me.”

             
“Why, then?” she asked, unable to help herself. “Why am I the exception? Why are you?”

             
With a sigh, he ran a hand down her collarbone, her breast, her stomach. Cecelia trembled, wanting him to go further. “We’re both vulnerable,” he said, simply.

             
He moved over her, his arm encircling her waist, and Cecelia knew the conversation was reaching its end. His body close and firm to hers, she found she didn’t care much for words any more.

             
She saw Andrew very little the rest of the week; not in the sense that she was used to seeing him. He seemed to be pulling back from the carnal side of their relationship – again, she felt, out of fear. Out of respect, she never again tried to initiate as she had on the day that they regained their footing, but tried enjoyed the more typical moments she had with him, despite the fact that it felt like an imitation of what Andrew imagined a relationship to be.

             
Every night, Andrew took her to a fancy dinner. Twice, he cooked for her in his apartment, and took her to a movie afterwards (she was sure so that he wouldn’t be tempted to take her to his room instead). Both times, she had been distracted from whatever they had been viewing, with the nagging feeling that his eyes were not on the screen, but on her. One day, Andrew flipped the scenario of a few weeks ago on its head, and invited Alexandra and Devon to lunch.

             
Devon, as sulky as usual, had arrived bearing a bouquet of yellow roses for Cecelia and none of the charm that would usually accompany such a gift. “For you,” he had said dully, extending his arm as if he held something somewhat explosive.
Alexandra made
him, Cecelia had guessed as she had taken them with her thanks. For the meal, Devon was mostly silent, and Alexandra filled the space left by his uncomfortable grudge.

S
everal times, Andrew tried in vain to engage Devon in conversation, and Devon’s icy responses cut Cecelia to the core – not because there were vague slights directed at her as before, but because Devon was so cruelly denying Andrew all of their former brotherly relationship, the story told by photos scattered around the apartment in gold frames. Andrew and Devon climbing a Himalayan mountain, likely sometime during Andrew’s rehabilitation (Andrew’s skin was ashen, his eyes hidden beneath sunglasses). Andrew and Devon grinning on a snowy street in Italy, surrounded by pigeons. Andrew and Devon mock-scowling on a ski left.

             
“We haven’t been to the glaciers in a while,” Andrew had told Devon as he and Alexandra put on their coats. “We always go in December.”

             
“I was thinking of going to New Mexico,” Devon responded shortly.

             
“
Devon
,” Alexandra hissed.
Clearly Alexandra knows that part of the story,
Cecelia thought, glancing at Andrew. Andrew’s face was blank, his hands clenched into fists, and Cecelia felt the heat of his anger wash over her.

             
The next day, Andrew showed Cecelia his paintings, averting his eyes as he led her into the small studio at the back of the apartment. Cecelia wasn’t fooled by his falsely casual behavior. She knew from Devon’s offhand comments and stab at storytelling that Andrew’s paintings would tell a story that was both intensely personal and, in all likelihood, intensely bleak.

Neither of her guesses were wrong, she realized, as she took in the paintings before her. But she was more struck by their mastery than their emotion. Each painting, large, small, or incomplete, looked like a photograph had jumped to a canvas in sharp, high-definition relief. Here was a painting that looked so like the street outside, Cecelia half-wanted to pick it up and compare it; here was a painting of flowers that looked real enough to smell spilling from a shattered vase; here was a painting of a wolf, slinking from sandy shadows and appearing so ready to pounce that her heart fluttered to look at the grinning jaws.

Secondarily, Cecelia recognized the chilling darkness of the paintings. They were each nightmarish and unsettling, even in their perfection – perhaps enhanced by such perfection – they depicted a cruelly sharp version of reality that hid no imperfection, and sought to recreate the actualities of discontent and flaw. As she stood in the room, cold because its door was closed to shut out the warmth of the rest of Andrew and Devon’s apartment, Cecelia felt overwhelmingly claustrophobic, as if the paintings – no, not the paintings, their contents – were looming in on her. A look over her shoulder proved that Andrew was still silhouetted in the door, his expression purposefully clear of emotions. He was waiting for her reaction and disguising his vulnerability.

No wonder Devon wanted me to see this
, Cecelia thought feverishly, staring deep into the photorealistic skyline of Chicago,
Even if I hadn’t known some of Andrew’s story, this would scare me away
. She set her jaw, determined.
I
can’t
let this scare me away!

“They’re beautiful,” she said quietly. It was true. They were beautiful in their perfection, their seamless recreation of vision.

“You’re not frightened?” Andrew asked from the doorway. It seemed that he didn’t want to step into the dimness of the room, himself, the place filled with his nightmares.

“I am,” she said. “But I still think they’re beautiful.” She paused. “Is that all right?” Is
it all right? Is it all right to tell someone that there’s a part of them that’s frightening?

  Andrew’s eyes glinted in the darkness, and Cecelia realized that there was a sheen to them rather like a cat’s; they glowed in half-light, revealing a nocturnal disposition. Cecelia shivered.

“Of course,” he replied, and much of her fear faded. He held out a hand to her, beckoning her out of the poorly lit room, and Cecelia took it gladly, seeing a smile on his face.
Was he afraid I would run away screaming?
She wondered, smiling back with relief.
Was he purposefully testing Devon’s theory?

“May I walk you back to your dorm?” he asked.

Cecelia tried to keep her disappointment from showing on her face. It had been days since she had been with Andrew, and she missed sex terribly in spite of its newness to her.

As if he had guessed her thoughts, Andrew stopped her in the doorway and pressed against her for a deep kiss. Her hands tugged twisted at the back of his shirt, and she let out a quiet moan as his kisses drifted down her neck.

“Let’s go,” he murmured, stepping back, “You’ll be late for class.”

With a jolt, Cecelia realized that he was right, and that she’d rather think that had been the reasoning behind his withdrawal from her, and not a continued aversion toward sexuality.

“Can we tonight?” she asked quickly. He didn’t have to ask what she had meant.

“I do have so much more to teach you,” he said.

“Like what?” she queried, as they emerged into the too-bright, wintry sunlight.