“No,” I moaned and tried to detangle myself from his arms. Either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t want to listen, because he kept hanging on to me, his lips trailing down to the sensitive skin of my collarbone.
“Peter! No!”
When I pushed at him, he let go of me, but I wasn’t entirely stable on my feet so I stumbled backwards. In the mess of kissing him, my hair had somehow managed to come from free from its messy bun, and it fell around my face, blocking my already blurred vision. The hunger and the intensity of kissing Peter had left me feeling dizzy and strange. It was almost like being drunk. I was weak, and my eyesight was wrong. Everything had this hazy red edge to it, but that was from the bloodlust.
“I can’t do that,” I shook my head and my voice came out weak.
“I’m sorry.” Peter was trying to catch his breath, but he wouldn’t look at me. I was still barely fighting the urge to pounce on him again, and I think he was struggling just as badly. To avoid temptation, he turned and walked out on the balcony.
When he was gone, I grabbed onto the bed to keep from collapsing. The actual passion of the moment was fading away, but the bloodlust refused. If I didn’t eat something soon, I would go mad and slaughter something. There was a dark animal part of me that was threatening to surface, and I had to contain it.
“Milo!” I shouted and stumbled out into the hallway. I couldn’t take care of this on my own.
In the movies when they show a human fighting to turn into a werewolf, that’s exactly how I felt.
My stomach lurched and growled, and my body burned. “Milo!”
“What’s going on?” Milo came out of his bedroom, and I wanted to bite him. Thankfully, Bobby didn’t follow out after him, because I’m not sure that I could’ve refused him. “Oh my god!
Alice!”
“I need to eat! Now!” I fell to my knees on the ground, holding my stomach tightly. My vision was blurring even harder than it had before, and I could smell Bobby on Milo, making my mouth water. I was on the brink of blacking out, and it scared the hell out of me.
“Oh, hell! Okay! Hang on, Alice!” Milo put his arm around my waist, which really wasn’t the wisest move in the world. His throat was completely exposed to me, and I was seriously contemplating tearing it out.
I just closed my eyes and let him lead me downstairs, trying not to think of anything. The pain was overwhelming, and I moved stiffly, like a zombie. The journey seemed to take forever, but I don’t even really remember moving. The next thing I knew, I was in front of the fridge and Milo was handing me a bag, promising everything would be okay. It wasn’t until I felt blood running cold down my throat, and that wonderful searing heat spread over me, that I truly believed him. Drinking felt good, but it wasn’t like it normally was. Instead of being real pleasure, it was more just the absence of pain. I swallowed several bags in a very short amount of time, but I don’t remember much after that. Almost the instant my thirst was quenched, I passed out.
To make matters worse, I woke up in Jack’s bed to find him sitting next to me, looking at me with concern and adoration. I had just kissed his brother, and he was making sure that I was okay.
Admittedly, he didn’t know that I had kissed Peter, but that made it worse somehow. And better, too.
Because if he did know, there was a very good chance that he’d never want to talk to me again, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that.
Once I assured Jack that I was okay, I insisted that I needed to take a long hot shower. He tried to kiss me, but I managed to avoid it without raising too much suspicion. He’d almost certainly be able to taste Peter on me, and the whole point of this was that he didn’t find out about that.
The hot shower didn’t really fix things, although it did give me a chance to think. Why had I kissed Peter? Being so hungry had left me more vulnerable and weak, but I had only kissed him, not bitten me. I really wanted to kiss Peter, and even when I thought of it now, the way his lips felt against mine, I wanted to kiss him still. My skin flushed warm, and I turned the faucet so the water was even colder.
Of course, I could never kiss Peter again. Nobody could ever even find out about that. I loved Jack, and I do mean really and truly loved him. Whatever I felt for Peter had to be some kind of residuals from the bonding and nothing more. It was related to bloodlust in that my body wanted things that I didn’t actually want, like when I was crazed and wanted to drink Milo’s blood or Bobby’s or anybody’s ever. It wasn’t the same as actually like Peter or wanting to be with him. I didn’t have any real feelings for him at all… did I? I mean, I couldn’t. Not when I loved Jack and I had done so much to free myself from Peter.
This was everything that I wanted… wasn’t it?
I’m sure I was still acting strange and distant, but fortunately, my earlier freak out over starving explained everything, and I was still really freaked out by that. Losing that much control was terrifying. On top of that, I had just cheated on Jack, and I had never really cheated on anyone before.
Sure, I had been kind of going between the two of them pretty much since I met them, but I had never officially been with either of them.
When I came out of the bathroom, the TV was turned on to Shark Week, and I don’t know if Jack was trying to be ironic or not. Sharks were known to go into frenzy when they smelled blood, and apparently, so was I. Jack wasn’t really watching it, anyway. Standing in front of a mirror on the side of the room, he had on Dickies shorts, skater socks, and a white dress shirt with a black tie around it. He was staring intently at the tie, struggling to knot it properly, but glancing back at the TV every time the music got dramatic.
“Hey, how you feeling?” Jack didn’t turn all the way around when I came out of the bathroom, but he looked at me with concern and a lopsided smile.
“Much better.” I forced a bright smile at him and walked over to him. I had put on my comfy pants and one of his tee shirts, as was my usual bedtime outfit. The sky would start to lighten soon, which meant that even though I had slept most of the night away, I would be getting tired again pretty quickly. My hair hung damp on my back since I had only towel dried it, but I liked how it felt on my skin.
“You look better. Showers are the answer for everything,” he grinned, then turned back to staring at himself in the mirror. He had never been one for vanity, so I assumed he had a reason for staring at himself playing with a tie.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Trying to a tie.” His expression was in deep concentration, even though I knew he was half-listening to the TV too. He would never miss a shark attack. “Ezra usually ties them for me, and he’s getting sick of it.”
“Any luck?” I teased. It was pretty obvious from the irritated way that he was pulling at the tie and how terrible the knot looked that it was not going well.
“Never.” He looked tiredly at his reflection. “You know, vampires are supposed to be smarter and more talented and all that stuff. Can you imagine how badly I’d tie one of these if I was still mortal?” I stifled at laugh at his lack of skills, and he looked at me hopefully. “Do you know how to tie one?”
“Nope,” I shook my head. “I never had any need to tie one, and Milo always knew how.
You could always hit him up. I’m sure he’d be glad to help.”
“Maybe. But I think the point of this is that I learn how to do it myself.” He undid the mess he made of it, preparing to start over from scratch, but the music on the TV got very loud and ominous, so he turned back to watch it. On screen, a shark was tearing into some kind of animal carcass the camera crew had dropped in the water. The narrator was saying all kinds of things about perfectly the shark’s teeth were for completely eviscerating flesh and bone. “Holy cow! Do you see that?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty intense,” I admitted. While I hated it when they showed sharks attacking things like seals or whales (although, strangely, I never minded watching sharks bite people), I did think there was something beautiful and aw
e inspiring about the power and grace of sharks. Maybe it was just because I was viewing them as one predator to another, and I appreciated it when I saw good work.
“You know, sharks are the only natural enemy vampires have,” Jack said, his eyes still locked on the television screen.
“Yeah, Ezra told me that,” I nodded. “But I don’t know if they’re really a ‘natural’ enemy. I mean, how many vampires live in the water?”
“That’s true.” The attack footage head ended, and it was just sharks swimming about the ocean, not hurting anyway, but Jack was still watching it. “If you stripped away any humanity or real consciousness from us, that’s what we’d be. They’re just pure muscle and perfectly designed killing machines. Of course, they have more teeth than us, so they’re much better at it.” The show went to commercial, and he gave me an easy smile before going to back to the business with his tie.
“You really like sharks?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. We’d watched Jaws four times last summer, and he’d even made me the sequel that was supposed to be in 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge because (and I quote) “this time it’s personal.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Let’s go to the zoo tomorrow!” I suggested. “They have sharks and stuff there, and it’s down in the aquarium part so we don’t have to worry about the sun. It won’t be super exciting, but it’d be nice to get out of the house for awhile.”
“Yeah, sure. That sounds good,” he smiled at me.
His smile was so wonderful, and I just felt this painful tug inside of me. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his chest, resting my head on his back between his shoulders blades, and just hugged him. I had never been very much for hugs, but suddenly, I just wanted to be close to him.
“What’s that for?” Jack had stopped with his tie and put his arms over mine, and he sounded a little concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just miss you, that’s all.” I did miss him, a lot, and I had a bit of guilt thrown on top of that, but he couldn’t know about that. “I feel like we haven’t spent any time together lately.”
“We just watched an entire season of Futurama together last night!” Jack laughed, and I could hear it vibrating through his back. Delighted shivers ran through me, and I squeezed him tighter to me. He loosened my arms and turned so he could face me. “But I guess I can never really spend enough time with you.” He kissed me softly, and my heart swelled happily. Of course, I couldn’t completely enjoy the moment, because I couldn’t help but think about Peter’s kiss, and how different it felt. Jack must’ve felt it because he pulled away and looked at me, his blue eyes filled with worry. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I lowered my eyes. “I’m just a little shaken up from today.”
“You’ll get the hang of it. It just takes time,” Jack assured me. His concern made me feel even guiltier, so I walked back away from him and sat on the bed. The distance helped some.
“How come Milo got the hang of it so quickly?” I asked.
“It just depends on the person, I guess,” Jack shrugged and turned back to the mirror. “It took me way, way longer than it took him, but I’m a slower learner, apparently.”
Jack kept practicing his knots, and while he eventually managed something that looked semiprofessional, he never got it down the way he would’ve liked. I sat on the bed, watching Shark Week and chatting with him, but the night seemed to end too quickly. I was not ready for him to go when he started yawning, but he’d insist he’d seem very soon, when we went to the zoo.
Even though I’d just eaten, I made sure to eat again before I went to bed. If I was going to spend the afternoon people, I wanted to be prepared. I was randomly really excited about going to the zoo, so I woke up early and got ready. Jack got up around the same time as I did, so he got ready in the downstairs bathroom.
He came up to check on me just as I was pulling on my shoes.
“Ready?” Jack grinned at me.
“Always. Are you sure you are?” I eyed up his outfit, which was his standard uniform.
Shorts, twotoned neon Converse, and a Boba Fett tee shirt.
“What’s wrong with this?” Jack glanced down at his clothes.
“Nothing, except it’s the end of October, and it’s like fifty degrees and we’re going to be outside. Plus, the sun is out,” I explained. I had chosen jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a fashionable scarf that I had looked around my neck. Even though we enjoyed the cold, people didn’t, and we were supposed to look like people.
“I’ll be fine, and it’s not that cold,” Jack shrugged. “Come on. Let’s go. I wanna see the otters before it gets too dark.”
The sun wouldn’t be out for much longer, but I couldn’t stand being in it for that long anyhow. But if we were going to the zoo, there were a few animals that Jack wanted to see while we had the chance. He was telling me about how he refused to compromise on the prairie dogs as we descended the stairs, but then I saw Peter and completely tuned out. My heart probably completely stopped beating, so Jack stopped talking and looked at me.
It might seem pretty weird that I lived in the same house as Peter, directly across the hall, but I had managed to avoid seeing him since we kissed. The reason for that is that I hadn’t left Jack’s room. I had been purposely avoiding Peter, and that was part of my reasoning behind the zoo trip too.
Unfortunately, when we descended the steps into the living room, Peter happened to be standing right there. He wasn’t looking at us, but my initial reaction was to panic anyway.
“Something wrong?” Jack asked, touching my arm.
“No, I’m fine,” I shook my head and hurriedly pushed my feelings away.
Ezra was hanging a new giant flat screen TV on the wall, and Peter and Bobby were supervising in some way. I’m not sure what was wrong with the old flatscreen, although I would lean towards nothing. Peter stood a few feet back from where Ezra was holding the TV up, and Bobby was sprawled out on the couch, popping some of the bubble-wrap that had come with the new television. The cardboard box was on the floor by his feet, along with the “old” TV.
“What’s going on?” I asked, even though I didn’t really want to say anything. I wanted to rush out of the room before Peter had a chance to look at me or Jack, but that would be abnormal behavior for me.
Damn me and my irritating need to know everything all the time.
“Ezra bought a new TV,” Bobby answered, watching as Ezra handled a TV that would be too big and too heavy for any one man to deal with alone.
“Is it straight?” Ezra was still holding onto the bottom of it, but he took a bit of a step back to look at it. “It better be since I have all the wires hooked up already.”
“Yeah, it’s straight,” Peter said, and just hearing his voice my pulse change.
“What was wrong with the old TV?” I asked, trying to distract myself.
“Nothing.” Ezra stepped back further into the room so he could admire his handy work.
“Jack and I just went to Best Buy this morning, and this TV has way better technology than the last one.”
“You went to Best Buy?” I cocked an eyebrow at Jack. “How early did you get up?”
“Early enough,” Jack shrugged. “Ezra was going to the store and asked if I wanted to come with, and like I would pass up a trip to buy new electronics?”
“I don’t see how this TV is any different than the one we had before,” Peter said, echoing my thoughts exactly. “It isn’t even bigger, is it?”
“It’s not about being bigger!” Jack exclaimed and walked away from me, closer to the TV so he could explain all the merits of it. His lingo instantly got technical, which was silly since Peter probably knew less about technology than I did. Ezra and Jack were the ones that were obsessed with all things new and electric.
“It just looks like a television to me,” Peter replied dismally when Jack got done explaining how awesome said television was. Jack scoffe
d loudly, and this time, even Ezra started to defend his purchase. At that point, they were mostly talking to themselves, and Peter looked back at me. Just briefly, and I looked away almost instantly, but his eyes still caught me. It shouldn’t even be possible for eyes to be that green, and I shouldn’t be thinking about how stunningly attractive they were.
At least he was playing it cool far better than I was. If Jack and Ezra weren’t so damn excited about their new gadget, I’m sure they would’ve noticed how frazzled I was acting. When I looked away from Peter, he went over to them to pretend to be interested in it. Bobby was still sitting in the chair, swinging his feet off the edge, and he looked far more entertained by the bubble wrap than he did the TV. That’s when I realized that Milo was missing, which was strange, because he loved this kind of thing. He should be in here gushing all over this thing like everyone else.
“Where’s Milo?” I asked Bobby, since nobody else would listen to me unless I used the words “HD” or “plasma.”
“Helping Mae with the laundry,” Bobby answered absently and popped another bubble.
I was a little tempted to steal the bubble wrap from him, but I had my chance to escape, so I took it.
Jack wouldn’t be ready to go for at least another ten or fifteen minutes, and I’d rather spend that time waiting somewhere Peter wasn’t. It was going to be impossible for me to not be awkward around him, and it sure didn’t help things that Jack was trying to buddy up to him again. At least Jack was too distracted talking to him to notice me slipping away.
Down the hall, between the den and the main bathroom, there was a laundry room. They had two sets of super powered washers and dryers. They had just bought the second set about the time I moved in. There were seven people living in the house now, and that amounted to a lot of laundry. Mae almost always did all the laundry. I tried to do mine and Jack’s, or at the very least my own, but she somehow always got to it before I did. She was magic that way. The laundry room had several racks with hangers.
Most of Jack’s overflow clothes ended up down here so I took over his closet. His suits were hanging in plastic bags, all neatly pressed and dry cleaned by Mae, and they stayed down here to keep them from getting smooshed and wrinkled in our closet. The room was filled with clean scent of clothes, but I could still smell us on them, especially Jack. No matter how times they were washed, clothes managed to maintain some of their owner’s smell, and I tried to ignore how much his clothes made me miss him.
Flutter mba-3 Page 21
