by L. A. Banks
Besides, he’ll come back. He always does. And I’ll be waiting…
Donna Hill began her career in 1987 with short stories. Her first novel was published in 1990. Since that time she has 25 novels and 16 novellas in print. Three of her novels have been adapted for television. She has received numerous awards for her work. She has edited two award-winning anthologies and works as an editorial consultant. She is presently published in mainstream women’s fiction and contributed to the vampire anthology, Dark Thirst (Pocket books). Donna lives in New York. Find out more about Donna online at http://donnahill.com
VAMPED
by Monica Jackson
Dedicated to my readers, without whom no words could be written and shared.
Chapter One
* * *
The bouillabaisse was sublime, but I was too tense to enjoy it. Somehow I had to get my brand-new fiancé, Andre, to the Black Hole nightclub tonight for my coworker’s birthday get-together. The heifers at work think I’m just making him up.
My problem is Andre never goes anywhere but to work and back. He wouldn’t even come to my place. Our entire relationship has taken place in this town house, other than our first meet in his restaurant when I was there on a date with another guy.
Thank goodness he complimented the chef. Andre came to our table and at first glance, I was hooked. I had to slip him my digits.
He’s a tad eccentric, but otherwise he is too good to be true. I can almost understand those cows at work not believing me.
Since he’s a chef, he can throw down in the kitchen, which is a good thing, because when it comes to cooking, the microwave is my best friend. He’s also fine, not in a pretty-boy way, but stop-a-bitch-in-her-tracks fine with his bad-boy perpetual five o’clock shadow and long, thin dreadlocks that he usually wears in a ponytail.
The hottest thing about him though, is his cool. He’s a product of the Oakland streets and has dealt with stuff I can’t imagine—crime and desperation, blood and death. It showed in the lethal grace of his walk, the confidence of his moves and the alertness in his stance.
After two gunshot wounds and a stint in prison, he decided to change his life, went to cooking school and got a prestigious job as junior sous chef-in-training at one of the best restaurants in San Francisco.
With a man like that, a woman is willing to put up with a few eccentricities, you know what I mean?
“Andre, I want to ask you a favor.”
He looked at me over the rim of his wine glass. “What do you need, babe?”
I swallowed hard and stiffened my resolve to get him out of this damn house, but it was hard to stiffen anything under his sexy, irresistible gaze. His eyes were arresting, gold, green and blue mixed together, like a tumble of precious gems, framed by impossibly long lashes in a face that was chiseled, lean, and covered with pecan-brown skin. Yum.
“I want you to take me out tonight. Some friends of mine will be at the Black Hole and the jealous female dogs are dying to meet you,” I said.
He took another sip of wine, the expression on his face unchanging.
I bit my lip, urgency filling me. I just had to get him to go or I couldn’t show my face at work tomorrow. “Please, Andre. You know I don’t ask you for much.” I kept my tone low to ensure the whine I was feeling inside didn’t show in my voice.
“I know.” He grinned at me, sudden and boyish, and my heart twisted. I loved him so much.
“I can think of an alternate activity that’s much more…gratifying, than some noisy, crowded club,” he said.
There was a rush of heat between my thighs as I anticipated our lovemaking. Then I stifled a sigh. That’s what Andre always does. He’s a master of distraction.
“I want us to go out tonight,” I repeated.
He bent over his plate and speared an asparagus stalk in his fork. “I don’t like clubs. Too many people.”
He wasn’t going to go. It had been months since I’d been anywhere. Months. Other men always loved to take me out and show me off. I’d put up with Andre’s undercover ways without a complaint, and this one time I wanted him to compromise for me, he was going to say no?
Anger, tinged with insecurity rippled, though me. I know how good I look. I should be totally secure, a high maintenance bitch, right? But something inside me was crooked. I’d let too many men do me wrong, misuse me.
I was crazy about Andre, because while he superficially resembled the thuggish types I favored, he wanted more for himself and for me. There was something fundamentally good about him too. I know he’d never hurt me for fun, games or power. His word was gold; he always meant what he said.
But the broken, insecure part inside me was scared. I wasn’t sure that he loved me or would continue to love me. I wasn’t sure if anyone could.
Sure, men wanted me for how I looked, but I know it’s like when they buy a new car. After a while the new smell fades, the excitement wanes, and all of a sudden, it’s just another car like the one you had before.
I stared at my three-karat engagement ring. We’d been walking past a jewelry shop and I’d oohed and ahhed. He told me to go on in and try it on. I was floored when he bought it and slipped it on my finger. No formal proposal, just the action.
That was Andre, all action, little talk.
But I swear I’d heard the words cubic zirconia from those bitches at work. It was small, it was petty, but I wanted to gloat when they had a fit over the fine piece of man I’d bagged. And if I didn’t show, I’d lose so much face at work, I might as well wear a brown paper bag on my head from now on out.
“Sometimes I wonder if you like people at all,” I said to Andre.
He picked up his wine and shrugged with a ghost of a smile on his face. “I like you.”
His composure raised my blood pressure. “You go to work and then rush to your car to come home and don’t leave your house until it’s time to get into the garage and go to your car again. I can’t even pry you out of here on weekends. You even have your freaking groceries delivered!”
“You never considered that a problem before.”
“I’m considering it a problem now. I want to get out. I want us to go out, have some fun and see my friends.”
He said nothing.
“We’re going out tonight, to the Black Hole.” I clenched my hands together in my lap under the table. “I can’t see being married to you and living like this. I’m starting to feel like a prisoner.”
His slightly narrowed eyes were the only sign of emotion on his face. “Joy, I understand. We’ll get out, I promise. But right now, I’m enjoying it being only you and me.”
“I’ve spent all my time at your place, doing what you want to do. If you want this relationship to continue, you need to compromise too.” I looked away, unable to meet his too-calm gaze. “A marriage needs to be a mutual effort,” I said, my voice soft, barely drowning out what felt like the broken part cracking inside me. What if I lost him?
I’d never challenged him before, never tried to be anything but the good girlfriend. And here I’d just thrown down my gauntlet and had no idea if he’d pick it up or not. It could be over, just like that.
Silence. Silence. Silence. Tears filled my eyes and blurred the food on my plate. I willed that one not drop into it. I couldn’t show that weakness. I wouldn’t go out crying.
He sighed and pushed his plate away. “Fine. Fine, I’ll go, but…”
“But what?”
He ran his hand over his locks. “Nothing.”
The music was bumping and the club was as crowded as always on a Friday night. When I walked in with Andre, some of the men almost got whiplash as they swiveled their necks to stare at me. I’d dressed to impress, in a short tropical looking, designer halter dress that accentuated every curve I have, along with some high-heel fuck-me shoes.
I’m used to the reaction, but the way the women stared and preened as Andre passed them disconcerted me. I dismissed the niggles of jealousy and took Andre’s hand. I pl
owed through the dancers to the table at the back, where I knew my bitchy coworkers would be.
I must say their reaction to my man was gratifying. “Pick your jaw up off the floor, something might fly in,” I murmured to Tina as I made introductions and soaked in their reactions—admiration, jealousy, resentment, envy, lust for my man—ah, yes, it was sweet.
Four women had asked Andre to dance by the time I finished with the initial introductions and hellos. I was getting irritated enough at all the attention the female dogs were giving to my man that I didn’t mind when he suddenly grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the group.
I thought we were leaving the club, but was surprised when he took me into the thick of the dancers. I slid into the beat and undulated my body while he fell into the cool dude shuffle, that little back and forth movement that’s hardly moving at all but still looks incredibly hot.
The song was sexy as hell, so I started to move in to him with a little grind. I stared into his eyes and almost lost the beat when I saw the fear in them. Adrenaline raced through me as I looked around, alarmed. Was it one of his old gang members? Somebody come to shoot him up?
The song stopped and eased into a slow groove. “What’s wrong? Do we need to run?”
He swallowed, shook his head. “She’s here. I knew she’d come, but not so quickly.”
Who the fuck was she? “She? Point her out to me.” What kind of bitch could get Andre shaking in his boots? The flickers of jealousy inside me flared into an inferno as I looked around with my eyes narrowed.
“You won’t see her unless she wants you to.”
“Let’s get out of here then.”
He sucked air through his teeth. “No, we can’t. Not now. Fuck,” he said with a savagery I’d never heard from him before.
It was as if somebody took the floor out from under my feet. I swayed with the realization that the man I loved felt that strongly about another woman. Oh God. I had to get out of here.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I said.
“No!”
I looked at him. Had he lost his damn mind? I eluded his wild grasp and disappeared into the crowd.
There was a blonde putting on lipstick in front of me in the line that snaked out of the woman’s bathroom. Men streamed in and out of the lineless men’s room. “Another unfair advantage of their basic equipment,” she said with a laugh, snapping her compact closed.
I looked at her and almost gasped at the electric blue intensity of her eyes. She laid her hand on my arm. Her fingers were hot. The intimacy of her touch on my bare arm was almost as if she had touched me…there.
She leaned toward me, her lips close to mine. “No need for you to wait. We can share a stall.”
It’s evidence of my confusion that I didn’t say a word, but as soon as she got to the head of the line, I let her lead me into a sticky stall, smelling of urine. She leaned me up against the wall, as if I were a doll, and pressed her body to mine. Her breasts were soft. It was a strange sensation.
“You’re a sweet-looking plaything,” she said. I fell into the ice-blue heat of her gaze and gasped as I felt her fingers run up the inside of my thigh, beneath my panties and into the too-damp crevice.
My eyes closed of their own volition as her fingers stroked my clit. The smell of sex rose and I shook, no more able to pull away from her clever fingers than a starving man could pull away from a chicken wing. Her fingers were magic. It was unbelievable.
The world narrowed to electric blue eyes and body shaking, shuddering, craving satisfaction. There was no thought, just sensation, as if I was under a spell.
I whimpered as she drew her fingers away, bereft, but she fell to her knees and fastened her mouth in between my legs. My knees buckled as I felt her tongue, the warm wet pressure even more intense than her fingers. Overwhelming sensations washed through me. Her tongue teased my clit with incredible skill. She kept me from falling, holding me erect with one strong hand.
My hips bucked and I grabbed her hair as the feeling blew up like a balloon, expanding and expanding until it filled the world and crashed over me like a tsunami.
She silenced my cries with her mouth, tasting of my own salty juices.
How could this be happening? This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t gay. The thought of making out with a strange woman in a nasty bathroom stall had never crossed my mind before. It had to be a weird dream. She drew away and in a blink she was gone.
I heard somebody trying the stall door, but I couldn’t move. Not just yet. I didn’t even know her name. I trembled in reaction. I always try to approach problems in a logical way and figure stuff out. There’s an explanation that makes sense for everything under the sun.
I’m not gay. I’d deal with it if I were, but I know I’m not. I’ve never had a sexual experience with a female in my life, but more important, I’ve never had the urge to do so before. Not when there was a man around. No way could any pussy appeal when there was hot, hard dick aplenty, wanting nothing more than my attention and body.
But, I’ve never cum so hard in my life and I’ve had head before, excellent head. So how was this different? Stunned didn’t even begin to describe how I felt over what I allowed to happen to me.
I reached to pull up my panties and stared at the red blood on my fingers. Had I started my period? That was crazy too. I just finished my period last week. I wadded toilet paper between my legs, and reached out a shaking hand to the door. I needed a drink to help figure this shit out.
I made my way to the bar, ordered a double Vodka tonic and tossed it back like lemonade. Scanning the crowd, I saw no sign of the blonde. No sign of Andre either. I eased off the bar stool to look for him. I decided what just happened was so bizarre, it simply cancelled itself out as if it never was.
I’d forget about it. A blip on the experience screen of my life. I blinked, but couldn’t dim the clear recollection of her eyes, her scent, her hands…how much she turned me on and how hard I’d come. I couldn’t wait to find Andre, and lose my funky weird lesbian experience in the reality of my desire for him.
But Andre was nowhere to be found.
His car was gone too. “Did you see a guy leave with long dreadlocks, wearing black and a small silver hoop in his left ear, quite good-looking?” I asked the guy at the club exit.
“Yeah. He was with some blonde chick.”
Chapter Two
* * *
Panic curled through me. He’d left me here and split with a blonde? I thought about the blonde in the bathroom. Poetic justice? No. It didn’t make sense. I hailed a taxi.
His townhouse was dark. I fumbled in my purse for the key he’d given me and let myself in. I dropped my purse to the floor as I heard the tell-tale sounds of the mattress springs pounding. Oh, God, Andre was fucking somebody. He’d brought some blonde bitch to his home from the club to fuck and left me there without a word.
My blood turned to adrenaline as I rushed to the bedroom. I almost tripped on my own feet as I stopped short, frozen by the gleam of ice-blue eyes. She was here, the lesbian bitch in the bathroom. Her white thighs were splayed wide. My man between them, his smooth brown ass pumping up and down, not missing a beat of working his big, hard dick in and out of her, a trickle of sweat running down his back.
I growled, deep in my throat, primal. I wanted to rip him off her, and then rip her to shreds. But I couldn’t move. The dreamy lethargy I felt in the bathroom stall stole over me as she stared at me and pinned me in place.
She smiled a little, then bared impossibly long fangs and buried them into Andre’s neck. He didn’t miss a beat, just kept on pumping.
She bit my man in the neck! Just like a fucking vampire. I had to be dreaming. This freaky sex and vampire shit could not possibly be happening. I’d watched some bad vampire movie and fallen asleep after eating too much of Andre’s high-fat cooking.
My fingers curled, and my nails bit into my palms as I clenched my fists. The pain was anything but dreamlike.
Time passed. How much, I’m not sure. I couldn’t move, but my rage didn’t subside as I watched her suck blood from my man’s neck. I wanted to kill her, do the same thing to her.
Andre’s thrusts were less powerful, slowing, and a thin trickle of blood ran from where her mouth connected to his neck.
I bit my lips, fighting the jungle urge to tear the throat-biting vampire bitch’s head off.
He slowed, slower, slower, stopped. She broke her gaze from mine, but her mouth still moved on his neck. I roared and sprinted to the bed. I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him off her. He fell to the side, unconscious.
She laughed and rose from the bed, like some mythical goddess from the sea-foam of white sheets.
“Your timing is excellent,” she said. “I wasn’t quite finished, but you will make a lovely dessert.”
She reached for me, but I punched her in the face. It was like hitting a stone. I winced and she grabbed me as if were I doll and pulled me closer, her breath metallic, fetid. She bared her fangs.
I let her draw me close, then I made a quick movement and she yelped. I’d bitten her jugular vein as hard as I could. It was like biting through rancid rubber. Hot, salty liquid filled my mouth, tasting truly awful, but I was determined not to let go.
With the way she was shrieking and trying to knock my head away, she clearly wasn’t happy. Bitch didn’t know as far as fighting with other bitches, she’d picked on one of the best. I’d been fighting since first grade, ’cause for some reason girls didn’t like me much. As far as bitches fighting bitches, in the real deal, there are no rules except winning. Vampire, right? How do you like getting some of your own medicine, skanky vamp whore?
Saying the words aloud would have been far more satisfactory, but it was hard to do anything but clamp my jaws on tight to her nasty vampire throat while enduring what felt like sledgehammer blows to my head and back.
