Looking down, he couldn’t help himself. He was drawn to her, felt as though an eternity had passed since he last tasted her. Watching her neck, he could see the vein there throbbing in time with her heartbeat. He could smell the lotion he’d grown to love all over her skin. Calling himself a weak fool, he acknowledged that he’d fed regularly to avoid this exact situation. But now, with her pressed so close, he felt as though he were starving and she were the only one who would—could—be able to satisfy his thirst.
Lowering his mouth to her neck, to the spot she loved for him to kiss and tease, he traced a light design on her flesh. He only intended to kiss her, to nibble gently and enjoy the husky tone that entered her voice as she tried to maintain the conversation with her sister. Through the phone he could hear Roxy arguing with her, telling Willow yet again that she shouldn’t run away from her problems, that she needed to come home and fight back. Her sister told her she should go back to her former employer and go after the jerk who had gotten her fired, or at least come home so she knew Willow was safe.
His lips caressed Willow’s skin, his hunger growing as her pulse fluttered gently beneath his lips. Willow’s breathing had changed, quickening as she pressed back, closer to him.
“I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” Willow hung up before her sister could say anything else. Tilting her head to the side, she gave him complete access to her neck. “God, I love it when you do that,” she moaned. She squirmed slightly from her position between his legs.
Tell her now. Tell her the truth, how much you want her and how no one else has been able to satisfy you since you met her, his conscience screamed.
I will tell her. I’ll tell her everything, he promised himself, lingering over the delicate pulse point. But I just need one more taste. I’ll die if I don’t get one more taste of her and she runs away from me screaming.
Despite his good intentions to tell her the truth, the temptation to taste her at least one more time proved to be too great to resist.
His teeth lengthened, sliding so easily into her neck that he had to force back a groan. As he suckled, drinking deeply, he had to silence the moans of ecstasy that threatened as her blood filled his mouth and he felt her arch back against him. Her ass started to rub against his hard c*ck as his suckling grew more insistent.
Silencing the voice inside his head that still continued yelling at him—promising him he only needed to confide in her and things would work out—he lost himself in her taste. Seth forced himself to close the wound before he got carried away. He was about to lick any remaining traces of blood from her neck when she surprised him by pulling away.
Pulling away from Seth, Willow was no longer lost in the pleasure of his lips on her flesh as something sharp slid across her neck. When she looked backed at him, her confusion increased.
His eyes were glazed, like he had just finished an entire bottle of wine in just a few minutes. She was about to question him about what he had done when she noticed a drop of something rolling down his chin. Putting her finger to his mouth, she wiped it away, growing anxious when she noticed it was red. Placing her fingers gingerly on her neck, in the spot that felt somehow scratched, she rubbed. Her eyes grew wide when she saw blood smeared across them.
She didn’t wait for an explanation. Jumping off the couch, Willow practically ran across the room.
“You bit me! I’m not sure I want to be involved in something that kinky.” Feeling slightly more comfortable now that there was a significant amount of space between them, she took a good look at him. Did his teeth appear longer, sharper than they had earlier? She allowed her hand to return to her neck. “What are you?” Her voice sounded higher than usual, even to her own ears as her hand remained protectively on the spot he’d just suckled.
“I can explain…”
“Explain what? You bit me! You—you bit me and I just wiped some of my blood off your mouth. Oh my God! What are you? Are you into blood games, because I don’t remember any of this happening all week.” She needed to calm down. She could feel herself becoming hysterical. She’d always thought that was more of an exaggeration, that people didn’t still react that erratically in this day and age.
“Willow, please, calm down. I promise there is nothing to be afraid of. Please, come sit down and I promise we’ll discuss this like mature adults.”
“Like hell there isn’t! There is no way I’m sitting back down beside you. I want some answers. Why did you bite me? Were—were you drinking my blood?”
One word was flashing across her mind.
Vampire.
Seth is a vampire. Or at least he thinks he is. It makes sense, part of her reasoned. “Oh my God. You’re a…you’re a vampire,” she stuttered, her hand lowering from her neck. “But vampires aren’t real.” In her anxiety, she started wringing her hands. She looked down when she felt something sticky on them. Her fear grew as she saw traces of blood on both her hands thanks to her nervous habit. It looked like much more now that it was smeared over both of her them. Oh my God, this guy thinks he’s a vampire!
“I don’t think I’m a vampire, Willow, I have always been one.”
Willow almost swayed as Seth threw her own thoughts back at her. “It all makes sense now,” she said, her voice low, as she spoke her thoughts aloud. She was talking to herself more than she was to him. “Why you never ate, why you said those things about vampires after that movie. Why you stay up all night, and sleep all day…” Her voice rose as her panic increased. “God, no wonder you were willing to do anything for me. What was I—an all-you-can-drink buffet?”
“Willow, sweetheart, it wasn’t like that. I was going to tell you …”
“When? When you had almost drained me? Or when you’d decided whether or not to change me? I can not believe I am having this conversation. I’d really like to wake up now, please.” Closing her eyes she gave a humorless chuckle. “You know, if you’d asked me a week ago what I thought I would be standing in a room arguing with a guy about, I can pretty much guarantee that it wouldn’t have ever included anything about a conversation about fictional creatures. Of all the things I thought I had to worry about with you, I never once even considered the possibility that you would kill me by draining my blood. I trusted you.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not fiction. I am the figment of no one’s imagination.” He slowly stood and approached her. Looking into her eyes, Seth reached his hand out toward her. “And if I wanted to drain you of your blood, I could have easily done so the first night you slept in my home. Sweetheart, please, just calm down.”
“Don’t do that. You don’t get to do that anymore. You don’t get to try to make me melt with your voice—or touch me anymore.” She could feel her fear growing. “This wasn’t the first time, was it? That you drank my blood, I mean.”
He shook his head no.
“Tell me,” she demanded, only barely resisting the urge to stomp her foot.
“I don’t see how…”
“Tell me,” she screamed.
“The first morning you were here I drank from you.” He didn’t look very happy with the confession.
“That’s why I slept all day, isn’t it?” Her panic increased as he nodded. “When else? When you ‘kissed’ my finger?” He nodded again. “Any other times?”
Seth shifted his gaze to her thigh. Her hand automatically followed his gaze.
“That’s why I was so sore?” She lifted her hand to cover her eyes, but the sight of her blood had her quickly lowering it again. “This can’t be happening to me. I’m a good person,” she said to herself. “I—I have to go.”
“Please, wait. I’ll get a car for you.”
“No! Stay away from me!” Willow ran to the elevator and continuously pushed the down arrow until the doors opened. “Just stay away from me.” Inside the elevator she repeatedly hit the close doors button until the doors shut. She was terrified Seth would try to touch her again and she would simply melt into his arms. Even knowing what she did about him now, she could feel her body struggling. Unlike her mind, her body didn’t know if it wanted to run back to him or start shivering with his betrayal.
Running out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened, she sped out of the lobby without paying attention to her surroundings or any stares she may be receiving. When she was safely outside she hailed a taxi, uncaring that she was only wearing Seth’s shirt; that she didn’t have shoes to protect her feet from the hard street or any money to pay for the ride. Giving the driver her address she pleaded with him to hurry, constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure Seth wasn’t following her.
Her fear must have motivated the driver because in no time they were weaving through traffic in a manner that would have scared her if she weren’t already afraid for her life. She didn’t start to feel safe again until her building came into view.
“If you just wait right here, I’ll get your money,” she promised.
Exiting the cab with her, the driver stuck close to her side as she greeted the doorman, asking him to page her sister.
Ten minutes later Willow’s sister was ushering her to the bathroom inside their apartment to clean her up.
“What the hell happened to you? Why is there blood smeared all over your neck and hands?” Roxy asked her voice filled with concern.
Before Willow could stop her, Roxy put a washcloth under warm tap water and began to clean her neck.
“I see a rather dark mark on your neck,” Roxy scolded her sister, “but no real wound. What happened? How the hell did you get blood on your neck? And where did you get the small scratch from? That couldn’t possibly have been deep enough to leave any blood, much less enough to smear across your hands! Hell, it’s already healing,” she said leaning closer to Willow’s neck. “I’ve seen deeper paper cuts.” Roxy asked one question after the other, barely giving Willow time to answer.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Willow couldn’t tear her gaze off the mark Seth had left. It was the only indication, other than the small scratch and the streaks of blood on the previously white cloth in her sister’s hand, that she hadn’t simply imagined the entire thing.
“I’m not… It’s not mine,” she stammered. She never had been able to lie well.
“Then whose blood is it?”
“That guy’s. The one I was with. I guess I must have busted his lip when I was trying to get away from him earlier. While he was sucking on my neck,” she added lamely. “His tooth must have grazed me when I pulled away.”
“Well, good for you. But maybe you should go get tested just in case.”
“Tested?”
“Yes. Does HIV ring a bell? I don’t want anything happening to my little sis because of some jerk who didn’t understand what stop means.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. I’ll go get a test done.” For the second time that night panic set in. Do vampires even get HIV or AIDS? Do they get any form of STD’s?