Jaded Touch (Vesper)

by Sarina, Nola

  “Let go,” he repeated, a force in his voice I didn’t expect. He dared to order me around? All alone, here in his home?

  I released his wrists and he brought his hands down with a groan, resting them atop my thighs. I watched the path of his fingers as he rubbed them down my thighs, and shook my head, confused. Why would he dare to touch me like this?

  At least he wasn’t touching my scars. I shuddered at the memory of Rachel’s sharp flicks in the bath.

  “I need to go,” I said. “Find one of the Maids at the North Vancouver station to give a full report on what happened, okay?”

  “Wait,” Jack said, his voice gruff from slumber. “Just wait a minute. Let me get my head back on my shoulders.”

  I blinked. I was still sitting on top of him. But he didn’t seem to mind my weight, so I waited, my heart clenching tighter with anxiety over the sun with each breath that passed.

  Jack ran his palms up and down my thighs again. “Thank you,” he said. “Really. I thought I was a goner for sure.”

  Why are you still touching me? “I’m glad you’re okay.” That was not the most authoritative, I’m-the-Vesper-so-I’m-in-charge thing for me to say. Stupid. I had to get out of there - into the darkness - before morning fully broke, no matter what I had to say to rush this little encounter along.

  Jack fumbled on his nightstand beside his head for a little, white box. He picked it up and pressed a button and I jumped when something hummed behind me. I twisted to see black, vertical shades drawing closed of their own accord across the window, and the room darkened to a comfortable level. I turned back to face Jack, confused.

  He shrugged. “You guys pay us well, since we can’t have a social life and might be eaten at any moment. I’ve got everything on remote control in this place.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Why did you do that?”

  Jack grinned and shook his head. “Well, fuck, Three, you just saved my life. It’d be shitty manners to let you burn for it.”

  Oh. That was nice of him, I supposed, even if he cursed like a barbarian while he did it. He wasn’t afraid to speak to me as though I was one of his coworkers. And his hands on my legs, the sinful combination of his voice and touch… it was as though the pedestal upon which I lived my life – superior, timeless, and unbearably alone – sloped a bit so I could spend these few stolen moments on the same level as someone else. Someone real.

  A human. Stolen moments were forbidden moments. I moved to climb off him, but he squeezed my thighs and I stopped.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Away? Off of you, anyway. I need to get outside, find shelter before daybreak.”

  “It is daybreak, and you’re already in a shelter.”

  “Right, but…” Curse his logic! “…I shouldn’t be here. It’s forbidden.”

  “You Vespers and your forbidden shit. Is it forbidden to kiss me, too?”

  I gasped. “I did not kiss you! You kissed me!”

  Jack laughed, and the way his body shook beneath me sent tendrils of heat licking up through my core like flames. “I distinctly remember you leaning down to my mouth, and me kissing you back. And I liked it. So what?”

  “So what?!” My voice climbed an octave. He liked it. That made two of us, but I wasn’t about to admit such a thing. “We could both be killed for it, that’s what!”

  “And who’s gonna know? No one can kill us if we promise not to tell. I liked it. You liked it.”

  “I didn’t like it!” I lied.

  “Then why are you still on top of me?”

  “I’m not!” I jumped up and crossed the room to the door. God! What was his problem?! This persistence was uncalled-for, and I was within my rights to devour him for bantering with me as though I were merely a human, or as though he were a Vesper.

  And what was my problem? I knew better than to allow the words that crossed a mortal’s lips to fluster me into defensiveness. Even if they were lips like his, lips that unraveled me, lips that tasted like swearing and home.

  That kiss was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.

  “Wait, Three, wait!” Jack sat up and I turned with a huff. I could feel the exhaustion of daytime weighing me down already, and it was too late to get to another shelter without burning.

  Jack stood and rubbed his neck. “I’m sorry. I thought… I got my signals crossed. Just… please stay, okay? I don’t want you to burn in the sun, and I’ve never…” He trailed off, glancing around. “You’re in my home. A Vesper is in my home, and she’s not trying to kill me. This is a pretty big moment for me, and I don’t want to waste it fighting with you.”

  I shook my head, the sincerity in his voice pulling me in two directions. On the one hand, I should run the hell away from this train man fast before any little crush he had took root. On the other hand, he wanted me here. Why did he want me here? I thought the hoggers tolerated us out of fear and harbored no warm feelings toward the serpentine demons who dominated their lives.

  But why didn’t matter, not when it was a human, a man who couldn’t grasp the depth of the consequences our actions might bring. And as the superior being in the room, it was my responsibility to make the right decision, even if all I wanted to do was crash into his bed and let daytime exhaustion have me in the arms of sin. So I took a deep breath and hoped my remorse was too subtle on my face for his weak eyesight to catch. “I didn’t mean to kiss you. I shouldn’t do that to you. It’s wrong; it’s an abuse of my position.”

  “So… you fell onto my mouth with your mouth?”

  “No!”

  “What did you mean to do to me, then?”

  “Knock you unconscious with my poison.”

  He tilted his head, another grin tugging at the edge of his lips. “You can do that?”

  I groaned, dropping my arms to my sides. “I’m not supposed to kiss you, and I’m not supposed to tell you these things, and I’m not going to stand here and argue with a human about any of it! You’re food!”

  “You didn’t kiss me like food.”

  My jaw dropped open. Was he serious? “I’m not having this conversation with a mortal.”

  Jack ruffled his hair with his good hand, and I looked away because his bicep flexed and I wanted to see more of it, and that was unnatural, and wrong. Good God, I could picture him naked. Stop it, Three!

  “Would you have it with an immortal?”

  He had the audacity to ask me about my sex life! “Have what with an immortal?” My voice arced into a shriek, I was so caught off guard.

  Jack flinched at my volume, but let a sneaky smile invade his lips. “This conversation! What did you think I meant?”

  Oh. Over-reaction. A flood of humiliation poured through my heart at the shock in his tone. Of course he wasn’t talking about my sex life. I could swallow his entire corpse in one bite. Not exactly sexy, to a human. But I was so used to being on the defensive side of things that I jumped to accusation without paying attention to his words. “Um, sorry, I misunderstood. Yes. I mean, no. I don’t… what… what was the question?”

  Jack’s grin spread full-force across his face and he stifled a laugh with a fist to his mouth, so I scoffed and turned away, humiliated. How stupid was I, to kiss him, and then bring him home? He kissed me first! Dammit!

  “God, you’re cute.”

  “You have no business asking me about my personal life!”

  “Three, I know you aren’t allowed to have relationships with the Gents. I travel with Levi and Festus pretty often, and they talk all the fucking time. They never shut up. I wasn’t trying to pry into your business… just wondering if you’d be more willing to stay and chat if I was immortal. You know, keep me company, and trust me to keep you safe from the sunlight.”

  I took a steadying breath. Safe from the sunlight. “I’m… not thinking clearly. Daytime really messes me up.” It was a lame excuse, because it really only wore down my body rather than my mind, but I’d say whatever I had to in ord
er to get him to stop screwing with my morality and tempting me like an apple on a sacred tree.

  Warm fingers found mine. I froze as his fingers folded around my hand, and then he took that hand in his other and flipped my palm up, inspecting me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You Vespers talk too much. Shut up and let me look at you.”

  Shut up? He just told me to shut up. “When was the last time you let your dinner talk to you that way?”

  “I’m not your dinner. If you wanted to eat me, you’d have already done it.” He traced a fingertip up my palm, over the inside of my wrist, and I tried not to tremble at his touch. The pad of his finger wasn’t silken steel like that of a Gent, but what Gent would touch a Maid this way, either? I didn’t really know how a Gent would feel, caressing me like this. I didn’t know how any man would feel trailing a finger tenderly over my sensitive skin. I’d been touched before, but not like this. Not with reverence, desire, and respect all at once.

  Would it hurt if he touched my scars? I hid a cringe at the thought. I didn’t want to find out.

  Jacked clicked his tongue. “Incredible.”

  “What’s incredible?” My voice came out with a breathiness I didn’t expect.

  His jade eyes met mine, and he blinked at my confusion. “You. Vespers. I’ve never had the opportunity to really look at a Maid up close like this, you know? You all keep your distance a lot more than the Gents. Not that they ever come over for a drink after work, but they’re always hovering around, being spooky and shit.”

  I almost laughed, but pulled my hand back. “We don’t do this.”

  “We?”

  “Vespers. We don’t… do things like this.”

  “You don’t touch each other? Or humans?”

  I shook my head, and the sound of my thick heartbeat, pumping viscous blood through my body, hollowed at the truth of that spoken out loud. No, we didn’t do this. Not unless we wanted to get caught, punished, and killed. I knew that all too well. And two people didn’t touch in an affectionate way like this unless they intended something more than acquaintance. Something bigger. I shivered.

  Jack hummed as I trembled and reached forward again, touching my arm. He slid his fingers all the way up to my shoulder, watching his tan hand glide along my fairer skin. My breath drew in ragged as he stroked me, as though touching a priceless antique. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t like it, right?”

  I swallowed and wanted to lie, but couldn’t find any words. His hand reached my shoulder and he hesitated for a moment, but then cupped my chin and pulled my gaze to meet his.

  His light jade eyes searched mine. “If you like touch so much, why don’t you do it more often?”

  I knew I should flinch away from his hand. I had been without touch for so long, save for my sister’s torture and my Lady’s occasional affectionate contact. It wasn’t the same as this. It wasn’t warm or inviting, like this. My voice was rough with something foreign, unknown, slipping through my body like hot oil. Touch. “Physical intimacy has nothing to do with procreation for us.”

  He tilted his head to peek at my fangs. “You drain blood and fill the body with poison to make other Vespers, right?”

  “Right,” I whispered.

  Jack grimaced at the pain in his injured bicep as he slipped his hands on either side of my face, cupping my face for a moment. I leaned into his warmth, but he let go too soon and slid his fingertips up and down my arms, stroking me. “So you were human, once.”

  I nodded. I had been human, once. Breakable, like Jack. And intimacy had hurt me. But I wasn’t human anymore, yet Jack’s caress woke up a sensitivity in my heart I’d never felt before. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognized how wrong this was… but this heat licking through my body… I wanted more of it, more than I wanted to feed, more than I craved darkness. There was no way this man could hurt me, with the strength I possessed as an immortal. And this desire had been suppressed for so long it coursed through me with undeniable potency.

  Jack pulled me back to his bed and sat down. I hesitated, so he tugged on my fingers and I climbed into his bed, sitting astride him once more as he lay back, my body alight with something so foreign I almost felt like I was operating a shell that wasn’t my own. A shell that felt good, for once, liquid heat moving through me, melting my fears and smoothing out the sharp ridges of rage in my soul.

  The ethical screaming in my head dwindled behind the sound of Jack’s breathing and heart, the life force that made him so tempting to my hungers in every terrible way.

  Jack’s hands fit around my hips just right and I leaned down again, my mouth above his. He stretched to kiss me, and I pulled back, but just a touch.

  “Careful,” I said, cautious of my anaesthetic venom.

  Jack chuckled, his voice so low and rough with the growl of arousal that I nearly lost my breath. “Oh, trust me, I want to be alert and coherent for this.”

  I kept my lips tightly closed as I closed that final gap and let him kiss me.

  And holy crap, did he kiss me.

  His mouth moved on mine at a desperate pace, and he licked my lips, tugged on them, and it was all I could do to keep my own tongue at bay, the heat of his mouth lighting me on fire even stronger than before. He pulled on my hips and pressed up, and I felt a ridge between us, harder than most parts of the human body, but still softer than my steel body. I closed my eyes as he kissed me, wanting to feel without the distraction of sight, a soul-deep need burning away my hesitation. He pressed up on me again, rubbing front to back, sending zaps of electricity through my core. I let out a whimper and dropped my head to the crook of his neck, inhaling his smell, the mix of man and blood, satisfaction in all possible forms, enticing my urges. I clamped my jaw shut to protect his life, and he moved harder, grinding along the most sensitive part of me, a part too long ignored. The barrier of our clothing did little to protect me from the warmth of his flesh, and the hotter he grew the more I melted into his embrace, fearless of the things he was doing to my body. He hardened even more between us when I shuddered at a sensation that rippled through my body like savage ocean waves.

  I moaned and he locked his arms around my lower back, pulling on me harder, panting, the heat of his body liquefying me from the inside out, and then the energy burning in my body swelled to the tips of my toes and the ends of my hair. It rolled through me like thunder that peaked with a flash of lightning, and I exploded, convulsing against him, shrieking with ecstasy, clenching the mattress so hard my fingertips tore through to springs. That heat swirled and pulsed inside me, throbbing tenderly down low, and I swallowed hard, shaking, trying to find my breath.

  “There,” Jack crooned into my hair. “That’s what you needed.”

  Oh my, was that ever what I needed. What had I just done? With a human! A meager meal, an inconsequential mortal… how could a human make me feel that way? I pushed myself up and stared at Jack in shock.

  We hadn’t even connected, and he’d dropped me off a cliff and caught me as I fell all at once, all with his body.

  “Oh, God, what did I do?” I whispered, casting about, my breath hitched with panic.

  “Nothing wrong,” Jack whispered back, reaching up to stroke my hair back from my forehead as I vibrated with fear, or recovery, or oh, no...

  “No!” I shrieked. “No, that was so wrong, a sin. I’m so sorry…” I was still throbbing from the pressure of his hardness through his pants, still quivering…

  Jack grabbed my face with both hands and made me look at him. “Hey! Stop it. You liked it, right?”

  I grabbed my twisted, black hair in my fists and tried to gather my thoughts, which had scattered out of my brain like cockroaches in the light.

  “Three. You liked what I did to you. You needed it. And so did I. How can it be a sin for two people to touch each other this way, if it’s what we both need and want?”

  I blinked and focused on his face, his creased eyebrows and narrow jade gaze, his expres
sion of desperation, desire, and… fear?

  “I needed it,” I whispered, my voice so shocked it sounded miles away.

  Jack let out his breath with relief. “Fuck me, I thought you were going to run out into the sun to get away from here.”

  The thought crossed my mind when I realized what we’d done. A sin like this would not be overlooked by my Lady or Levitiqas, if anyone found out. I licked my lips, tasting Jack upon them in the way I couldn’t dare to taste him directly, without risking his consciousness. A moan escaped my lips at the taste. “I don’t want to get away from you.”

  Jack grinned, and reached up to slide his fingers into my steel-strength hair, stroking the veins at my temples, heated skin soothing my confused brain. He was so hot, in so many ways.

  “Lie down with me,” Jack said.

  I nodded and the drowsiness of daytime pressed forth in my mind, dragging me down. Though a human shouldn’t dare to command a Vesper, just as I shouldn’t dare to let him touch me this way, I didn’t object. I didn’t punish him for ordering me to lie down. I rested my palms on Jack, feeling the thump of his heart beneath my fingers, the thickness of his exerted muscles as his chest rose and fell.

  “Don’t be mad at me,” Jack pleaded, stroking my cheeks.

  I shook my head. “I’m not mad at you. I just… I didn’t know…” What could I say? That I didn’t know a human man could have a sexual effect on a Vesper?

  That I didn’t know I could still be a sexual being at all, and I thought those parts of my body and soul were long dead, left in rust with my creator’s demise?

  Jack didn’t ask any questions, nor demand any answers. “Lie down,” he repeated, and I shifted off him, collapsing against him, his arm beneath my head. I panted, my palm pressed to my pounding heart. What would the repercussions for my actions be? Jack brushed my hair back again, and I met his eyes.

  He stared at me with a grin… not a smug grin, but one of adoration, his light blue eyes almost glowing, as he traced the black veins of my temples with a fingertip, following the pattern from the bridge of my nose over my brow and temple, and then down my jaw and neck. He stopped before he reached my chest and met my eyes. “You’re so delicate,” he said.