The Red Collection

by Portia Da Costa

  ‘Er … yes … right. That’s great.’

  Teresa hid a smile. Lisa couldn’t seem to hide the fact she was desperately smitten despite the presence of her soon-to-be husband beside her.

  I don’t blame you, Lise, she thought.

  Far more smitten, Teresa gasped inside when Zack pressed a light, but meaningful, kiss against her cheek.

  ‘Shall we circulate, my dear? Other guests are waiting to meet the happy couple.’

  They made way for members of Tom’s family, and Teresa felt as if she was floating as they wove across the room, took a couple of drinks and found themselves a corner.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  Zack’s eyes were twinkling. He was having fun.

  Teresa twinkled back at him. It was fun being the envy of all her female friends. Especially the ones who’d expected a fine opportunity to pity her.

  Here she was with the most handsome, intriguing man in the room, whose presence beside her made her turn to jelly with longing. And on top of that there were all the exquisite little shows of affection – the kisses, the touches on the arm, the light guiding contact of his hand on her waist. They were part of a deception, of course, but that didn’t diminish the pleasure.

  Sipping her champagne, she watched Zack scanning the room, his keen eyes darting from person to person and from couple to couple as if he was an anthropologist studying a brand new tribe for a paper. Maybe it was something like that? She knew he wrote historical studies and treatises. Perhaps he was turning his hand to fiction, or pop psychology, and he was doing a little people watching?

  Whatever it was, she had the oddest feeling that a gathering like this was entirely new to him.

  ‘Have you been to many weddings?’

  Zack swivelled round and smiled. ‘No, this is my first wedding, would you believe?’ He put his lips to his glass of mineral water and took the minutest sip. It was the only thing she’d ever seen him ingest so far, apart from his health shakes.

  ‘Really?’

  Unease crawled up and down Teresa’s spine, and thoughts, conclusions and too many bizarre coincidences jostled and brayed at her. Focusing on the room, and its festive normality, she attempted to silence them.

  ‘What do you think of it all then?’

  ‘Fascinating. It’s supposed to celebrate the welfare and happiness of the bride and groom, but, underneath, it’s a hotbed of rivalry and envy and one-upmanship … it’s like a Roman arena full of designer lions.’

  ‘I’ve never looked at it that way.’

  And she hadn’t. But Zack’s beautiful blue eyes were clear and acute. He wasn’t accusing anybody of anything, just enlightening her with his deadly accurate observations.

  Until today, Teresa had seen weddings as sexy and positive and fun.

  But now, seen through his sharp focus, the undercurrents were obvious. People were catching other people’s eyes, people who weren’t their own partner. Women were coveting other women’s dresses, jewellery and men. Men were blatantly perving available girls and non-available girls with equal lustfulness.

  ‘Actually it’s more like Sodom and Gomorrah, isn’t it?’ she whispered as they dumped their glasses on a side table. Zack smiled like a conspirator as he snaked his strong arm around her waist again.

  ‘But at least we’re together –’ he pulled her closer, the pressure of his fingertips like electricity through the thin stuff of her top ‘– and we can guard each other against the prowling hyenas.’

  But who’s going to guard me from you? Teresa couldn’t help thinking.

  At that moment, she turned around and saw Steve across the room, apparently devouring his new girlfriend whole in front of an audience.

  ‘Is that him?’

  Zack’s hold tightened, and strength poured through the contact between their bodies. Her vague doubts about Zack forgotten, Teresa leaned in, and the effect increased. Steve and his trollop looked ridiculous and she was invulnerable.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so … although I’m hard pressed to know what I saw in him now.’

  Beside Zack’s lean grace and refined gothic style, Steve was a clod. And fat too! With new clear eyes, Teresa noted that he had a rather angry shaving rash.

  ‘Shall we say hello?’ Zack’s fingertips caressed her waist, the gentle pressure both sensual and confidence-building. With him at her side, she could do anything.

  ‘Why not? I’m bound to run into him at this gig sometime, so let’s get it over with sooner rather than later.’

  ‘That’s my girl!’ Zack’s mouth brushed her hair in another fleeting kiss and just like before her feet felt as if they were lifting off the carpet. This was only a charade they were playing for an audience, but the perquisites were blissful.

  Steve and his rather voluptuously enhanced lady friend were still playing tonsil hockey, so it required a discreet but pointed cough from Zack to get their attention.

  ‘Hi, Steve, how are you?’ Teresa smiled brightly as the two disentangled themselves. ‘Smashing do this, isn’t it?’

  The girl – Suzy, Teresa remembered – looked astonished, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. A dumped woman confronting her ex? How could that happen?

  Steve, on the other hand, seemed about to collapse or have apoplexy or both at once. His eyes widened, not just with surprise, but with astonishingly unfeigned lust as his eyes cruised up and down Teresa’s figure.

  Take a good look, buster. It’s all for him now, not you.

  With Zack’s hand on her waist, she could understand what the proverbial million dollars felt like.

  Steve’s mouth dropped open, but no words emerged. His eyes continued to skitter from her breasts to her legs to her face and round and round again until he suddenly seemed to notice that she wasn’t unaccompanied. And as he tilted his head up to meet the eyes of a very tall man, the expression on his face made Teresa want to giggle.

  I never noticed you were so short, Stevie-boy.

  ‘Pleased to meet you … I’m Zachary Trevelyan.’ Zack’s voice was firm and no-nonsense, while Steve still couldn’t seem to locate his own tongue.

  Teresa had a hard time containing herself as she watched the handshakes.

  Like the rest of the female guests, Suzy seemed bewitched by Zack, but also distinctly annoyed now that her own specimen of manhood was clearly substandard. She shook off Steve’s grip and favoured Zack with a pouting smile as she proffered her hand.

  ‘Ooh, cold hands, warm heart.’ She batted her mascara-clad lashes at him.

  ‘Something like that.’ Zack’s response was a finessed combination of exquisite politeness and a complete lack of reaction.

  Steve winced. There was no other word for it. Zack didn’t appear to be exerting very much pressure as he gripped the other man’s hand, and his smile was amiable. But Steve’s face went bright pink and, as Zack released him, he visibly fought the urge not to wiggle his squished fingers.

  ‘You’re the landlord, aren’t you?’ Steve’s tone was belligerent and Teresa hid her smile. Her ex was faced with a taller, fitter, altogether far superior male, and she sensed he was seriously regretting his decision to dump her.

  ‘Yes, he’s that as well.’ Beaming, she slid her arm around Zack’s waist just as his arm went around her shoulder.

  Steve’s eyebrows lowered in a scowl when Zack’s cool lips momentarily caressed the side of her face.

  ‘Shall we get another drink, love?’ Zack’s words against her skin sounded exactly like a sinfully obscene suggestion that Steve and his babe weren’t supposed to have heard.

  Teresa turned to look up at him, loving the wicked glint in his glorious blue eyes. He was clearly enjoying baiting her ex just as much as she was.

  ‘Or would you prefer to get out of here?’ He licked his lips ever so slightly, his black lashes lowering lasciviously.

  Oh, hell, yes!

  It was just a game, but suddenly it felt real. Zack’s dark head tilted, as if he was monitoring her ever
y thought and for a moment, he frowned infinitesimally. Then he winked like a demon, his pale beautiful face all aglow.

  ‘Better circulate just a bit more, for politeness’ sake –’ she paused, giving him a devouring look that was worthy of Suzy ‘– and then I’m all yours … would you like that?’

  Zack laughed, his eyes on hers, and then swivelled towards the nonplussed couple beside them. ‘We’ll probably see you later. Nice meeting you both.’

  Then his strong arm deftly turned Teresa and he began to guide her away through the throng.

  They found a corner, and some more drinks, said ‘hello’ to more people. But, as the moments passed, Teresa found it impossible to focus on the party.

  Would you prefer to get out of here? The words tolled in her head.

  It was all an act, but she did want to sneak away to do what Steve and Suzy gloweringly suspected. And what various other couples, drifting away, were clearly planning on.

  Plenty of time for a long lazy session in bed before the wedding at 9 p.m.

  In the heady miasma of high-end women’s perfumes and expensive aftershaves, Zack’s delicious cologne sang like a clear clean note. It was playing havoc with her. Her body tingled in the places he’d touched so decorously, and down between her legs a needy pulse was steadily throbbing.

  Wedding lust. Mating rituals. The whole atmosphere was ripe with pheromones and sex.

  She turned to Zack and found him staring at her, his eyes dark and strange-looking. His expression was an irrational blend of intense desire – the mirror of hers – and what could only be described as apprehension.

  What have you got to be afraid of?

  What have I got to be afraid of?

  ‘Look … I mean … do you really want to get out of here?’

  The words floated in the air as if they suddenly had a life of their own. It wasn’t at all what she’d meant to say, but it was too late to call it back. She swallowed, feeling hot blood rush into her face and neck. ‘Damn it, I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I? Forget I said it.’

  She couldn’t look him in the eye, but Zack lifted her face to his with one finger under her chin. His expression was more troubled than ever, complex and sexy, and slightly wild.

  ‘No! I want it too –’ his voice was odd too. Gruff and deep, yet it seemed to ring. Several people looked around, frowning curiously in their direction ‘– but as they say in those soaps … it’s complicated. More complicated than you can possibly believe.’

  Staring down at her, his eyes were hot and confused. He pursed his lips and then seemed to run his tongue over his teeth, again and again, as if examining them somehow.

  Checking for fangs, Zack?

  Her unspoken words seemed to electrify him. He took her firmly by the arm and hustled her from the room and into a small adjacent lounge that was conveniently deserted.

  Pushing the door shut behind him, he backed up against it and hauled her into his arms.

  His mouth came down on hers, hard and sweet and demanding, just as it had been in her fantasies. The sharp contrast between her warm lips and his cooler ones made her tremble with an excitement that was beyond sex. It was a strange stimulus she was at a loss to understand.

  Zack’s tongue was cool too. Cool and bold and greedy and undisciplined. There was a rough unpractised quality about the kiss that made her blood sing and her knees go weak as jelly.

  Throwing her arms around him, she pitched herself into the embrace, sucking on his sweet chilly tongue and pressing her belly against his, blatantly enticing him. The pressure was intense, and raw, and she couldn’t get enough of him. It was as if her body was trying to climb inside his and be closer than his skin.

  A moment ago, Zack had expressed doubts, but now they were forgotten. He pressed his pelvis back at her, circling the hard knot of his erection against her softness, growling in his throat as she reciprocated, rocking and pushing against his cock.

  I knew you wanted me. I just knew it.

  Her exultation was silent, but she could tell Zack had read it. He dug a hand into her hair, angling her head as his lips left hers and began to travel across her cheek, and down the line of her jaw and neck.

  The touch of him and the taste of him were exquisite. His breath was almost scented, and it lingered on her lips where she ran her tongue over them. Her mouth felt bruised even though the kiss had only lasted a few moments.

  Zack’s lips were like thistledown on her skin, the contact magically light and circumspect as he explored her. She sensed that elusive reticence in him again, an impression of caution and lack of experience. Moments ago he’d been a wild man, but now he was holding back.

  Sliding her hands under his jacket, she slid them down his back until they reached his firm male buttocks. Then, cupping the delicious muscular rounds she gripped him and pulled him against her belly.

  He growled again. Deeper this time. The sound seemed to bounce around the small room as if it were a cathedral, like a feral utterance coming from another dimension. It was the weirdest thing, but it only made her surge against him. And then utter a groan herself as his mouth opened against her throat.

  She felt the questing touch of his tongue, licking, searching – and then the contact of his teeth, sharp and hard, against her skin. The sensation made her sex clench involuntarily. Though his mouth was cold, it was the hottest, most exciting moment of lust.

  ‘Please … please …’ she heard herself implore, tilting back her head to give him better access to her neck.

  She pressed her groin against him, to ease the ache and reinforce her invitation.

  And then she felt it.

  Tiny, sharp and keen, his teeth broke the skin of her neck in a little bite. It was pain, but it made her hips lurch, rocking harder and seeking closer contact. Her entire body was burning and silently screaming to be naked against him.

  ‘No!’

  Zack’s cry was deafening. Teresa swayed, with her back against the door as she clutched and scrabbled at it in order to stay on her feet.

  Across the room – impossibly – Zack was standing as if staring at a tall glass-fronted bookshelf full of leather-bound volumes. His dark-clad back was a wall of raw tension and, at his sides, his pale hands were two clenched fists.

  He was here. And now he’s there. What happened?

  He was kissing me. Now he can’t look at me. What have I done?

  ‘What’s the matter, Zack? What is it? Did I come on too strong?’ She started towards him, but he stilled her with a chopping gesture, as if he’d seen her. The air between them seemed to hum. Like an external expression of that strange interior phenomenon she’d attributed to some inner ear problem. ‘I’m sorry … I don’t usually behave like a trollop … I thought you wanted me.’

  ‘I do,’ he said, his voice low, tormented, ‘I want you more than you can possibly understand and in ways … ways that you won’t understand.’

  There was pain in his words, agony in his taut body. Teresa felt a great surge of compassion that somehow melded with her desire.

  ‘Try me, Zack. I’m here for you in any way you need me. I’m crazy about you. Surely you realise that?’

  He let out a noise like a sob, as if the news were exactly what he wanted to hear, but painful too.

  ‘I – I’m crazy about you too, Teresa. Really. But this can’t possibly work. I thought it might, but I was wrong. So wrong –’ his tense shoulders lifted, and then subsided ‘– I couldn’t have been more wrong.’

  ‘But why?’

  Watching him closely, achingly, Teresa suddenly braced herself – half dreading, but now almost knowing what she’d see when Zack turned to face her. Every breath of air whooshed out of her body, and she began to sway.

  Then, as if time itself were mutable and malfunctioning, Zack spun slowly towards her.

  His eyes were red, and his canine teeth were sharp white fangs.

  6

  Someone was gently tapping her cheek, and a dear familiar voice
was speaking softly but persuasively in her ear.

  ‘Teresa, my love, are you all right? Come on … snap out of it. Please talk to me.’

  Teresa’s eyes fluttered open, and the first thing she saw was Zack’s face, pale, handsome and worried. He was kneeling in front of her, and she was slumped in one of the large damask-covered armchairs that were arrayed around the small room.

  She had absolutely no idea how she’d got there.

  Zack took a glass of water from the low table beside her chair, and offered it to her.

  Teresa sipped, feeing numb and weird but with her hackles on the rise, aware of something, she knew not what, barrelling towards her.

  ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!’

  It all returned to her.

  The glass started to tip, but Zack caught it faster than the eye could see and set it back on the table.

  Unable to look him in the face, Teresa stared at the glass, then at his hand, long and smooth, still holding it.

  ‘You are one, aren’t you?’ Her heart thudded, fast and hard. Her mind felt like a wild pony, cantering about, trying desperately to avoid the truth. ‘A vampire? They’re real, aren’t they? And I’ve been living with one for six months!’

  An overload circuit tripped somehow and, without thinking, she whipped out her hand and fetched Zack a ringing slap across the face. He could have deflected it without effort, but he stayed still.

  There was no red mark on his cheek where the blow had struck.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  His apology came before hers. She hadn’t really intended to hit him, it’d just happened. A reflex.

  ‘I wanted to tell you, Teresa. Time and time again. But I didn’t think you’d believe me. And if you did believe me, I was afraid it’d make you run for the hills – and leave me.’

  His whole face was full of remorse. Full of humanity. No hint of pointy teeth or ruddy eyes.

  Teresa dragged in a shuddering breath, totally at a loss. This was the most momentous discovery of her life. A critical turning point. She needed advice. She needed someone to turn to. Someone to tell about this completely unbelievable thing.

  But the only person she longed to tell was the man staring worriedly into her face.