Unbitten (24 page)

“I’m going to need some cleaning help,”
he continued. “Several people, and they must be able
to follow directions perfectly. I’ll have to wipe
them afterwards. I’ll double their pay, of
course–and I need them to come
now.
”

“Now,” Angélique repeated, mentally
running through her list of housekeepers and identifying
the ones who fit Henri’s criteria. “I’ll
get on it right away. Anything else I can do for
you?”

“That’s it for right now,” he said.
“Tomorrow afternoon, the minute I get up, we will
need to talk about security. This is the second break-in,
and as you probably know, my lab is not just sitting here
with the doors wide open, inviting visitors. This is not
random and I’m sorry to say I believe there is danger
involved. Whoever is doing this is willing to take serious
risks.”

A pause while they both considered that, and what they
needed to do in response.

It was difficult for Henri to start dealing with the mess
instead of working. He had enjoyed working on the original
Hemo-Yum, certainly. And the bandages had not been without
their moments of interest. But the new product, the one for
his mother–it was really the perfect project, both
intellectually challenging and something with real,
tangible value, even apart from its possibilities as a
profit-maker.

He kept having a recurring image come into his head, a
curious image really. He saw himself walking down to the
dungeon with the first bags of synthetic blood for his
mother. What was curious was that Jo, that American girl,
was with him.

Jo had given up. All right then, she thought, turning off
the light by her bed. Nothing so wrong in having a few hot
nights and then calling it quits. Nothing at all wrong with
that.

She was not especially convincing to herself. There he had
been, right across the table from her. He had smiled at
her, hung on her words, looked at her so
longingly…and then nothing. He’s not here, she
kept thinking. Just…not…here.

Jo fought with herself about it, for goddamn sure she
didn’t want to feel this way, but the truth was that
David’s flirting followed by not showing up–it
made her feel like something was wrong with
her
.
She lay back, for once not even noticing her magnificent
bed with its fresh coverlet of orange and red stripes, and
tried to listen for what Marianne would say.

Just then, the antique doorknob slowly turned.

“Are you asleep?” David asked gently.

Jo felt a thrill shoot through her body like nothing she
had ever experienced. It was not, no matter how confused
she might be in the moment, a thrill of love, or even sex.
It was the thrill of escaping the shame of rejection.

She peeled the covers back without a word, and David,
having wrenched off his clothes, slid in beside her, his
hands instantly all over her.

“For the record, I’m mad at you,” she
said.

“What record is that,” he said, but did not
wait for an answer, but pressed his lips on hers, roughly,
his tongue quickly in her mouth, his hips pushing against
her leg.

Jo kissed back. She wrapped her arms around his waist and
then reached up to caress his broad back. She opened her
legs and he quickly moved between them, already excited,
too excited, uncontrollable.

“I need to have you,” he said hoarsely into her
hair, and again, she felt the thrill.

He cupped her breasts and leaned down and kissed them,
moaning. His cock was at her opening, probing, and she
opened her legs wider, then brought her knees up and over
his shoulders.

She tried to enjoy what he was doing. It felt good, right?
She thought, this man I’ve been completely besotted
with is kissing me, and what I feel is…nothing?

“Ohh,” he said, reaching down and guiding
himself inside her. “Got to have you
now
,” he said, then kissing her again, and
thrusting, slamming into her so that the heavy bed was
banging against the wall.

She wasn’t ready. It was like he had been halfway to
orgasm before he’d even gotten upstairs.

“Aaahh,” he groaned, coming into her with
violent spasms, bucking, kissing her head, her cheek, her
ear.

What Jo felt was mostly like an observer. She had seen him
rush in, tear off his clothes, and have sex with
her–but she had not really caught up to the present
moment before he had leapt ahead, leaving her behind. It
wasn’t just a matter of not having had an orgasm yet.
It was more than that. Like for once she was able to have
some perspective instead of getting totally swept away in
the thundering surf of sensation that was sex with David.

“I’m not finished with you yet,” he said,
taking her legs down and kissing each one, going from the
insides of her knees all the way up to her cleft.

She tried to relax.

He rested on his elbows, nibbling at her thighs, teasing
her with his tongue, taking his time.

“David,” she said, because she felt like
talking but couldn’t think of what to say. She put
her hands in his hair and pulled it, just hard enough to
feel resistance.

David’s tongue was getting higher and higher, but not
high enough. Jo started to wriggle, her excitement
building. He reached one hand under her, gripping her ass,
and moaned again.

His moans really did it. They made her body melt into his,
made her brain go blank, everything fizzy and warm and
juicy. When she thought she couldn’t stand it another
second, he brought the tip of his tongue to the precise
spot she wanted it, and licked with incredible speed,
driving her into an ecstatic state, moaning and thrashing
from one side to another. He slid the hand on her ass down
until his finger found her hole, and as he brought his
mouth all the way on her, sucking in rhythm, he pushed his
finger barely in, just enough to make her gasp, and come,
writhing, and shouting his name.

“Mmm,” he said, coming up beside her and
kissing her, so that she could taste all their juices mixed
together. “Jo. I can’t even explain how badly
I’ve needed you all day, how I’ve thought of
this, over and over. I couldn’t get you out of my
head.”

Jo brushed her fingers through his hair, smiling the smile
of the recently-orgasmed.

David’s fangs were throbbing again. He tried to push
away the need to bite but the sex had made it worse. Her
neck was lightly sweaty, her artery pulsing. He brushed her
hair back, unable to take his eyes off that artery. He went
to kiss her cheek, but when he leaned in and breathed her
scent, he lost control. With no warning, he plunged his
fangs into her neck and began to suck–long, deep
sucks, his arms holding her still, wrapping her tight, so
she could not move.

Jo’s mind was blown. She had no idea what he was
doing, but she felt a quick needling pain at her neck, a
wonderful pain, and then she was rocketing again towards
the brink, feeling something utterly new, strange, but
massively exciting. She was moving her hips, pushing
herself against him, loving the feeling of being held so
tight, so tight she couldn’t get away, like she was
prey and he had caught her. Bizarrely, it made her euphoric
beyond anything she had ever felt.

With a sudden buck of her hips she was over the top again,
letting herself ride the wave of pleasure, her body
convulsing, shaking, and then slowly, slowly, beginning to
calm.

“What…was
that
?” she said,
staring up at the ceiling, limp. He had let her go, relaxed
his arms around her, and put his cheek on her shoulder. He
licked her blood off his lips, savoring every drop. She had
been every bit as delicious as he had imagined she would
be. She had tasted oceanic–fresh, and immense
somehow, complex, extra-salty.

“David?” Jo said, her voice sounding a little
small. “I don’t feel very good,” she
said, suddenly sitting upright and pulling away from him,
then swinging her legs over the side of the bed to get her
feet on the floor. “Actually, not good at all,”
she said. She propped herself up with her hands, thinking
she might vomit.

“I don’t know what to say,” said David.
He could feel every molecule in his body singing, a great
chorus of yes! yes! yes! followed by more! more! more!

He wiped his mouth again. In his experience, women did not
especially like seeing their blood on his lips and teeth,
even when they liked the biting itself.

Jo turned to look at him. She saw the blood dripping down.
Oh.
She thought, simply,
Oh.

Followed by
so it’s true?

She put her hand to her neck. She saw his fangs, she saw
the blood, she saw that something odd had happened to his
eyes.

“David?” she said.

“Yes, Jo,” he said, taking her hand. “Are
you feeling any better?”

She didn’t respond but kept staring at his mouth and
rubbing her neck.

“I’ll just jump in then,” he said.
"I’ve been meaning to tell you, but as you’ll
see, it hasn’t been easy to find the right moment.

“Yes, we’re real. I mean, vampires. Me. Sorry,
I am feeling a bit rattled–I have been trying
extremely hard not to bite you, but in the end, it’s
what we do. I lost control.”

He sat up and put an arm around her waist. She did not pull
away.

“I’m sorry, David. I’m…”

“Speechless?” he said, with a light laugh.

“Yeah, that would sum it up pretty well!”

He stroked her arm, then touched her face. “Did I
hurt you?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I
don’t feel very good. It’s like, my energy was
just yanked away from me or something. I feel sort
of…extinguished.”

“That should pass quickly,” David said,
although he had no idea whether that was true.

Jo looked at him intently. “So, am I a vampire now
too?” Not that she was completely convinced that what
David was saying had any truth at all. A big part of her
mind was searching for other explanations, for a metaphor,
for something. Sure, she had heard the rumors over the
years, and even, without realizing it, tried not to
frequent certain places after dark. But without ever having
seen a vampire with her own eyes, or had any of her friends
tell her of an experience first-hand, well, she’d
always discounted the stories as just people looking for
drama.

“No, you are not a vampire. A person is turned when
she drinks a vampire’s blood, not the other way
around,” said David, trying to sound reassuring. He
could see the fear and confusion in her eyes, and the
distrust. He couldn’t blame her. And yet, he was
having to work very hard, extremely hard, not to lie on top
of her and bite her again. Preferably while inside her,
which is what he really liked best of all. His penis gave a
twitch just at the idea.

Jo fell back on the pillows and stretched out her legs. She
allowed David to hold her hand but otherwise made no move
to touch him.

“I’m, uh, I’m having sort of a difficult
time getting my head around this,” she said. She kept
reaching up and touching her neck. Then she pulled away and
got out of bed, and walked to the big mirror next to the
door. She craned her neck to look. There was a bite mark,
no mistaking it: two holes, a little over an inch apart,
blood oozing in a thin stream from each one.

She turned to face him. “You bit me!” she said,
in a tone of wonderment.

David bowed his head. Sometimes these conversations went
smoothly, and sometimes…not. This had the marks of
one that was going to go on and on and on. He kept his head
down until he could keep the irritation he felt out of his
expression.

“You want to do it again, don’t you?” she
asked. It was as though she understood him now, infinitely
better than before, now that she knew what he was. She
could tune in to him in a way that had been blocked.

“Yes,” he said, looking up, suddenly feeling
hopeful. “I do, very much.”

Jo put both palms up, making a double stop sign.
“No.” she said. “I will say, that when
you were doing it, it was incredible. It felt fantastic.
Weird, but really, amazingly, blissfully good. But
afterwards, ugh. Feels
awful
.”

David kept his face still, with an expression of openness
and understanding. What he was thinking was,
“Shit.”

“So it’s true, that vampires can’t stand
sunlight? That’s why you are never around during the
day?”

“More or less, yes, that is the situation,” he
said.

Jo was a little surprised, but really, she had started to
believe him the instant she understood he had bitten her.
She saw that she did not trust him, had never trusted him,
and now she had a reason why.

Once she realized that, everything changed.

“I’d like to sleep now,” she said,
keeping her distance. “I’d like you to
leave.”

David’s face fell. Now that he had tasted her, he did
not know how he was going to be able to stay away. He was
nowhere close to being sated. In Jo’s case, it meant
that his desire for her blood was now multiplied.