Not If You Were the Last Vampire on Earth

by Cara Coe

  My own hands were just as desperate. I clutched the sides of his shirt. My mouth moved with his. His kiss was passionate and needful, opening my mouth and craving more. The taste of him set my heart on fire. It pounded with a wonderfully painful beat.

  He pulled away to look at me. His hand massaged the back of my neck and his eyes bore into mine. “I’m sorry, you were about to say something before I interrupted you.”

  “Alex, I love you.”

  He stilled and pulled away like I’d taken a five iron to his stomach. His hand rubbed his chest absently as he looked at me with bewilderment.

  I looked down at the floor between us. It hadn’t been what I came here to say. I had come to apologize. To make amends. To set things back to the way they were before. But when he kissed me, he awakened the truth that had been dwelling inside me and when that kind of truth rises to the surface it’s impossible to contain it.

  Now I wish I had contained it. He still hadn’t spoken. And why should he? First I insulted him, his species, condemned his very existence. And then in the next moment I’m professing my love? I was never good at velvet roping my thoughts before they entered my mouth and Alex was getting the full effect of my roller coaster of emotions.

  “Okay. So, too much too soon? I’m sorry. No, I’m not sorry. I feel what I feel and that’s not changing. I’m just sorry I’m giving you the blow-by-blow on my emotions instead of allowing you time to process one before I hit you with the next.”

  “Shut up,” he said, shaking his head. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. Just stop talking.”

  Alex moved closer to me, pulling me into a tight hug and kissing my temple. His voice was next to my ear. “I am so in love with you. I have been since listening to your wacky stories on the phone. Since before I ever laid eyes on you. So let’s just shut up and stay with this emotion for a sec, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said into his shirt. Then in the same muffled voice I added, “You kissed me.”

  “Yes. Because you’re beautiful. And you’re you. And I spent the last hour in agony because I thought I was about to lose you and there was nothing I could do to change it. So when I saw you standing here…yes, I lost all the control I’ve been so carefully practicing.”

  My hands moved under his shirt and pressed into his back. I loved the feel of his skin. I loved his voice in my ear. I loved his patience – the excruciating patience he exercised while I opened up to him at my own pace. But most of all, I loved his loss of it. I sighed softly into his chest. “Lose it again.”

  My words elicited something between a growl and a moan from him. His mouth found mine again I pressed into him. His contact was the only the thing that could quell this fevered want in me and I was quickly realizing it still wasn’t enough.

  My fingers made quick work of the buttons on his shirt and we broke apart only long enough to lift my tank top off of me. Out of breath, he moved away from me and held me at arm’s length.

  “What I need is several floors up. Do. Not. Move.”

  I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing as he dashed from the office shirtless. I took the time to poke around in this side office while he was gone. It was clear this is where he holed away when he went into one of those research binges he told me about. Twinkie wrappers filled a nearby trash can and there was a hospital bed that had been rolled down here with a single blue blanket neatly folded on it.

  Notes littered the top of the desk. I picked through a couple of them: observations and data from his experiments. On most of the papers, his handwriting was neat and crisp. Some of the ink on others was heavy and his short lines dragged between words. He was angry. His experiments kept failing and the frustration bled into his notes.

  I opened the top drawer of the desk and saw a picture of a smiling young woman. She was beautiful with her dark hair and matching eyes. They came to life in the photograph as if she were sharing a secret with the photographer. The way it was carefully tucked in the drawer, like it was opened when he needed a reminder of better times or a shot of love in the arm, told me she was important to him. More than important. She was what kept him sane.

  His body was suddenly behind mine, wrapping me in his long arms. He stared down over my shoulder at the picture.

  “Kisa,” he said. “My sister.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  “I miss her like you miss your dad.”

  My throat constricted with tears. There was no better way to understand him in that moment what his twin had meant to him. We shared a mirrored loss.

  I turned to him and brought him back to me. We kissed like The Sweep was still haunting us, waiting to claim us tomorrow. Like I’d spent the last four years waiting to kiss him.

  My legs wrapped around his waist and he carried me to the bed.

  “I have to be careful,” he said as he lowered me onto it. I pulled at him to climb on top of me and he obliged but he hung over me, hesitant. My hips moved with need.

  “I don’t want to be careful,” was my answer.

  He smiled and trailed a few kisses down my collarbone sending shivers of desire down my body. “A vampire’s fangs tend to come out in…heated situations.”

  My fingertips stroked his jaw line. His eyes hooded at my touch. “Let me see,” I whispered.

  His eyes met mine doubtfully for a brief moment but then in a flash, his incisors became sharp points that rested lightly on his lower lip.

  I sucked in a sharp breath. He began to draw away, but my fingers moved from his chin to his mouth. They ran lightly over his lips and brushed over his fangs. What horrified me only hours ago now finished Alex completely. The creamy glow of his skin, his strong jaw, the way his eyes searched mine at this moment for acceptance. The fangs looked right. I leaned up and kissed him gently. His arms circled around me and crushed me to him.

  “Tasha,” he whispered. The fangs retracted and his tongue pushed into my mouth. In a fevered rush, we shed the last of the barriers our clothing so inconveniently provided and he took a few moments to open the package he ran upstairs for before lowering himself onto me.

  When he pushed in, I tightened and clutched his shoulder. The feeling was so foreign. He instantly stopped but I moved my hips a little to encourage him on. He did, more gently. He rocked slowly, giving me only some of him while my body relaxed, melting around him.

  As his thrusts deepened, the pain was washed away with waves of pleasure. His skin was heated against mine. When his fangs popped out again, he closed his eyes and turned his head but I took his face in both my hands. He opened his eyes and looked at me. My gaze didn’t waver. This is who he was. I loved who he was. He must have read this in my look because his own eyes darkened and I clearly saw his raw passion for me in them.

  His pace quickened and he filled me completely with his movements. Our eyes never left each other and the look we shared grew more intense.

  My breath started coming in short bursts. Heat rose up inside of me and pooled below my waist. It came crashing down in a splash of ecstasy that caused my thighs to squeeze him and my hips to bear down onto his thrust. As I did so, his fingers gripped my lower back and his body pressed into mine then shuddered.

  We lied tangled on the hospital bed and breathing heavily. His fangs were gone. It was silent as we recovered. It was my second time having sex but this experience made my first time seem like a cheap make out session. Being with Alex filled my chest with a burning joy that stoked my orgasm and brought a fullness that I could never get on my own.

  I watched him as his body came down from it, lying next to him and really taking in the sight of him with no clothing. Being this close to him and not in heat, I could finally appreciate his body and it was fascinating me. Now that I was satiated, I had time to explore. I began tracing lines on his abdomen. A rock of muscles met my fingertips.

  “I’ve been revealing things to you in pieces, easing you into it,” Alex said as he watched my hands move up to his chest. “And it nearly cost me everything when yo
u got upset. So I want to tell you all of it. Everything you need to know.”

  I stretched up slowly and kissed him. I was still in an afterglow and in no mood for a heavy discussion.

  “Later,” I sighed, closing my eyes. “I don’t have the energy to go another fighting round with you. You took all my energy ten minutes ago.”

  He kissed me behind my ear. “Yeah, this is not where I thought we’d end up,” he said.

  I turned and nestled into his shoulder. A contented tiredness settled over me. “Sleep with me.”

  His laugh was light. “I just did.”

  I looked up so he could see my grin. “Cheeky bastard.”

  “That I am,” he said. His free hand gestured to the shoulder my head claimed. “Every night. This is your spot. It’s yours every time you sleep.”

  “Make it official. I want a tattoo that reads This Shoulder Property of Tasha Owens.”

  “Yes, ma’am. The second we come across a tattooist, it’s a done deal.”

  I scrunched my nose up at him and he kissed it and for the first time in a long time, I felt whole.

  “Owens, huh?” he asked.

  My lips pulled down in a slight frown. Oh, yeah. We covered everything from books to childhood games to philosophy but we forgot to divulge our last names.

  “Yes. Tasha Owens, no middle name.”

  He stuck his hand out for a handshake. “Alexander Walter Kim. It’s a pleasure.”

  I made a face as I shook it. “I can’t believe I slept with you without knowing your last name.”

  “Slut.”

  “I promise I never do that.”

  “They all say that.”

  “You didn’t even buy me a drink first.”

  “Water counts.”

  “You didn’t buy that!”

  “It was in the vending machine.”

  “Yeah, with a gaping hole which you stuck your grubby hand through.”

  “Details, details.”

  I sighed contentedly. “I haven’t been this happy since The Before.”

  Alex’s fingers traced light patterns on my shoulder.

  “What does ‘this happy’ feel like?” he asked in my ear softly.

  “Like tiny soda bubbles bubbling in my body and tickling my stomach and making my head light. Like everything is heightened. All my senses are firing at once. Even the air tastes sweeter. Like I could laugh at nothing right now except you keep giving me viable material so I can hide my crazy grin behind your jokes instead of looking like a weird, smiling idiot. That kind of happy.”

  I felt his fingers freeze as my speech went on but then they started up again, stroking my shoulder in light caresses and dragging me from tired to barely awake.

  “I see,” he said. Through his chest, I could feel his heart pounding a little harder. Faster. “So, in other words, you’re almost as happy as I am.”

  “Mmmmmm,” I murmured sleepily.

  I think he said something else, but it was all very fuzzy. The feel of his hands on me lulled me down into a deep, easy sleep.

  Chapter 28

  Her

  “Get over to the other side you little shit!” I yelled. “I swear to God, if you don’t start cooperating I’m going to pound you into next summer!”

  The tennis ball I was screaming at ignored me as it bounced pitifully into the net.

  “Game!” Alex called, grinning. He jogged to the center of the court to swig some water. He didn’t even need the water. For some reason, it was like adding insult to my loss. I grunted my dissatisfaction and joined him, gulping my own water and wiping my arm across my mouth to catch the drips.

  “I’ve got the crappiest backhand ever,” I complained.

  “I’d say it’s not half bad considering you had no backhand an hour ago.” He wiggled his eyebrows then gave me a quick kiss. “Again or are we done?”

  I used my racket to point to the side of the court. “Those bleachers look awesome.”

  He laughed. “Okay. Done, then.”

  He followed me to the metal stair steps and lowered himself beside me after I picked a spot. I leaned back, letting my elbows rest on the seat behind me.

  “My sister and I used to go for hours playing matches,” Alex said after a few moments of us watching the sun dip lower in the sky. Early evening light washed over the tennis courts in the upper scale neighborhood of River Oaks. “We’d hit the tennis court for anything. If one of us was mad and needed to physically work out our anger. If we needed to settle a dispute. Or just to get outside and move if we got house crazy.” He sighed at the memories and I smiled at him. I liked it when he shared these kinds of stories. “Thank you,” he said, nudging my thigh with his knee. “I’ve been wanting to play tennis again for so long.”

  I twirled my racket in one hand, giving him my best no-nonsense look. “We’ll see if that’s still your sentiment after I master this game – ow!”

  I rubbed the side of my head in mock anger where Alex bounced the tennis ball off it. He smirked at me.

  “Slipped.”

  I went to punch him in the shoulder, but he was quicker than me. He caught my swinging fist and pulled me to him, mollifying my efforts at retaliation with a deep kiss. My swinging arm went limp, forgetting its purpose as I lost myself in it. When he pulled away, I studied his eyes for a moment.

  “You know, if we were in The Before, we would never be together. People would look down on it,” I commented.

  “Why, because you’re black and I’m Asian? Racist.”

  “How about we go with because you’re a vamp and I’m a human and we’d both get killed over it?”

  “Species-ist.”

  I let out a small laugh that he cut off with another kiss. I pushed up off the bench and swung myself around so I was straddling him. I leaned forward, placing my head on his chest as he reclined on the bleachers. He kept one elbow on the step behind him and the other hand rubbed my back.

  “Did you know of other human-vamp relationships?”

  I felt Alex nod. “I came across one or two couples. Not too often. It’s hard coming out in the vamp community, so if there were more they kept it a secret.”

  I popped up and looked at him quizzically. “You mean gay vamps?”

  “Some were gay. But that doesn’t matter, vamps don’t care about that. But humans are another thing. Being with a human is looked down upon in our species also.” He laughed. “Coming out is a phrase vampires and vamps were using way before it caught on in the gay community.”

  “Why do vamps look down on it?”

  Alex crinkled his eyebrows. “Despite what humans think, all vamps don’t pine to be human. Some of us had our struggles,” he added and pain flicked across his face. “But the vampire community is a proud one. Interspecies dating was not widely accepted.”

  “So have you been with a lot of vamps?”

  “Four.”

  I nodded. “And…have you…um, how many…” My face felt flushed as I tried to spit out my question. Alex smiled and brushed a strand of hair off of my forehead.

  “One. I’ve been with one human,” he answered my unspoken question.

  The sky was getting dark around us and my dogs were still back at the hospital (I knew without a doubt at least one of them would chase down the tennis ball and ruin our game if we brought them) so we collected our gear and headed for the truck.

  “So did you find a house to paint in today?” he asked as we pulled away from the courts.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Where did you go this time?”

  “Oh, just a little north of the city,” I answered vaguely. I actually spent many hours on the occupants I painted today. It was the longest and hardest project I’d done thus far. Alex didn’t know this, but while exploring his room out of boredom last week, I found a journal that belonged to his mother. The pages were faded a deep yellow and inside the cover was an address. I’ve been to that house every day for five days, soaking in his childhood and teenage years
. Learning about his mom and sister and even, to some small extent, his father. His mother kept a handful of mementos of him.

  Today I painted his mom and sister. Alex and his father are in there too, peripherally. But I focused on them because Alex focuses on them when he talks about The Before. His birthday is in five weeks and this is the present I have planned for him. I left it in the home like I would any other painting. I’m still debating on whether to retrieve it for his birthday or take him there. I’ll have to gauge that judgment when it draws closer. I don’t know if that house holds memories or pain for him.

  “I really want to know that side of you,” he was saying as we drove. “One day I would love to see one of your paintings.”

  “And you will. I will break my rule and return to a house I painted so you can see it. I promise.”

  “Okay,” he said appeased and I smiled to myself.

  Chapter 29

  Him

  Left, left, kick, turn, right. Arms, arms, turn, grab her hips and swipe right, swipe left, swipe right again, let go, turn – “ow!”

  Tasha’s elbow clocked me in the nose. I rubbed it half-angry, half-amused at the sheepish apology scrunching her face. “I thought it was turn, then arms again,” I accused with less force as the pain ebbed.

  “You’re right, you’re right,” she agreed. “I got tripped up. Again?”

  I nodded. “From the top.”

  I walked over to the iPod. It sat on a chair in front of the mirror-covered wall we were using in the physical therapy room of the hospital to track our movements. I pushed the back button to reset the song.

  “Here I go, here I go, here I go again, girls what’s my weakness? –MEN! – Okay, then. Chillin’, chillin’, mindin’ my business. Yo, Salt I looked around and I couldn’t believe it.”

  We went through the moves again, this time turning like we’re supposed to after the third swipe. During the running man, I snuck a look at her. Her face was beaming as she executed our third rate choreography to Salt ‘n Peppa’s Shoop.