I dropped his clothes in an empty chair before I opened the oven and checked the pilot light. Satisfied that it was still lit, I turned the heat up, leaving the door open so that it would chase away the chill in the air. Very carefully, I laid Stefan’s clothes across the two chairs that were tucked into the tiny dining room table and positioned them before the oven so they would dry faster. I mentally shoved aside the realization that I had not seen his underwear. Did vampires go commando?
“Why has this landlord not taken care of these matters for you?” Stefan inquired. The word landlord sounded so foreign rolling off his tongue, as if he’d never said it before.
“You mean other than the fact that he’s a lazy asshole and he’s clinging to the hope that if he puts it off long enough I’ll be gone before he has to actually fix anything?”
“Yes, other than that,” Stefan said in a cool tone that forced my gaze back to his eyes. He was struggling to keep a straight face.
I picked up a dishtowel off the table and flung it in his direction with a laugh. There was something infectious about his amusement. It was like watching a shaft of sunlight break through a bank of clouds. His proper speech and just the stiff way he held his body made me think that he wasn’t the teasing, laughing, joking type at all.
But too soon the silence grew between us and it stopped being comfortable. There was only the steady drip and plop of water as it leaked from the ceiling into the buckets around the apartment. It was on the tip of my tongue to offer him something to drink as I would anyone I was entertaining in my home, but that something to drink was me and I wasn’t too keen on the idea.
“Do you have to do this every night?” I asked, clinging desperately to the idea that I could be brave with him.
“What’s that?”
“Go out and… find…” My voice stumbled and I struggled to find the right words that wouldn’t insult him.
“Hunt for prey?”
This time it was my turn to smirk. “You cannot call what you’re doing tonight hunting. I nearly pulled you into the canal and then after discovering what you are, I invited you into my home to take shelter from the storm. I might as well have jumped on a platter and shoved an apple in my mouth. This is not hunting.”
Stefan chuckled, sending a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the cold. Hell, I was starting to feel uncomfortably warm, but I couldn’t decide if it was because I was standing so close to the oven or from staring at the sexy naked man before me. I’m gonna go with ‘Naked Vampire for $1,000,’ Alex.
“No, this is not hunting in the traditional sense,” Stefan admitted. He cocked his head slightly to the side, sending several strands of hair down to hang before his eyes. “You have done this before?”
“What? Been dinner for a vampire? Hell no!” I said sharply, my voice jumping before I could catch it. I walked over to the sink and grabbed a glass I had washed earlier in the day and carried it to where a bucket was half full of water. Putting it under the dripping water, I carried the bucket into the kitchen and dumped its contents. It hadn’t really needed it, but I felt better doing something instead of just staring at the vampire.
“Then I am confused. Why are you so calm?”
I paused in my trek back with the bucket and smiled at him. “What would you have done if I had screamed and run?”
“Stopped you.” There was a coldness to his voice that I hadn’t heard before, instantly reminding me that I was alone with a predator.
I cleared my throat, holding onto my smile. “And if I had tried to fight you?”
“You would not have had the chance.”
I gave a little shrug as I changed places with the glass and bucket. “So there you go. There wasn’t a shot in hell I could get away. You won before the fight even started. I just hoped that you wouldn’t kill me.” I stopped there with the glass tightly clenched in my hand and met his gaze, waiting.
Some of the coldness that had filled his eyes disappeared and he nodded, reaffirming his earlier statement that he would not kill me.
“So why panic?” I said with another shrug, trying to stay light while clinging desperately to my logic. “I’ve given blood to the Red Cross before. I can donate a little to you.”
He frowned as he looked at me. “If all humans thought like you, hunting would become…”
“Obsolete,” I suggested.
“Boring,” he finished.
“Boring?” I threw my hands up in mock disgust. “Oh my god, the man thinks I’m boring! Can you believe that, Venice?” I said, talking to the furniture as I placed the glass on the coffee table before the small sofa. Moving as fast as I could, I snatched up a pillow from the sofa and launched it at him. He easily dodged it as I had expected, but I continued to throw pillows, towels, and anything else soft I could find at him while giggling like a lunatic. “There! How’s that for boring? Ever had dinner throw pillows at you?”
“No, I haven’t.” Stefan’s voice dance around me, sounding extremely close. I twisted around, trying to keep him in sight, but he was gone. My heart pounded in my chest as I searched the apartment. But as I started to turn back toward the kitchen, Stefan grabbed me by the waist from behind. I screamed in surprise and tried to dart away from him, but his hands fastened on my upper arms, holding me in place. His grip didn’t hurt, but there was a tension and strength that made me think that I hadn’t a chance at escaping.
“Don’t, ma petite,” he said in a harsh whisper, as if he were suddenly straining, fighting something that I could not see. He leaned close, pressing his nose into my wet hair. “I do not wish to hurt you, but you may come to harm despite my wishes if you struggle.”
“Wait, Stefan. Not yet,” I said before I could stop myself. I hated the anxious pleading tone to my voice. I had been handling this all so calmly and rationally, but now that I was out of time, I could feel the panic rising.
“It is best if we do not put this off. I would rather have you smiling than gripped with fear when you need not feel any.”
“Okay, but not from behind like this. Let me face you. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with some unexplained fear of what I can’t see behind me,” I said, proud that my voice was strong and even.
Stefan seemed to hesitate for a moment before his hands loosened from my arms. Taking a deep breath, I turned around to face the vampire and immediately took one step backward to put just a little breathing space between us. Somehow in my panic, I’d forgotten that he was naked except for a towel and I was now staring directly into his wide chest. Until that moment, I had been sure I couldn’t be attracted to a pale man, preferring men with a somewhat swarthy complexion, but Stefan made pale skin look good. Really, really good.
While his physique was lean, his chest was clearly defined with thick muscles. His shoulders were impossibly wide and muscular; reminding me of pictures I’d seen of Olympic swimmers. His chest was completely hairless except for the most interesting trail of dark hair that started at his belly button and disappeared under the towel. I was desperately trying to keep my eyes from that dark trail because it would lead me to think about where that trail ended and … Wow, I really didn’t need to be thinking about that when Stefan was about to snack on me!
Forcing a smile when I dragged my eyes to his, I extended my arm out to him with my wrist turned up, confident that he couldn’t tell I was shaking. He could easily take my blood from my wrist or the inside of my elbow.
Stefan smiled, his fangs poking out below his upper lip as he gently took my wrist in one hand. He pressed a light kiss to the inside of my wrist and then shook his head at me. “I don’t think so, ma petite.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” I stammered, forcing my brain away from the goosebumps that were slipping along my arm at the sweet touch of his lips.
“That is not my preferred spot,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to my neck.
I instantly took a step backward, but he stepped with me as if we were dancing, not allowing me to put any
more distance between us while at the same time not trapping me by halting my movement. “But doesn’t that seem a bit… intimate?” I frowned as soon as the words left my lips and I stared up at Stefan. “Well, I guess maybe not for you.”
A puzzled expression crossed his face, wiping away the heated look he had been giving me. “Why do you say that?”
I shrugged, the last of my fear draining out of me. “I guess because I never felt any kind of attraction for a steak. That’s how you see me, right? A nice big juicy steak?”
Stefan’s head snapped back on a loud laugh. The sound filled the room, bouncing off the walls so that it brushed against me and hugged me close. The vampire gave my wrist a little tug and I fell forward against him. My free hand landed against his chest, but I couldn’t stop myself from completely crashing into him. His other arm wrapped around my waist, trapping me flush against his hard body. He was cool to the touch, but not uncomfortably so.
“You are not a steak, ma petite,” Stefan said gently.
“Erin,” I corrected while trying to remain stiff in his arms and not melt against him like a pat of butter. “My name is Erin Prescott.” I figured if Stefan was going to use me as a meal, he could at least know my name, not that I didn’t like him referring to me as “my little one” in French. I certainly felt small in his arms.
“Oui, Erin. You have proven to be very interesting so I cannot see you as merely a meal,” he murmured.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Oui.”
I relaxed a little more against him, some of the tension finally easing from my arms. It sounded that he at least saw me as a human being, not that I was entirely sure that such a thing was good, but I guess it was better than being viewed as a cow. Stefan lowered his head and took a deep breath, drawing in my scent. I shivered and I didn’t know if it was out of fear or something else. It certainly wasn’t cold. I was feeling incredibly warm already and the cool touch of his skin was a relief.
“Wait!” I said sharply when he continued to lower his head to my neck.
A low chuckle shook Stefan’s chest. He didn’t lift his head but he stopped moving forward. “We cannot keep putting this off, Erin. It is inevitable. Your smell is intoxicating and I am famished.”
“Am I going to pass out?”
“Very likely.”
“You’re not going to just drop me on the floor, right?”
Stefan lifted his head at this so that he could glare at me in the eye. There was no question that I’d insulted him. I guess the vampire had manners of some sort.
I blinked at him, giving him wide innocent eyes that didn’t convince him in the least, but his lovely mouth did twitch as if he were desperately fighting a smile. “I was just checking. I’m a bit heavy.”
“No, you are not.”
“If I’m not conscious when you leave, could you turn off the oven so the building doesn’t burn down around me?”
Stefan solemnly nodded and resumed his pursuit of my neck. The hand on my wrist slid down to my back to hold me close, while the hand on my waist rose to move my damp hair from my neck. His fingertips brushed across my skin in a gentle caress as if he were exploring that tender area. I flinched and drew in closer to him, instinctively seeking solace and protection despite the fact that he was one who was about to harm me.
His lips brushed over my warm flesh next; just the faint touch of butterfly’s wings. My muscles were taut with anticipation and my stomach jumped with every touch. I tilted my head up, giving him better access as his kisses grew firmer. The tip of this tongue slid slowly along the throbbing vein and my fingers clenched on his thick biceps.
I turned my face into his chest and when I spoke, my lips brush against his skin. “Do I have to forget, Stefan?”
The vampire paused, his hands tightening as if he were suddenly afraid that I would disappear in a puff of smoke. “I don’t know.” His voice was a caress of rough velvet.
Fangs plunged into my neck and my whole body jerked. There was a whip-crack of lightning and I wasn’t sure if I’d merely seen the flash outside my window or if I’d been struck. Pleasure and pain scorched through me, burning nerve endings and frying away brain cells until I was sure that I no longer knew my own name. The first draw from the holes in my throat was painful and I winced, but the pain gave way to an all-consuming pleasure.
I moaned, crushing him against me. There was some tiny part of my brain that was telling me that none of it was real, but it felt too damn good for me to care. Somehow I’d gotten one hand up to bury it into his soft brown hair. It was like plunging my fingers into cool, damp satin. The haunting scent of dried leaves and burned wood drifted around me, as if he embodied the spirit of autumn. My face turned into his neck and I kissed along the straining muscles I could reach. Flicking my tongue across the exact spot he was drinking from me, I marveled at his deep moan. His hands tightened almost painfully as a new wave of pleasure washed over me.
I wanted more. I wanted to be closer so that my skin was touching all of his wonderfully cool skin. I wanted to be closer so that we were both drowning in this feeling. But as soon as the thoughts formed, they began to fade. A languid darkness was crowding close. Where there had been tension before, I now felt only a welcoming lassitude. I brushed one last kiss along Stefan’s throat before a soft sigh escaped me and I sank into the gentle embrace of the darkness.
Chapter 2
The room was too bright. I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet, but I could feel the burning sunlight beating down on my eyelids. I’d somehow managed to forget to close the heavy curtains before falling into bed last night. But my brain locked up after that because I simply had no memory of falling into bed. No, my last memory was of … Stefan.
My eyes jumped open and I groaned, dropping my arm over them to shield me from the bright sunlight. The low-grade headache that had been throbbing in my temples speared through my eyeballs, leaving me panting through the pain until it finally crept back to a dull ache.
The flash of pain at least helped to get my brain working again. Lying in bed, I did a quick assessment of my body. Beside my head, I didn’t feel any additional aches or pains. In fact, I felt amazingly relaxed as if years of tension had suddenly fled my muscles, leaving me blissfully loose. With my right arm still thrown across my eyes, I hesitantly lifted my left hand to touch where Stefan had bitten me. The site was somewhat tender, but there were only two tiny holes that were scabbed over. In fact, the small wound felt as if it were several days old rather than hours.
I stretched my legs beneath the covers and sighed, trying to decide whether I wanted to climb out of my nice warm bed to make a pot of coffee or if I wanted to lounge in bed for a little while longer and daydream about Stefan’s chest. Yeah, his chest won.
My attraction for the vampire didn’t make any sense. According to what little people had discovered about the creatures, they weren’t alive, fed on human blood, and had frightening powers that made them absolutely lethal hunters. In general, the world didn’t know what to do about them now that we had proof that they existed. The news occasionally carried stories of a vampire attack, but most turned out to be the work of a sick human killing others and framing vampires. No, the real scary stories were the disappearances. We heard about them all the time, but now humans suspected that so many were actually the doing of vampires.
Maybe we didn’t need to do much about them except learn to coexist. Supposedly vampires existed for centuries without us knowing. They’ve adapted. Hell, Stefan probably hadn’t given me a second thought after he dropped me in my bed last night. I was just another meal in a stretch of thousands of victims.
My mind immediately shied from the word as soon as I thought it. Was I a victim? Yes, I couldn’t have escaped him if I had wanted to. In a sense I’d been forced to give him my blood, even if I had walked willingly into his arms. But if I had been given the choice, wouldn’t I have still helped him? If I had passed him on the street and he’d needed mone
y for food, I’d have given him a few bucks. If I’d stopped at a fast food joint and had a spare cheeseburger, I would have given it to him. So maybe I wasn’t really a victim. Or maybe I was and I was rationalizing so I could deal with that had happened and the fact that I was attracted to him.
And that was part of his appeal. He was completely unavailable. It was totally my M.O. I was always attracted to the guys I didn’t have a shot in hell at getting. Stefan was a vampire, making him the worst choice possible for a boyfriend. But man….he was just so damn sexy and I was never going to see him again.
Rolling over onto my other pillow, I stopped at the sound of crinkling paper. I jerked upright, my eyes popping open with ease now that I was somewhat accustomed to the daylight. A folded note lay on the pillow with my name written across it in a bold script. I stared at it in shock. Had he really left me a note?
Sitting up in bed, I snatched up the note, my heart pounding in my chest. My fingers drifted over where he’d written my name, noting that his handwriting looked old fashioned.
Ma Petite,
Thank you for an entertaining evening. I pray that your stay in Venice improves. I also entreat you to be more cautious while in Venice and avoid traveling after sunset. There are many others in the area who would not be as amused with your demeanor as I was and I do not wish to see you come to harm.
Be well and have sweet dreams of me,
Stefan
Not exactly a stirring love letter, but it was touching that he’d taken the time to warn me to be more cautious around Venice. It was also amusing that the arrogant vampire thought I needed to dream about him. I read the letter a second time, smiling to myself. Meeting Stefan had certainly been an interesting experience I wasn’t likely to forget.
Stefan (Lost Nights Series Book 1) Page 2
