Dead Sexy

by Tate Hallaway

  I lay on the floor with my pants around my knees and howled with pain.

  "Garnet?"

  Parrish stood over me, dripping water onto my hardwood floor and my head. He'd grabbed my favorite fuzzy blue towel and wrapped it around his waist. I couldn't quite catch my breath. Luckily, I'd stopped making noise, or I was sure the FBI would be knocking down the door any second.

  "What happened to your pants?" he asked, helping me into an upright position.

  How could I explain to him that some part of my addled brain had thought offering a pity fuck was a good idea but the Goddess struck me down, thus saving me from my own stupidity. Not only would Parrish have seen my attempt to seduce him for what it was, but also I would have undeniably betrayed Sebastian. Both monumentally inane ideas.

  I'd been having a lot of those lately.

  "Wardrobe malfunction?" I gasped.

  "What the bloody hell does that mean?" He propped me up against the hallway wall, while I tried to scootch up my jeans. Every move made my shoulder spasm. I bit my lip to keep from screaming. "This is ridiculous. Look how much pain you're in. You have to let me do something."

  Considering what I'd been imagining we'd be doing right now, I had to laugh. I wouldn't have lasted two minutes doing any kind of, shall we say, strenuous exercise. What had I been thinking? Oh, right. I hadn't. Good thing some higher power had been doing the thinking for both of us. Sometimes the Goddess interceded in great, big monumental ways, and other times She tripped you in the hallway and exposed your pink frilly underwear to the world.

  Parrish, meanwhile, wasn't in on the joke. He frowned at me. "After all this time, you don't trust me."

  I'd gotten my pants around my hips and, even though my underwear was wedged up my butt and the zipper was still wide open, I just couldn't spare the energy for any more modesty than that. "Would your bite really heal me? Without making me undead?"

  Parrish sat down beside me, pressing his back against the wall. He stretched out his legs, which went on significantly longer than mine, and appeared to be admiring his toenails in the dark. "Yes."

  Barney wandered in and sat near his toes. She blinked her yellow eyes innocently and then sneezed hard enough to spray a fine mist of snot in our general direction.

  "Ugh," I said, nudging her with a toe. "You can make your point a lot less disgustingly, you know. I know vampire bites are magical."

  Barney rubbed delicately at her nose and then padded off to the bedroom.

  Parrish shook his head. "You have the strangest relationship with your cat."

  I nodded, but my mind was focused on the ramifications of accepting Parrish's bite. "So, if we did this, what would happen? I mean, I'm not going to turn into a bite junkie, am I?"

  "You might," Parrish admitted. "But you're not really the sort, Garnet. Worst-case scenario, you'll occasionally crave rare steak."

  "Be serious!" I snapped. I was nervous. I didn't mind dating them, but I didn't want to be a vampire.

  Parrish put a wet hand on my knee. "You wouldn't need to taste that much. We could keep things this side of a blood bond. If we play things right, you won't even have to call me 'master.'"

  I smiled despite the way my guts roiled. "You'd have liked that, wouldn't you?"

  "You know me well," he said, touching a finger to my nose briefly. "You know, I have done this before."

  Though I was extremely glad to hear I wasn't a guinea pig in his blood-transfusion experiment, I was strangely hurt to hear I wasn't the first. "Oh?"

  "He lived a normal life, and I stood by his grave for days. He never rose."

  My mind flashed to being entombed alive, but I shook my head. "You're certain."

  "One hundred percent."

  I felt relief and no small amount of curiosity. "Who was he?"

  "Someone special. Like you."

  Like me? "A lover?"

  Parrish's expression revealed nothing. "Someone worth saving."

  "Sounds serious."

  "It was."

  I waited, hoping to get the whole story, but he offered nothing. "I'm—you were joking about the steak, weren't you?"

  "Not really. You'll probably discover you burn easier in the sun too."

  "No."

  "Yes. But, as a bonus, the regenerative powers will stay in your system for a couple of months. With flu season coming up, that's always a plus."

  Even though Parrish's last comment seemed more ominous than comforting, I decided to go for it. "I trust you," I said finally. "In fact, it looks like I'm ready to trust you with my life."

  "About damn time."

  * * * *

  We decided to "do it" in my bedroom. Making sure my curtains were securely closed, I lit a few candles for mood, and, frankly, so I could see. Parrish helped me onto the bed and then, in a strange reversal of what I'd expected would be happening right about now, disappeared into the bathroom to put his clothes on. I managed to get my jeans all the way back on, but the effort left me collapsed in a sprawl on top of my green-and-white moose-print down comforter. Barney continued to register her disapproval of my decision by lurking under a fold of the blanket and occasionally leaping out to poke my leg with her needle-sharp claws. Not that it even registered given the throbbing pain in my shoulder.

  I was just wondering if I should find some reserve strength and strip the bed to put down plastic to catch any stray blood—I mean, I didn't want to ruin the comforter—when Parrish sat down beside me. Neither Barney nor I had heard him come in, and we both started. She bolted for the windowsill; I made an annoyingly feminine peep. Then, as if that wasn't embarrassing enough, a giggle slipped out. I couldn't believe how much like a blushing schoolgirl I felt. Despite having dated two vampires, I hardly ever let them really bite me. Thing is, contrary to what Parrish thought about me, I knew I liked it. A lot. Part of my jealousy of Sebastian's ghouls came from the fact that I could all too easily see myself as one of them.

  "Shhh," Parrish said. Propping himself up on his elbow, he lay down beside me. He stroked my cheek with his finger. The intimacy of the gesture and the intense look in his eyes made me reconsider. "I don't know if this is such a good idea after all, Parrish."

  "Daniel," he said. Then with a quirk of a smile I could only barely see in the candlelight, he added, "I mean, if you're not going to call me master, you should at least use my Christian name."

  "I thought you didn't like it."

  "I don't," he said with a little laugh. "It just seems more appropriate, don't you think?"

  "I do," I said. "Daniel."

  He did have such a beautiful smile, even with his fangs extended. Auburn curls glittered red-gold in the muted light. With my good hand, I ran my fingers through the silken strands. Parrish lowered his head and kissed me, softly, on the top of my head. Despite the gentleness of the gesture, I flinched slightly with anticipation. Pain stabbed my shoulder.

  Parrish had pulled back and now watched my reactions with a furrowed brow. "So much for foreplay," he sighed.

  "It's okay," I hissed through clenched teeth. "I can handle it, really, I like it, in fact—"

  I didn't get to finish my thought. His fangs sunk into my neck. My neck! I'd always heard that neck bites were fatal. I could feel my blood pounding in rhythm with my heart. Panic washed over me. Parrish's hair covered my face, making me feel suddenly smothered. His body draped over mine, effectively pinning me down. I felt trapped. I started to struggle, only it didn't take much effort on Parrish's part to still me. Between the searing pain and the hand he put firmly on my wounded shoulder, I couldn't move.

  Parrish's thumb rubbed slow, steady circles on my shoulder. Either he had the strangest tick when he sucked someone lifeless, or this was a signal to me to calm down and trust him. Even though I swore I felt my blood gushing into his mouth, I told myself he knew what he was doing. If Parrish was an expert at anything, this was it.

  I steadied my breath, but, even so, trust didn't come easily. I decided, in fact, that the best way f
or me to cope with my mounting fear was to just give in to it. I wrapped my good hand around Parrish's waist, and dug my nails in deep. Maybe if I could hold on tight enough, I'd feel safe.

  Releasing my neck with a wet sound, Parrish lifted his head. I expected him to be smeared with my blood, proof positive that the comforter was stained beyond repair, but he wasn't. Only the slightest hint of red colored his lower lip, like he'd smeared a bit of lipstick onto himself during a kiss. Then, he slashed his own lip with a sharp fang.

  Parrish covered my mouth in a sudden, desperate kiss. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. I should have been repulsed, but his passion distracted me. I forgot to close my eyes, so I stared, unfocused at the nearness of him. I watched his eyelashes flutter as his tongue slipped into my mouth. It was a beautiful kiss, except for the salty blood. I started to pull away, but his hands held me firmly. Besides, his tongue started probing my mouth in a way I found irresistible, and I couldn't help but follow the familiar, erotic dance.

  My hand trailed along the contours of the muscles of his back, reveling in their firmness, evident despite the fabric between us. Our lips parted, and met again. My fingers twisted through his hair, outlined the ridges of his earlobes. He kissed my nose, and then returned passionately to my mouth. I let my palms map out the dimensions of shoulders, waist, and back again.

  We must have kissed and stroked each other for twenty minutes or more. There was passion in each touch, but no urgency. We were exploring each other like virgins, savoring every sensation.

  All this without a single article of clothing removed. I completely forgot I'd been bitten; I only remembered being kissed.

  * * * *

  We reached the point when things either needed to go a lot further, or we needed to stop. Just before I was going to say something, Parrish pulled away from me and rolled onto his back.

  "That should last you a couple of months, I'd think," he said as if he'd just repaired a leaky window for me.

  I stretched my injured arm experimentally. I pre-winced, but there was no pain other than the faint stretchy feeling of pushing against the tape and bandage of Sebastian's field dressing.

  "Thanks," I said, feeling sort of awkward now that everything was over.

  The votive candles on my dresser top had nearly burned down, so I pulled myself upright to fetch more from the box of them I kept in my sock drawer. Parrish lay on the bed with his eyes closed and his arms behind his head. His expression was blank, but I thought I sensed a bit of wistfulness around the corners of his mouth.

  "Where are you going to go?" I asked.

  "I don't know, exactly. Depends on how deeply I need to bury myself. I might sleep for a while, or I might go home."

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. "Sleep? You're talking about something other than a nap, right?"

  He opened his eyes a crack. "I'm talking about death sleep." My confused expression must have made him explain, "It's a kind of extended torpor. Older vampires use it to sleep out a generation or two, so you don't have your neighbors wondering why you haven't grown old. You wake up and reinvent yourself. I hear it works like a charm."

  "You've never done it?"

  He stretched is arms and yawned. "Never longer than a year, and that was somewhat unintentional. I'd planned to death sleep only a couple of months, but the temptation to say in torpor is surprisingly strong."

  Yikes. "So," I said, "what's your plan, exactly?"

  He sat up and leaned his back against my headboard. "I have one?"

  "I hope you do."

  "I thought I'd let the FBI or whoever make the first move, actually. I plan to leave as normal, and if they approach me, well, run."

  "Run? That's your plan?"

  He smiled at me, as if to say, "Clever, isn't it?"

  "Parrish," I felt the need to add, "they have guns."

  "I'm actually rather hoping they'll shoot."

  "What? Why?"

  "So I can die."

  It took a few seconds for Parrish's words to register as anything other than completely suicidal.

  "I've found death avoids all those expensive legal fees," he said. "Not to mention life imprisonment, which would be rather short come sunrise."

  Incredulous, I stared at him in the flickering candlelight. "Okay, your plan? It blows," I said, standing up.

  Parrish looked crestfallen. "Why?"

  "Do you think they're going to just walk away from your dead body?"

  "No, they'll take me to the morgue. From which you will collect me."

  My voice squeaked. "Me?"

  "Yes. You can't let them cremate me or, worse, embalm. Then I'm truly fucked."

  "Why?" I asked. "I mean, I get cremation; fire bad. But what happens if you're embalmed?"

  "I'd die. Think about it, Garnet. A complete blood drain and then formaldehyde pumped in my veins? That'd kill just about anyone. Haven't you ever wondered why you don't see many post-Civil War vampires?"

  I hadn't known there weren't any, but I was game. "No why?"

  "Embalming became standard practice for shipping the dead long distances during that time. Of course, now the majority of people are cremated. Plus with increased numbers of autopsies, and all the concrete vaults, there's really no way for a vampire to survive all the post-death violation."

  "Isn't embalming the law?"

  "Not in Wisconsin. Why do you think there are so many vampires here?"

  Were there a lot? Should Wisconsin change its motto from "America's Dairyland" to "America's Vampire Haven"?

  Parrish continued lightly, as though thrilled to be conveying all of his intimate knowledge of postmortem laws. "There are other states that don't require embalming, but thanks to the Amish, Wisconsin is surprisingly liberal regarding burial requirements."

  "Okay." This conversation had gotten decidedly weird.

  "This so isn't going to work. Wouldn't it be smarter for you to run and just keep on running?"

  "I can't avoid this rap without dying, Garnet. At least here, with you, I can control what happens to my body afterward."

  "Why would they give your body to me? What if they do an autopsy?"

  "If they shoot me dead, they know the cause of death. I highly doubt they'll autopsy in that case. As for releasing my body, you're the closest thing I have to next of kin. You'll just have to work your damnedest to convince Agent Dominguez that you're my fiancée."

  "This is crazy." I said, starting to pace. The candles made my shadow do a jerky dance along the wall. "I don't even have a ring."

  "I do." Parrish's voice was low. "Two, in fact. Matching. In my steamer trunk."

  Would the surprises never cease? "You do?"

  "Yes." I waited for more information, but instead, he continued, "With any luck, it'll fit. If not, we could wear them on chains around our necks. Might be smarter, since Dominguez never spotted a ring on your finger before."

  "This is crazy," I repeated. "Insane."

  "It is, and very dangerous." Parrish ran his fingers through his hair. He looked surprisingly casual for someone talking about getting killed.

  "Your sacrifice might not solve anything. Dominguez knows I was there that night."

  Parrish sat up straighter. "What does he know exactly?"

  "Everything."

  Parrish's fists clenched, and for a second I thought he might jump up and shake me. Instead, he snarled, "Are you mad, woman? I told you not to confess to anything."

  "I didn't! Not out loud, anyway. He's psychic."

  That caused Parrish to pause. His anger morphed into confusion. "Sorry? Did you say psychic?" When I nodded, he said, "He read your mind?"

  "He said I broadcast my guilt whenever I look at him."

  Parrish's lip twisted into an I-can-see-that grimace. "But he has nothing else?"

  "Well, he's seen Lilith." I hid my embarrassment by pulling out a pair of jeans from my closet. They were my scary-Goth-girl pair—ripped and patched together in places with rows of safety pins. If I was
going to have to try to pull off vampire fiancée later tonight, I thought I might try to look the part. I tossed them onto the bed to change into later. "That's how I got shot."

  Lying back down, Parrish chewed on his lip. Meanwhile, I tossed a tight-fitting knit black top onto the pile. I added pentacle earrings and had started work on my makeup when he said, "It'll never hold up."

  "What?" I asked, looking at my outfit.

  "Lilith, in court, I mean. I doubt anyone would even believe an eyewitness account. He'd lose all credibility trying to explain Her. I think my plan could work. If he's built a case around me, let him have me."

  Even though I'd planned to dress for it, I didn't like the idea. "Parrish, so much could go wrong. What if they don't shoot you?"

  "I plan to provoke them. Trust me, I'm very good at making people want to see me dead."

  I was sure that was true.

  Parrish stretched, as if waking, and pulled himself upright. "We should go or they might be tempted to come in looking for me. Usually, I'm on the street well before now. I don't want them to find us together, because then they'll know you tipped me off."

  "Okay," I said, because I didn't know what else I could say. Reminding him that his plan was stupid didn't seem to dissuade him, no matter how many times I repeated it.

  "Let's get the rings, and I'll go."

  "I just want to change," I insisted. He stepped out of the room, and I quickly got re-dressed. I took a few moments to remove all the sticky tape and gauze from my shoulder. It was strange to see only a small pink pucker on the flesh just below my collarbone.

  After pulling on my shirt and stomping into a pair of combat boots, I grabbed a silver chain from my jewelry box and looped it around my neck. Blowing out the candles, I joined him just outside the door. We snuck down the way we'd come up. It was a lot easier for me to crawl without the pain in my shoulder.

  "Someday," I whispered to him as we crept down the stairs, "you're going to tell me about that special friend of yours."

  Parrish shook his head. "I don't kiss and tell."