Filthy Rich Vampire Husbands

by Gisele St. Claire

  Flynn stroked my cheek. “You worry too much. Look, how about tomorrow evening you find us somewhere to eat and you take me somewhere sightseeing? You pay for it all, whatever you choose. Then you let me take you to Tiffany’s at some point during the stay and that time I get to choose. It’s all about the fun, not what it costs, Serena. Don’t you know money can’t buy happiness, and right now you’re proving that by making it an obstacle in the way of the relationship.”

  “It’s a big deal.”

  “To you.” Flynn answered, the honesty apparent from the relaxed expression on his face. “To me, I was born rich and the chances are high I’m going to stay rich. This is what I’m used to, and as you know people call me filthy rich; they called me a playboy. All I’ve done is try to live my life the way the cards dealt it. My parents split. It didn’t make it any less difficult because I’m a rich vampire. We all have our shit.”

  I raised a brow. “You’ll go anywhere I take you?”

  “Yes, Serena. Anywhere. Now I’m going through to my own room and I will leave you to make your devious and devilish plans.”

  “I’ll be doing some digging into my father’s whereabouts too tomorrow.” I chewed on my bottom lip.

  “If you need me, call me. We’ll work it out. There’s nothing we can’t work out, Serena.”

  He kissed my cheek and walked over to the connecting door, using his keycard to unlock it. He raised his hand and winked at me, then closed the door. I heard the lock click from the other side.

  Unpacking my belongings, I did exactly what I’d said. Room service, bath, and bed. I didn’t need any more blood until tomorrow, and Flynn said he would organize that, but right now I fancied cake and so I was going to order some. Blood wise I’d learned the clinic and a few other companies had delivery systems and there were ‘pit-stop’ places where you could get a bottle in an emergency. Better that than you ended up draining a citizen.

  I had the most relaxed sleep I’d had in a few days. I think it was because my mind was satisfied I was working on answers to all the questions that had been annoying my head.

  The next day after a shower, I fired up the laptop and sent a message to my contacts at Revealed magazine asking them to find out what they could about a Vern Johnson. There couldn’t be many people with that name. Rather than look it up myself I’d let the experts handle it. That way if the guy was a complete fake I’d not wasted my time getting my hopes up. A knock came to the inner door, and I went over and opened it, finding my gorgeous Flynn on the other side holding a bottle of the red stuff.

  “Breakfast is served,” he smirked, passing me the bottle. He went to close the door, but I shook my head. “Come through. I’m not feeling as anti-social today. It’s amazing the difference a good night’s sleep makes.”

  Flynn perched on the edge of my bed flicking his thumb underneath his bottom lip. “Maybe we should all have our own separate rooms as well as the large one we share? I know we’re wanting an equal relationship but you’ve just made me realize that sometimes we need space, and that’s just life. Expecting us to share you in four equal amounts and you to always be loving us back equally-it’s not real life is it?”

  He stood up and began pacing.

  “I loved Rose, but then on another occasion she’d do something that made me dislike her intensely. Depending on our moods she could deliberately attempt to annoy me, or maybe how I felt at the time amplified the situation. What I’m trying to say, though not very well, is we have to realize this is not going to be perfect all the time because relationships aren’t.”

  I nodded. “I definitely want my own room to escape to sometimes.”

  Flynn shook his head. “Escape is the wrong word. You shouldn’t need to escape. You just want your own space, somewhere you can go and relax. Where it tells the others it’s a no-go zone. I think we all need one of these and the house has enough rooms.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “And of course although we might get pissed at each other, if problems between any of us arise, that’s something we’d all need to sit down and discuss as that could have serious implications for our arrangement.

  I put a hand over Flynn’s. “Flynn. You worry too much. We’ll cross that bridge if it ever comes to it and hopefully it won’t. I wouldn’t have had myself turned into a vampire if I thought things wouldn’t work out.”

  Flynn’s eyes lit up.

  “That’s it!”

  “That’s what?”

  “You talk about the four of us being wealthy and you feeling like you don’t contribute enough but, Serena, you actually made the biggest sacrifice of all. You risked a turning. We were born that way. But for us, you were willing to sacrifice your humanity. That’s priceless, Serena.”

  Realization came over me at just what a large commitment I had made.

  “Flynn. You sure know how to make a girl feel good.” I laughed, and he joined me. A beat passed where we looked at each other with desire, but then I broke it. As much as I felt I wanted Flynn right then that wasn't what today was about.

  “Right. I’d better go see if my belongings are still in the apartment or whether they got donated to a thrift store.”

  My keys still worked, and I opened the apartment I had shared with two other women. One of them used to work for Revealed; that’s how I’d known about their need for a new roommate, and the other was an old college friend of Pam’s. I’d carried on paying my rent and called Pam to tell her I was coming to empty my room, so I wasn’t surprised when she wandered out into the hall. “Serena! My God you look amazing.”

  “Thank you. You too. How are things?” It was polite chat, I’d never been good at making friends and so I barely knew Pam and Meghan even though we’d shared the apartment.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Still with Ben and waiting for him to propose! Meghan says hi and that she’s sorry she couldn’t be here. She’s at the hospital.” Meghan was a nurse.

  “It’s fine. I’m just going to pack my things and then I’m meeting my boyfriend for lunch.” It was a crock of shit but I didn’t want her prolonging my exit. Her face fell for a split-second making me feel bad. I should have tried with these girls. Should have been a better friend. I realized I needed to say it out loud and not do my usual closing down.

  “Pam. Thank you for the room here. Sorry I wasn’t great at joining in with things. I find it difficult. I’m socially awkward. It wasn’t anything about you guys, it was all me. I just wanted to say that.”

  Pam tilted her head at me and smiled. “Serena, do you think we didn’t realize that? Yes we wish you’d joined in more with things but you were a great roomie. You paid your bills on time, did your share of the housework. So don’t sweat it. We wish you all the luck in the world in Malibu, and four guys… Serena. Shit. I’m not even gonna ask, but I didn’t expect you to be able to walk straight.”

  I started laughing. “Some days I don’t feel I can.”

  She laughed too.

  “We wanted to get you a leaving present, but we knew you’d not want to carry much so we settled for this.” She handed me a small box. I opened it to find a charm of the Statue of Liberty. “So you think of us.” She said. I did something then that I’d never done before. I stepped forward and I gave Pam a hug. She stepped into it naturally and when we parted I noticed her smile had grown larger as had mine. “Right, I’d better get to it. I’ll say goodbye before I go.”

  “You do that.” Pam said and then she walked in the direction of the living room and left me to it.

  I walked down the hall to my room and pushed open the door. It smelled as you’d expect when the window hadn’t been open for a while, so the first thing I did was to push it open and let the air come in. I bent down and reached under my bed, knocking dust out of the way and bringing out a set of two suitcases, one was slightly smaller and stored inside the other. Pam had left a couple boxes in my room for me to fill one with trash and the other with items for the thrift store. She’d labeled th
em. It was such a Pam thing to do. She was always so organized. The first thing I did after laying the cases on my bed was to open my closet. Looking through everything, I realized there was nothing here I was bothered about taking back with me. I had a wardrobe full of clothes that the guys had bought me as a housewarming gift and I’d taken my favorite things with me when I’d gone to Carbon Beach to research the FRAP boys. Most of my closet ended up in the thrift box. My converse and designer shoe collection went in my case as did a few nice purses, but the trash and thrift boxes had more in them than my cases did. Then it was time to go through my personal items. I had very little. A few photos of me growing up with my adopted parents, my school yearbooks. I packed these. They would give my boyfriends a laugh when they saw the hairstyles I rocked back then.

  I sat with my back against the bed and looked at the other photos. My relationship with my adoptive parents had not been a good one. They had wanted a perfect daughter and I wasn’t one. The first few years I spent with them I was grateful for a home and things were fine, but then the teenage years set in. Hormones, and my bitterness about my mother giving me up for adoption and then dying without giving me a clue as to who my father was, led to a period of me acting out, sleeping around, and getting stoned. I had more in common with Smith than I think he realized. In the end I’d parted ways with my adoptive parents. I’d heard that afterward my mom had fallen pregnant naturally at the age of forty-two, to her and my father’s complete shock, giving them a chance to do things all over again. I hoped for their sake this one behaved. It was why I made no attempt to visit them and apologize. It was done and I’d rather they carried on their life with their new child. I wasn’t one for looking back.

  I drew out the only photo I had of my real mother, contained within a faded blue envelope. She was smiling at the camera, her eyes twinkling at whoever she was looking at. I had no idea why she’d given me up for adoption, only that my adoptive parents had told me when I was older that she’d passed away when I was three. Carefully, I placed the photo back in the envelope and put it in my purse. I couldn’t risk my luggage going astray with the photo inside.

  Pam brought me a coffee and checked if I needed any help. I carried on going through my things until the last item was placed in a box and I stood back and looked at my home of the last few years, now bare. The closet doors open with nothing on the hangers. The bed stripped back and the bed sheets in the trash box.

  That was it. I was leaving New York.

  I returned my mug to the kitchen where Pam wouldn’t allow me to wash it, and then with a quick goodbye, another hug, and a polite ‘keep in touch’ which we both knew would never happen, I left and closed that part of my life off forever.

  10

  Jayden

  Not having a vocation had never made me feel guilty before. While I lived life, enjoying every moment, I didn’t care who saw me partying or any of the other things I did to spend my time. I’d been on camera for years when my parents and I were one of the main families on the reality show ‘The Real Business Women of Malibu’. I’d been eleven years old when that show began and used to our wealth but also used to the privacy that my father had previously maintained while he ran his own business empire—he was an analyst. Mom had also been an analyst when she’d been approached for the show, but as she worked on the series her interest in the television and movie world had led her on a different career path. A few years later she was directing and producing the show and riding high as a successful business woman and reality star. Until I hit eighteen.

  I’d only featured in the show in pre-scripted scenes where I was shown arguing for expensive toys or to hold parties. They’d had me looking like a spoiled kid and I’d not cared. If it made my mom happy, I was happy. It took little time, made me semi-famous in the press who loved to follow my wild ways, and the rest of the time I could hang with my friends and party.

  At sixteen I’d lost my virginity to a girl from school and it had been clumsy and awkward. When the fashion designer Gabriella Marrant started flirting with me, I’d thought I was misreading her signals. She was a friend of my mom’s and in her early thirties. My mom had a closet full of Gabriella’s clothes, all the reality show women did. Her fashion design business and her stores led to scenes at New York fashion week and scripted arguments between the women on who got first dibs on the new designs. Gabby—as she was known by her friends—was recently divorced, and they liked to script her flirting with her friend's husbands even though she joked they were far too old for her as soon as the filming ended.

  At first she’d done nothing more than walk toward me on set between filming and ask me about myself or compliment me. “Liking the suit, Jayden.”

  Then she’d start flicking her blonde hair or saying things about her age. “Oh Jayden, I don’t think they’ll keep me in this job much longer, I’m so old and getting wrinkles. I need a surgeon.” I felt forced into saying things like she didn’t, she was fine as she was. Half the reality show women—and a lot of the men—had surgeons anyway and Gabby’s firm tits and toned stomach had not come from hours with a personal trainer. She was too busy. If she was pictured coming out of a gym, she’d done no more than pop to see a client—but she’d dress in her sports kit for when she got papped.

  But at eighteen I was starting to notice those tits and those inflated lips and imagined doing things with them when I was home alone.

  Then one day she’d visited the house ‘looking for my mother’…

  “Sorry, she’s out with Dad. They aren’t due back until this evening.”

  Gabby fanned at her face.

  “Lord, it’s hot out here today. Any chance you could fix me a water before I head back home?”

  “Sure.”

  I invited her in and walked into the kitchen to grab her a bottle of water. I poured it into a glass while she hung around behind me. “How come you aren’t out with your friends, Jayden?”

  “I don’t party all the time, despite what the press says.”

  I passed her the glass of water, and nodded toward the living room. She walked in front of me and sat on the couch, patting the seat next to her. I sat down feeling awkward being so close to her. Her top seemed to have lowered since I’d greeted her at the door and those perfect tits were glistening with a sheen from the heat.

  She watched me watching her. I sat back a little feeling foolish that I’d been caught looking.

  “Jayden. You’re an adult. I know I’m a lot older and you’re probably not interested, but I don’t mind if you’d like to fool around a little? It’s been a long time since someone made me feel attractive.”

  I swallowed, my mouth going dry.

  “I can’t. My mother…”

  “Doesn’t need to know. Kiss me, Jayden. Touch me. I want you.”

  That was all the encouragement I had needed. I kissed her clumsily. Gabby directed me every step, telling me what she wanted, how to touch her.

  I couldn’t believe that my hand was inside her panties. My fingers plunged into her wet heat and she was begging me for more. To flick her clit, to pump my fingers inside her. She screamed her first orgasm out as her pussy clamped around my fingers. I felt like I was going to come in my pants and I shifted awkwardly on the couch. Gabby noticed and quickly freed my cock. Grasping her hand around me she brought me off until I came in hot spurts onto her stomach.

  “Let’s take this to the bedroom, Jayden.”

  There she had taken off her clothes and I’d sucked, licked, and touched, every part of her body for hours. She sheathed my cock in a condom and spread her legs wide.

  “Fuck me, please.”

  I climbed on top of her and pushed my cock deep inside. I knew it was a good length and width, and she thrust her hips up to meet me. “Oh God, you’re huge. You’re filling me up, baby. Fuck me, yes, like that fuck me. Harder, faster!”

  It had been the first of many secret rendezvous, and I’d thought I was in love. We were so hungry for each other that w
e started taking stupid risks, and that was where everything came crashing down around me.

  The show was riding high in the charts and attention was coming my way in the press. Check out the not-so-little Jayden Bryant now. When did he get so hot? was the kind of headline appearing continually. The script writers talked about setting me up with Cynthia Delaware for the show. Another rich kid, she’d been totally on board with the idea, clambering after her fifteen minutes of fame. But I didn’t want her. I’d fallen in love, or so I’d thought, with Gabby.

  One evening, we were at a party in a club for the show. My filming had finished and I saw Gabby was wrapping up her own scenes. I waited for her around the back of the building, sending her a text. I needed inside her, I was desperate.

  She walked around but as she came toward me her eyes didn’t hold the sparkle they usually did.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This, Jayden. You asking me to meet you around the back of a club. It’s very… teenage. I’m an adult.”

  I pulled her toward me, grinding my erection into her. “But I want you. I want you so bad.”

  “I met someone, Jayden.”

  Her words destroyed me.

  “We've done nothing yet but go on dates, but I want to. This was fun, but I realize I’m being stupid. I thought being with you would make me feel young, but it doesn’t. I feel older than ever.”

  “Don’t do this, Gabby.”

  “They’re going to write Jaxson into the show, and I heard they are getting Cynthia for you. She’d be good for you, someone your own age.”

  I trailed my hand up her thigh. “Do you mean you don’t want this anymore?” I whispered in her ear as my fingers dipped under the edge of her panties making her moan.

  Her hand gripped my face. “Jayden, we had fun, but now it’s over.”