by C. L. Quinn
To make sure that he understood her, Sarah stepped close, glanced around the room to make sure they were still alone, took a firm hold of his tie and yanked him to her.
All of her sexual frustration poured into the kiss. After the shock passed, Leo pulled her against him and she could feel his body’s reaction, the movement in his pants, his thighs pressed against her abdomen as if he wanted to wrap around her.
Once she moved back, Sarah looked into his eyes.
“I really do want to reschedule, but I can’t make any plans yet. Will you still accept the date if I have to defer it for a little while?”
Leo was still tamping down the results of the kiss, a hand moving nervously through his hair. “Yeah, um, yeah.”
“That was a reminder that I mean that, when we finally get to it, the wait will be worth it.”
Blowing out a long breath, he turned from her, still feeding restless fingers through his loose hair. “I knew that all along, and now, whew, the wait, however long or short it will be, is already too long. See you, Doctor S.”
Leo disappeared down the corridor and didn’t see Sarah drop back against the wall, a smile on her lips, a gleam in her eyes.
“God, that was hot,” she said out loud, but when she closed her eyes for a moment, it wasn’t Leo’s face that filled the darkness. Unwelcome though he was inside her thoughts, it was Mies.
She blew out a long breath like Leo had done moments earlier, but hers was from frustration. What was she going to do about him? She could not want him, she refused to. Still he stayed in her mind, and the mere thought of him made her horny.
“Am I going to have to fuck that vampire to get him out of my mind?” she whispered to what she thought was an empty room.
“What vampire are you going to fuck?”
Tracy stood behind her and when Sarah turned to her big grin, she rolled her eyes and followed Leo’s egress down the corridor.
It was going to be a long night.
Three hours into the shift, the hour approaching one a.m., Sarah finished bandaging a deep gash on a ten-year old boy’s leg. He’d fallen off the concrete steps in front of their apartment building and into a pile of construction debris.
“You’re good to go, Paulie. I’ll tell your mother she can come back in.”
“Hey, mom!” he yelled loudly through the closed curtain.
“Really?” Sarah inquired. “I meant I would go get her.”
“Sorry. We’re all yellers in my family.”
“I get that.”
Shirley Malone came back through the curtain. “He’s done? Oh, thank God! I can’t stand the sight of blood. Just driving him here, I had to keep him in the back seat.”
“Well, he’s all covered now, and he’s fine. It’s a deep gash, but a few stitches and a clean bandage does wonders.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
After finishing up, Sarah left the nurse to do all relevant paperwork to get Paulie and his mom on their way back home.
Tracy joined her a few moments later as she leaned against the nurse’s station. The two nurses who manned the desk had taken a quick break, and since the ER was unusually quiet right now, she’d offered to spell them for a few minutes.
“You get the kid with the leg injury?” Tracy asked.
Sarah nodded. “He was easy. How is Mr. Brooks?”
“The usual. He’s having a tough go with the chemo. Too sick to keep anything down right now.”
Each day here reminded Sarah of the fragility of human life, the extraordinary limitations of a mortal body that could be injured or die so easily. There had been a few mind-blowing moments where her heart raced at the idea that she’d given up immortality for this brief life, however beautiful and satisfying it had been. Would she be satisfied at the end of the few decades she had left? Would all that she’d won by returning to her nature be worth it as she lay ill, aged, and dying in what was certainly, by vampire standards, a very short time?
No. No, she would not allow her mind to wander back into that dangerous zone. Her choice had been made and she expected that it would, absolutely, be the life she wanted and needed. That someday, at the moment the time arrived, she would accept, gracefully, that her days were well-lived and move beyond this realm. She didn’t know if humans found a place in the spirit world that seemed to be the final resting place for the first bloods, but she hoped that there really was a place beyond all of this, a heaven, for humans, too.
“Sarah?”
Tracy pulled Sarah from deep thoughts that had no place in the ER.
“I’m sorry, Tracy, what were you saying?”
She leaned heavily on the counter, facing her colleague. Tracy faced the front of the admissions area with an expression of surprise.
Confused, Sarah wondered what she’d missed while she had been spaced out checking her emotional baggage.
“Trace, what is it?”
“Um, you have a visitor,” Tracy finally replied and pointed behind Sarah.
Before she even turned around, Sarah knew who it had to be. There was only one person, or persons, as it were, who would have caused that look of shocked surprise. As she lifted away from the counter and turned, Sarah prepared herself. Would it be Nikolai, welcoming, with a smile? Or the brooding Mies, who sent Sarah’s libido into hyper-drive? By Tracy’s continued state of awe, she knew that it had to be Mies.
Slowly turning, she confirmed that suspicion. No smile, but heat searing off him like compressed steam.
God, it should be illegal for anyone to be that sexually explicit just standing there.
“Doctor Sarah,” he said quietly with supreme confidence.
I could throw him down right here and…
Stop! Sarah told herself. Enough with the ridiculous mental images!
“Mies,” she acknowledged. “Didn’t you get my text?”
“The message on the little box? Nikolai did. I didn’t. We need to speak. Now.”
Tracy touched Sarah on her arm, drawing her attention away from the huge man who stood in front of them, his dark eyes moving between the two women.
“Sarah, who is this man?”
“He’s, uh, an old friend from out of the country.”
Tracy’s eyes moved over Mies’s body, dressed again in tight jeans and the black tee shirt that showed every bulge.
She tilted her head. “Don’t I know you?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, Trace. He just got into town, didn’t you, Mies?”
Completely emotionless, Mies looked from Sarah to Tracy. He knew the young doctor was one of the people present the night he arrived in town and was hit by the speeding car.
Suddenly, he smiled. Sarah knew that she wasn’t the only one who felt the full force of his sex appeal.
“Look into my eyes, little doctor,” Mies said, only this time he was talking to Tracy.
She did not hesitate.
Sarah watched the silver lights begin to swirl again as he touched her on the wrist, his fingers wrapping around it seconds later.
“You do not know me, you’ve never seen me before and you will not ask anyone who I am if you see me again. Please leave us.”
A quick nod answered his command and Tracy walked away. She passed the two nurses who manned the desk, returning from their breaks, surprised as Tracy walked by without looking at either of them when they said hi to her.
“Hey,” Sheila said to Sarah. “What’s wrong with Doctor Harrison?”
Beginning to respond, Sarah moved back, startled, as Mies jumped over the receiving desk and landed next to her. Both nurses moved back as well.
He grabbed Sarah’s arms. “Don’t make me use compulsion.”
Snapping her arms free, Sarah pushed him using all of her strength, not surprised when she barely moved him at all. “You try that, and you’re on your own. Ask Nikolai if I’ll submit to that kind of treatment and betrayal.”
“I’m sorry, but you waste time here on this irrelevant job. You need to devote all of yo
ur time to our problem. Do not forget that I can make you do what I want.”
“What did I tell you about making demands? And threats? Mies, you need to get the hell out of here before I set your ass on fire.”
Carelessly, using air displacement, he moved her from behind the desk to an alcove in the patient waiting area faster than humanly possible.
His fingers wrapped around her upper arms too tight, he suddenly lightened his hold, now massaging the bruised flesh. As he leaned down, his hair brushed her shoulders, and she thought that he was too close, and yet wanted to pull him closer. Because he was in a heightened emotional state, his overt sexual pheromones were on overdrive and assaulted her. In spite of her anger, Sarah could hardly think straight and she made the one critical error when confronted by a vampire; she looked up into his smoldering eyes.
He didn’t steal the opportunity to use compulsion, though. His voice raw, his lips too near to hers, he drew a deep breath. “Sarah, we woke tonight drenched in sweat. We couldn’t catch our breath, we couldn’t move. Tears came, and that is rare for a vampire.”
The silver swirls in his eyes were spinning. His voice dropped. “For me.”
His fingers slid to her waist and pulled her into him. Without realizing she was doing it, her arms went around him as he leaned into her, her own fingers finding the hard muscles of his waist.
Mies whispered into her ear. “Help us.”
The kiss began slowly, amber eyes sought dark ones, then they moved closer. Once his lips touched Sarah’s, Mies slipped his tongue out to taste them. He ran his tongue around the top lip, then the bottom, and drew back to look into her eyes and seek acceptance. What he saw kicked him in the groin and he pulled her body to his, fitted her shape against him, and plunged his tongue into her mouth.
Sarah leaped into the kiss, urgency not urgent enough, body against body not close enough, his hot tongue inside her incredible…and not enough either. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware they were in a place that, while in a corner, was still public. They would need to go somewhere else if she wanted him inside her, as she really did.
But as the kiss grew more intense, she felt Mies lift her and begin to carry her deeper into the alcove.
“Mies, no.”
“Doctor, it is clear that you want me, and I need you, with a desperation that I am not certain I could refuse even if I wanted to. And I don’t.”
“Not now. Not here. Stop, please.”
He did stop then, unmoving, silent, only his ragged breath in her ear. Seconds later, he lowered her.
“You’re refusing me again?”
Sarah had no answer. She wasn’t sure if she was, wasn’t sure if she wasn’t, but she knew that they couldn’t do anything here in the hospital.
“Can you wait for me? I need to speak with Dr. Harrison.”
“What would be the point? You refuse me, on every matter. I assume that I am unwelcome in your life, so I will go.”
No sooner had he announced the intention, he disappeared.
Exhausted, shocked, Sarah dropped into a chair.
What the hell was she going to do?
He was right. She needed to attend to the situation with Nikolai and his unexpected passenger. It was apparent that she would have to take a leave of absence from her job and do exactly that. They deserved nothing less from her. After letting herself have a few more moments to adjust to the truth, she walked back out into the receiving room.
Tracy had returned to the nurse’s station, her fogged reaction to Mies’s compulsion gone.
“Hey, Sarah.”
“Hey,” Sarah parroted.
Tomorrow morning, she would let the hospital know that she had to be away for an undetermined amount of time.
Seven
Mies wandered for hours through the glittering city where everything fascinated him. Nikolai had tried to push forward to help him navigate, but he was tired of having others guide him and tell him what he needed to know about this enormous modern world. He was a first blood vampire…powerful, smart, capable. He’d figure it out.
You were hit by a taxicab the first night you arrived.
I’ve learned much since then. I’m tired of feeling helpless. Tired of trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do and how we’re supposed to manage this fucking mess.
You are certainly learning. Look at you with the modern curse word.
It fits. This entire life we’re forcibly living is impossible. We both want different women and can’t be with either of them. We need different things. What the fuck was the universe thinking to do this to us?
“What the fuck do you want?” he yelled explosively, out loud, startling other people passing on the sidewalk near him.
Get it under control, vampire. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, and we certainly don’t want to end up with a confrontation with the local law.
I can manage anything, certainly human constables.
Yes, I know that, but how about we pretend we aren’t children and don’t make the wrong choices to start with?
You make sense. I find that I am too hot headed and you are likely the smart one. Perhaps you have more magic than I have in this world.
Hardly. But I am your voice of reason. Your calm side, if you’ll listen. Sarah will help us.
No. I have told her that we don’t need her.
And you’re wrong. Even now, I know that she is making a decision to dedicate herself to our needs. She is a good woman.
Mies thought about Sarah, just a few hours earlier, hot in his arms, her tongue matching his every movement as they tried to get as close to each other as possible when they kissed.
Yes, she is a good woman, but she has other concerns. She’s human, Niko, and has a human life. She doesn’t belong to us.
She is our best choice. Don’t count her out. We need to head back to her apartment.
Why? She’ll only refuse me again.
You really are a child when it comes to women, aren’t you? Whether she sleeps with you or not, she will give everything she is to help us. You have never met a more amazing, determined woman, Mies. Turn around.
No.
Mies smiled suddenly. Yeah, he really was acting like child. Nikolai was right. It was time to go to the beautiful human doctor, his cock tucked back, his libido in check, and apologize. He had no right to make demands as he had done. However awful this life he and poor Nikolai had been forced into, Sarah was innocent and only attempting to help.
I’ve been an animal. All right, we’ll go to her and I will throw myself on her mercy. Assuming she still has any when it comes to me. You, my friend, she loves.
I am not absent when I speak with her about you or when you control this body. I see and feel what you do, Mies, and it is obvious that she would like to show more than mercy to you. You understand her reasons, da?
Da. It doesn’t make my friend go away, though. She sets me on fire, Niko.
That, I feel. Much as her friend did for me. We are a sad pair, vampire.
Da.
Mies gave control of the body back to Nikolai so that he could enjoy the walk back to Sarah’s apartment, and so that he would be the one to apologize on behalf of both of them. It seemed the reasonable thing to do.
Nikolai sucked in the air and delicious smells as they walked past a neighborhood bakery. Sunrise would be in about two hours and someone was already inside preparing the baked goods for morning sales. He was of a mind to have Mies use compulsion to get them some hot pastries, but he didn’t want to trade places with him right now. He just wanted to enjoy this American city. Neither he nor Mies had any idea how long either of them might have…either in this odd merged existence, or as the one surviving lifeforce in this body. Not a moment was to be squandered.
Warmth had finally hit Boston and seemed inclined to stay. As a man who lived in one of the coldest climates on earth, Nikolai lingered on the walk back to Sarah’s place. Even this early in the morning, it had to
be a good seventy-five degrees and on skin that was used to layers of fabric to protect it from frostbite, a warm breeze on bare skin was exquisite.
“Almost as good as sex,” he said out loud, and could hear Mies laughing in his mind.
“Okay, not so much, but it is the best thing I have felt in a long time.”
His face to the breeze, he closed his eyes for a moment and just stood there, the intersection he needed to cross still waiting for his footfall. His mind was calm but the thought intervened anyway.
“I’m not ready to leave,” he told the universe when he opened his eyes, squinting to see if any stars were visible above the lights surrounding him. One was, and he wondered if it were a planet.
Jupiter.
“Jupiter,” Nikolai repeated. “It’s stunning. Everything is so vividly bright in Siberia. So few lights to compete with the canopy of stars and other celestial bodies.”
A young woman leaning against a post smoking a cigarette looked at him abruptly. “You talkin’ to me, mister?”
“No, ma’am, I was just remarking about the beauty of the night sky.”
Jerking her head up, she stared into the charcoal darkness above the city for several moments. When she dropped her head back to look into Nikolai’s eyes, she rolled hers. “Whatever.”
Once again, Nikolai could feel Mies’s amusement.
Youth hasn’t changed in six thousand years, I see.
Shaking his head, Nikolai continued on his trek. “Da, some things never will.”
Instantly, both men’s minds shifted to one thing, to something else that never changed in the entire history of mankind. The need for connection, for love…for sex.
“Stop it, Mies. We are neither getting what we want. Not for this night, anyway.”
The voice in his head was silent, and for the rest of the walk, so was Nikolai.
Sarah had texted and called Nikolai’s phone four times tonight with no response.
“Fine, you big, overblown, obnoxious…sexy asshole.”
Pitching her phone onto the chair on the other side of the couch, she headed into the kitchenette.
