As she watched, Ned filled the percolator with water from the tap and added coffee from one of the cabinets. He plugged it in and as it began to heat, he turned to Anne. “This is it.”
“It’s…basic,” she said. “Do I get the full tour?”
Ned shrugged. “If you want, sure.”
He opened the door to the tiny back porch, which doubled as his laundry room with a fairly new washer and dryer along one wall, shelves along the opposite side of the area.
Anne peeked into his bathroom, small but standard. He didn’t keep a lot of toiletries or items on the counter there either. Last, he led her into the two bedrooms, the back one he used for storage although he didn’t own much to store, then into his bedroom. A low king-sized bed took up most of one wall and faced a triple dresser. One tall bookcase held some of his favorite volumes. A single chest of drawers stood against the side windows. The door to the closet remained closed but if Ned opened it, Anne would see his garments hung in neat rows, his shoes and boots lined up with military precision. No dust catchers sat on tables anywhere in the house and no clutter took up space.
Anne walked back into the living room from the bedroom and shook her head with a tinkling laugh. “How long have you lived here?”
“Oh, I’ve been here quite a while.”
“It looks like you just moved in or something. I’ve seen apartments staged with more personal stuff than this.”
“I travel light,” Ned said from where he leaned against the bedroom door frame. He didn’t find it so strange because his people always had. “Is that a bad thing?”
Anne turned back and stepped closer to him. “No,” she told him. “It’s just different, but so are you.”
Ned knew he wasn’t prone to smiling but his lips stretched out wide. “Am I?”
“You know you are,” Anne said. She moved so close her full breasts, encased in his shirt, brushed his chest. Her scent blasted into his nose and filled it. The heat she radiated proved to be his undoing. As a cold natured creature, he craved her warmth and her proximity ignited an inner fire. Without thought for any consequences, because he longed to and needed to, Ned wrapped his arms around Anne and kissed her.
His cool mouth met her fevered lips with the force of two weather fronts creating a thunderstorm. She tasted of sunlight and honey and woman, a heady combination and he imbibed it, as willing for more as a drunkard offered good bourbon. Wild sensations rippled through him, so powerful and intense they made him shiver. Taking blood didn’t come anywhere close to this thrill. Her body heat spread over him and consumed him. Ned burned as he kissed deeper, harder with a hunger he’d repressed for far too long. He wanted more with a greed he didn’t know he owned and knew he wouldn’t stop.
Anne’s lips melted beneath his and she clung to him, tiny sounds of delight coming out from her mouth. Her hands locked behind his head and she clung tight. Ned raked a free hand through her wild hair and rammed his tongue into her mouth. She cried out with what he took to be pleasure. He returned to her mouth again. Then he pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat and put tiny butterfly kisses all over her neck. He didn’t use his fangs, not once. Ned let his tongue lick a trail between her breasts and when she moaned aloud, he lost any restraint.
He stripped her emerald blouse from her body with force and tossed it away. Ned ripped the lacy, fragile bit of lingerie she used as a bra off and buried his face in her full breasts. With his hands on her hips to keep her in place, he licked each of her nipples until they stood proud and pink. Beneath his touch her skin burned with a fever heat and he gloried in it. Aware of such, he heard her pulse beat frantic through her veins and listened to her soft words although he didn’t bother to hear what she said.
With one hand, he jerked his shirt off, the buttons scattering as if tossed by the wind god and then undid the zipper of her jeans. “Take them off,” he grunted. Anne jerked the pants down to her ankles, then kicked them off. Her panties vanished with the jeans and he seized her into his arms, lifting her from the floor.
Ned carried her the short distance to his bed and tossed her onto the quilt as he removed his pants. He wore nothing beneath them and once released, his cock stood hard and firm.
When he thrust two fingers into her pussy, Ned found her wet and willing. He inhaled the fragrance wafting from between her legs and grinned. Without any further caresses or finesse, he plunged his cock into her waiting space and filled it. Her heat seared him, burned him, and took him into the heart of her fire. Ned cried out as he sank as far into Anne as he could go. Pleasure seized his body with such completeness he didn’t think, just felt.
Ned drowned in sensation, his body tingling, nerves bursting with wild delight. He hadn’t felt this alive in so long and he forgot for the moment, he wasn’t a man but a creature of the night fueled by blood. When the tension mounted and every fiber of his physical being strained to climax, Ned devoured her with kisses. He rode her hard and fast like a stallion…he used her but never abused Anne. Even in his roughest caresses, he maintained enough control not to hurt or harm.
Judging by her reaction, the woman gloried in it. She writhed beneath him like a sidewinder in the desert, yipping the way coyotes sometimes did beneath a full moon. She bumped and ground her hips against his torso in the same rhythm and they moved together toward an explosive culmination. When they came, the world exploded in sensation and light, sweat and seed, darkness and delight. It was as close to life as he’d been in over a hundred years. She shrieked with the force of it but Ned shouted her down, his Comanche cries older than time. To another woman less schooled in his people, his outburst might’ve been frightening but Anne seemed to love it.
Scarlet flushed Anne’s face and throat as she cried out. As the red receded Ned flopped down beside her and propped up on one elbow. Anne wore a contented little smile he enjoyed. He’d forgotten he still wore the scalp feathers until she reached up to touch them. “I almost thought I was being ravished by a Comanche warrior,” she said in her rich voice.
You were, but I can’t tell you that. Aloud, he chuckled. “It might’ve been pretty close.”
This time she blushed. “I didn’t expect this,” she said. “But, Ned, I’m glad.”
“Me, too,” he replied but he almost called her on the lie. She wanted it, all but told him she would, but he wasn’t complaining.
“Wow,” Anne whispered as her fingers strayed to touch his cheeks, his nose, and his lips. “You’re one sexy Indian. I could make this a habit.”
So could Ned. He wanted to wallow in the boneless peace, the intimate moments after their wild joining. He longed to keep her, to have and hold her but he knew better. Anne represented something he couldn’t own or enjoy. He shut his eyes, swamped with regret he’d gone this far and flooded with sadness it’d end. Although he wanted to lie beside her, let his hands roam across her skin, make love to her again in a bit, he leaped up.
“Coffee’s ready,” he said as he groped in the closet for a fresh shirt. “I’ll go pour while you get dressed.”
Anne’s smile wilted and her face changed. Ned caught the faint glimmer of tears in her eyes and turned away. “Sure,” she said after a moment, her voice huskier than before. “If that’s what you want, let’s drink the fucking coffee.”
Each word struck him with the force of an enemy’s arrow and delivered hurt. Ned turned to her. “Anne,” he began then faltered. He stared at her for a long moment while she met his gaze without blinking. He wondered what to say and how to say it. Still fumbling, Ned continued, “You’re beautiful and what happened, it’s the best for me in longer than you could ever know. I’d like to do it again and again…”
Her smile returned, more radiant than ever. “Then let’s.”
He shook his head. “But you don’t really know me or what I am. I’d be trouble for you, Anne, and I don’t want to be a problem. I don’t want things to end badly and they would, sooner or later.”
“Spoken like a man who’s be
en burned,” Anne said softly. Ned had but not in any way she’d understand. “What we did here felt good. It is good.”
Ned nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Anne, naked as the day she’d been born, stood and faced him. “Then give it a chance, Ned. That’s all I’m asking.”
Every scrap of sense he possessed warned him to refuse but something in his soul caved. “All right, Anne,” he said with dignity.
She wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Skin to skin, the embrace almost undermined any effort to stay out of bed. As if she realized it, Anne stepped back after a few moments. “Go pour me a cup of coffee,” she said. “I take it black.”
Chapter Four
Ned padded into the kitchen on bare feet clad in fresh jeans and an unbuttoned shirt he’d pulled from the closet. He reached for two mugs and then glanced at the clock. Three fifteen in the morning seemed far too early to drink coffee. While he didn’t require sleep, Anne would. Too much caffeine and conversation might leave her wired and weary. Besides, if they talked until dawn and Ned kept his promise to lead her over the back roads to Lawton, she’d notice his extreme pallor. He hated questions and she’d have plenty. As he debated whether or not to pour some brew, Anne entered the room.
She wore one of his old flannel shirts over her clothes and flashed him a smile. Then she glanced at the empty cups and looked up at him with a question in her eyes. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted coffee now or not. If you want to sleep, it might keep you awake.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t sleep much.” Truth sometimes came easiest. “Coffee won’t bother me, so it’s up to you.”
A smile flickered around the edges of her mouth like heat lightning. “I’ve got all day Sunday to sleep if I want,” Anne said. “I’m up for coffee and we can talk.”
Ned liked to listen to her voice and he’d love to chat. He longed to know more about this woman and understand why someone like her possessed an interest in him. But personal conversations twanged his nerves tight because no matter what, he had to lie at some point. He could tweak the facts but someone sharp might notice the thin weave of his stories or the gaps in facts. Anne, he figured, would catch the discrepancies. He wanted to know her despite the risk so he nodded. “Sure.”
At his faux-marble topped Formica table Ned sat across from Anne and cradled his coffee cup in one hand. She blew on the surface of her drink to cool it and he noticed her lips were a little swollen, almost bruised from his kisses. The erotic effect on his cock made Ned glad the table hid his bulge. “So,” she said. “I told you I’m from Texas, from a little town called Rusk. What about you?”
“I’m from Texas, too,” Ned said. It wasn’t a complete falsehood. He’d been born and raised out in the Comancheria, now part of the Lone Star state. “I’m from south of Wichita Falls, Archer City.”
He wasn’t but Archer City was near enough to where he’d been whelped in Quahadi territory. Anne smiled. “Oh, I’ve been to Archer City. It’s Larry McMurtry, the author’s hometown and he has all those bookstores. Plus, it’s Thalia in some of his novels like The Last Picture Show.”
“That’s it.” Ned had visited the place too. He’d read McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove series because of the author’s depiction of Comanche life and Buffalo Hump. Ned read the other books too. He’d even thought about spending a few seasons there but decided the town was too small to fill his needs. He would stand out larger than life. “Some of my family’s lived here, on this property, though for years. My grandpa left it to me.”
If he’d learned anything, Ned knew how to separate the generations. Until about eight years ago, he’d lived in Kansas for a time as Eddie Big Eagle. Should Anne have doubts and checked, his story should hold. “You’re lucky,” she said. “It’s nice. Oh, it’s a small house but I bet you have an incredible view in the daylight.”
“Yeah, it’s all right.” Ned loved his land, the sole good thing in his cursed never-ending existence but he downplayed it now.
“What about your family?” she asked after a long sip of coffee. “Do your parents still live at Archer City?”
Ned shook his head. “No, they’re long gone. I’m the only one left out of my bunch.”
A sorrowful look darkened her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m from a huge family. My parents still live in Rusk, same house where I grew up. I’ve got two brothers and a sister, one living grandparent, and more aunts, uncles, and cousins than I can count. When I go home, there’s always a big get-together. If you don’t have anywhere to go for holidays, I’d love to take you back home with me sometime.”
Oh, sure. Ned knew her family would welcome a former Comanche warrior who killed, mutilated and raped along the Brazos in the 1800’s, one who also happened to be an undead vampire living on human blood. His consternation must’ve shown in his expression because Anne reached across the table to grasp his hand. “If you’re worried they wouldn’t want you around because you’re Comanche, don’t. We’re a mixed bunch, with all kinds of different nationalities, heritage, religions, and sexual preferences. We’ve got gays and Goths and Asians to Swedes. No one will judge if you come.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, then.” Ned forced a smile. All the major holidays were months away so it wouldn’t be an issue. Long before Thanksgiving, he and Anne would part ways. A twinge of regret shot through his body at the idea but he knew it had to be.
He tuned into her voice as she said, “So you’re a one and only? No siblings?”
He’d counted six brothers, once, and four sisters but Ned shook his head. “No, I had some but they’re gone too.” At her shocked expression, he realized he shouldn’t have mentioned them because now he’d need to think up a swift explanation. Before he had to lie about a collective car wreck, a fire at home, or some other such tragedy, he added, “It’s not something I want to talk about.”
She put down her cup and wrapped his free hand with both of hers. “I understand, Ned, but I’m sorry you lost them.”
Now seemed like a good time to shift the conversation away from his hard to explain past so he nodded. “Thanks. So where’d you go to school?”
“University of Texas at Austin,” Anne said. After a few moments she removed her hands and picked up her cup. “I was there for both college and grad school. I’ve been teaching at a little junior college back in Jacksonville, Texas but I took the chance to come here. I’m really filling in for a professor on sabbatical. After the year ends, there’s no guarantee I’ll keep the job, or that they’ll offer me tenure.”
She hadn’t been here all that long. That might be good or bad. “So if they do, you’d stay here?”
Anne nodded. “I’d love to. I like Lawton and the country around here is gorgeous. I feel like I’m in a Western movie or something.”
One more reason why he should back off and bow out, Ned thought. She liked the area, had a job she wanted and hoped to keep so she didn’t need the complications of his existence. “I bet you used to play cowboys and Indians, too,” he said in an effort to keep things light.
She grinned. “Oh, yeah, I did. But I always wanted to be the Indians.”
Ned laughed. “Me, too! Want some more coffee?”
“Please.”
They chatted about inconsequential things over two more cups and Ned watched Anne with something close to reverence. The sound of her voice soothed something within him, fed a hunger he hadn’t even been aware he had. After they’d finished the pot, an idea struck Ned, something he wanted to do during their brief time together. “What kind of shoes are you wearing?”
Anne thrust a Nike-enclosed foot from beneath the table. “Athletic shoes, why?”
“I thought if you’re up for it, I’d take you up on top of the closest mountain to watch the sunrise,” he said. “But not if you’re wearing sandals or something. Boots would be best but I think your shoes will do.”
“I’ve got boots in the trunk,” Anne said with a wide smile. “And I’d love it. Let me get them.
”
She returned wearing worn Western boots and toting a big purse. Ned watched as she whipped her wild locks into a tight ponytail and then coiled it on the back of her head. Anne secured it with a hair clip and grinned. “I’m ready as soon as I use the restroom.”
“It’s right there,” Ned replied. He hurried to pull on socks and his boots.
Although it remained dark, it wasn’t as absolute. Ned figured they had forty-five minutes or less before the first light of dawn illuminated the eastern horizon. He led Anne through the back door and headed for the edge of the yard where a narrow trail snaked into the brush.
“Don’t you need a flashlight?” she asked.
Ned shook his head. “No. If you can’t see, give me your hand. I won’t let you fall, I promise.”
Anne grasped his hand tight and asked, “What about snakes?”
“What about them?”
“Are there any?”
He heard the hesitation in her voice and beneath it, genuine concern. “I’m sure there are but they’re not looking to hurt you. You scared of snakes?”
In the gray light, she nodded. “I went hiking up at Black Mesa once and they warned hikers about the rattlesnakes, especially early in the morning. I’ve heard some people were bitten.”
Ned shrugged. “If so, they probably stuck their hands into the rocks or stepped somewhere they shouldn’t have. I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about, though. If you’d like to change your mind, it’s all right.”
“No, I want to do this.”
“Then let’s go.”
He moved along the narrow trace with agile grace, as sure-footed as any deer. The skill came naturally to Ned and although he couldn’t hear any noise he made, Anne’s feet scraped loose gravel. After the first few feet, she tugged his hand. “I can’t go this fast,” she said. “Can you slow down?”
The Comanche Vampire Page 5
