Had he become so immune that he could not relive pleasured memories?
“How…” Kimberly asked softly, sounding so hurt that it pricked his very skin. She was shaking, most likely due to her blood loss. “How could you not remember that bite?”
Though she spoke with passion, he knew that she couldn’t recall every detail of their previous encounter He never allowed mortals the chance to grasp the particulars—it was a point of survival. So how could it have affected her all that much? And why?
Stephen reached for her jeans, holding them toward her so she might warm herself. Still a gentleman, he thought, and always the scoundrel who left his victims with the dressed feel of dignity after he had gotten what he needed from them.
Oddly, she refused to take the material.
A baked breeze jostled past him, air tinged with the presence of nocturnal creatures and suburban life: Grease from an outside grill nearby, the anonymous blandness of the desert’s scalding vigil.
Remain unaffected, he told himself. Don’t attach, because you know the price.
He donned a careless smile, gradually moving away from her while shielding himself from the impact of her disappointment. “I am a vampire of great experience, luv. Forgive me if I don’t recall a past bite.”
“Forgive you?” She clenched her jaw to shut off more words, her gaze wide and glassy. At that moment, she seemed to realize that she was still holding the windshield wiper she had torn off during a fit of ecstasy. She threw it to the ground.
Stephen blocked the reminder of their interlude. He did not care to dwell on the weakness she had brought out in him. “Don’t take it personally. You drew me with your beauty, and I responded as any self-respecting vampire would.”
He refrained from adding that all his victims were lovely, and this was probably the reason he had chosen to bite her one year ago. It had no doubt happened during one of his reluctant visits to Vegas in order to find food, which he required merely once every two weeks, these days. Stephen preferred the blood of attractive women; their aesthetic value lured him and ultimately offered a facsimile of the passion he never allowed himself to experience. Every bite provided not only sustenance, but a giddy rush, a temporary glimpse of what it might be like to feel once more.
“Oh, I see,” Kimberly said, her tone laced with what Stephen perceived to be sarcasm, “it’s all about beauty. You know, you should really check out the Miss America pageant when it comes back to town. It’d be a regular orgy for you.”
Anger. Her emotion scratched at Stephen. “I don’t intend any disrespect. Sharing your blood was…”
He lost the ability to describe, oddly tongue-tied as the experience reawakened within him. The complete, thick taste of her, the cataclysmic delight of taking her in.
Stephen hardened himself further. This woman had been no different from the others and, after tonight, she would be forgotten in a miasma of more victims. She meant nothing to Stephen. She could not.
From where she sat on the car’s hood, Kimberly continued to level a crushed glare at him. She seemed too bothered to note that her body was bared. More precisely, her vulnerability was beneath the flesh, where she could not cover it.
Gathering composure by the moment, Stephen tried not to visually caress her from head to toe, to imagine drinking in every inch of skin in order to retain her essence.
She caught his perusal and brightened, as if he had somehow relayed his remorse. Then, quite naturally, she grinned, leaned back against the windshield with her arm over her head. A sigh of pure relief accompanied the gesture. It was as if he had given her a reprieve from the wounding reminder that he hadn’t remembered their first bite.
For some reason, he liked her resilience, but he knew his appreciation couldn’t last.
Moonlight stroked her skin, paling it, making the blood-bright wound at her neck stand out; it had begun to heal due to his touch. Her full breasts, tipped with large, dark nipples, urged him to latch his mouth on their ripeness again, creating bites and wounds there, as well.
Stephen glanced away, not trusting himself.
“What?” she asked, her voice losing its strength. “Have you already forgotten how good this bite was? It was better than any sex I’ve ever had. Slow, orgasmic, mind-blowing…Do all you vampires bite like that?”
She was baiting him, and he was fool enough to almost give in. Time to stop this nonsense. “I’m not always so deliberate, Kimberly. In fact, there are times when I strike for blood, when I drain my victims merely because I need to survive or merely because it feels good.”
Suddenly, all her playfulness evaporated. At the mention of draining, her splayed arm fell forward to cover her chest. He was not certain if she had returned to looking so devastated because of the recent victims from Mystique or because he had reinforced that she was only another bite to him.
“So you are the vamp who’s been going around putting women in the E.R.?” she asked.
“No.” Now was the time for him to pursue a far better reason to have followed her to this house. A reason beyond hunger.
He reached out with his mind and attempted to peek into hers, to see what she really knew of the rogue.
Slam!
A mental block, a wall? Why could he not see into her?
In the near distance, Stephen discerned the click of a door opening—the front door of this house.
With a regretful whir of speed that a human eye could never translate, he slipped her clothing back over her form, careful not to touch her intimately lest he be tempted to sweep her off and enjoy her some more. Then he softly laid his fingers against her temple, leaving her memory fuzzy. It also served to infuse her with a sense of false energy so she wouldn’t appear overly weak to herself or others, at least at first. He had sipped his fill tonight, enough to be satisfied, but he didn’t want it to be obvious.
Without even a farewell, he speared upward, flying away before anyone else could discover him.
Yet, as he traversed the sky on the short trip back to his family’s hideout, he knew that he and Kimberly still had unfinished business and that he would be back to see what these hunters knew.
IT WAS AS IF Kim had wandered through an electrical storm.
As the light over the garage dimmed back on, she lay sizzling in the aftermath of Stephen’s presence, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Literally.
She shook her head of its haze. She knew she’d been bitten again, and that Stephen had turned her world into one fierce orgasm, but she wasn’t sure of the details.
Except for one, and she wished she could dismiss it. He hadn’t remembered the defining moment of her life. And in that instant of revelation, he’d stripped her of everything she thought she knew about herself. In the end, she felt a sense of shame, puzzlement…rejection. Then he’d flown off in a blur, leaving her alone, flailing.
Or…
He’d flown off, right? He’d actually been here?
Reeling, Kim sat up from the windshield and glanced down at her body. She was fully clothed. What…
Oh, my God. It couldn’t have just been a fantasy. She couldn’t have imagined it.
All her worst fears crowded in on her: all the worries about people not believing what she’d gone through one year ago. Had Kim wanted Stephen so badly again that she’d made this latest visit up? Was she losing it?
She heard the house’s door open, and she sprang up from the car’s hood, blood pumping, though she wasn’t sure why. Then a wave of dizziness forced her to lean against the car near the mirror.
Loss of blood? She wondered how pale she looked, how fatigued she might get. Orange juice, she needed some orange juice and food right away.
Then again, as she touched her clothing, her doubts about being bitten returned.
That’s when she felt the crusting soreness on her neck, a tenderness. Laying a hand there, she sucked in a sharp breath. Puncture wounds. It had happened, dammit. Yes!
She heard fo
otsteps, then Powder’s voice. “Kim? You done with your phone call yet? I waited and waited, but something told me to stay inside. Don’t kill me for intruding if—”
She wondered if Stephen had used his powers—hypnosis?—to keep everyone away temporarily. “It’s okay, Powder.”
Expediently, she checked her clothing, then the side mirror on the car to see if her slightly paler-than-normal skin held any trace of blood. She found none. Stephen had been meticulous.
Quickly, she shoved her long hair over her shoulder to one side, masking the bite. Good God, even if she had a scarf or something to cover it up, it was too hot for that kind of fashion nonsense. Besides, she never wore scarves. Fashion no-no, uh-uh, never.
But she wasn’t about to share this second bite—heck, not even this latest sighting—with Powder. Like the first, it was hers to keep; the only things she really had to call her own.
She was bent down to retrieve her phone from the ground. Still in working order. She got up, but a wave of dizziness tumbled over her and she leaned against the car for balance.
Then Powder appeared around the walkway corner in all his lanky glory. He was holding a crucifix out in front of him like a nauseated infantryman on the march with his first gun.
“You can put that thing away,” Kim said, trying to seem casual as she tucked her phone into a jeans pocket. While she opened the car door to retrieve her bag, the disappointment hit her once more. She’d been so excited about the reality of this second bite that she’d almost forgotten the aftermath again, the sickening drop of her stomach in confusion because Stephen hadn’t remembered her.
She hadn’t rocked his world at all—not like he’d rocked hers. It was like being the wallflower in high school and finding out that you’d been elected prom queen, then revelling in the happiness of knowing that people thought you were one way when you’d always believed you were another. But then…oh, God, then the principal announced over the loudspeaker that they’d miscounted the votes and you were the loser; still the wallflower who’d never blossomed into something more.
Had her sexual confidence all been a lie? Had she only created it out of a desperate need to connect with someone? Were all the men she’d been with secretly laughing behind her back after she’d gone home because she’d made an ass of herself by acting sexier than she really was?
After Kim shut the car door, she took a step toward Powder, but it felt as if the bottom had fallen out of her world. She stumbled.
Powder sprinted forward to help, flashing his crucifix around him at the same time in total fear. He looped her arm over his shoulders, acting as a crutch. “Kim?”
“I, uh…” Think fast. “It was a bad-news call. My parents had to take the family dog in to the vet and they wanted me to know. I spent a lot of good years with Roofer.”
She almost cringed at the lie while Powder helped her to the door. As they approached, the black curtains that kept prying eyes from peeking through the windows seemed to stare accusingly. Kim only hoped Roofer would forgive her this little falsehood, bless his old dog heart.
“That sucks,” Powder said, opening the door and leading her inside. He seemed relieved that he hadn’t needed to use the crucifix to save her or anything.
He shut the door, allowing the sounds of controlled chaos to rule: Voices from the first bedroom in the hallway, where the crew would be preparing to go on the air with a broadcast; the squawking of police scanners; the droning of a late-night movie from the family room TV. After letting go of Powder, Kim stood on her own, thanking him as he headed in the direction of the radio equipment. Then she sank to the floor, resting a minute, planning how to get out of here so she could go home and tend the wound before it was discovered.
She didn’t know how long she lollygagged, sitting there and pretending to go through her shoulder bag in case one of her partners happened by, but eventually she made her way to the kitchen, where Jeremy intercepted her. He was a spike-haired high-school senior, over six feet, a bench-warming offensive lineman who liked reading more than blocking. Black-framed glasses perched on his nose and, though they weren’t held together by tape, they did have a certain nerdy vibe to them. That, and the fanboy comic T-shirts he favored, marked him as prime Van Helsing material.
“Troy wants to see you,” he said in his bass monotone.
Feeling dizzy again, Kim was careful to keep her bite side away from her coworker’s view as she opened the fridge. In finer form, she could probably think of a thousand smart comebacks to have Jeremy take back to Troy, but she wasn’t in the mood. Somehow, knowing that she was so forgettable to Stephen sapped her of all verve.
You thought he made you into a woman or something? she asked herself. Yeah, your rite of passage seems to be a complete failure, Kim. What a sex goddess you turned out to be.
Jeremy, who was a pretty sensitive guy, responded to her silence by leaving the kitchen. “I’ll tell him you’re coming.”
Yeesh. She uncapped an orange juice and drank straight from the bottle, not giving a fig about messiness.
Shame pervaded her, and she felt like sinking into the ground. If she was confused about what The Bite had made her before, now she had an answer. Nothing. She was nothing. And maybe all there was to this world was nothing.
Shutting the fridge door, she carried the juice with her, tucking her hair in place again and tracing a hand along the bare walls just in case she stumbled.
I am a vampire of great experience, luv. It came to her out of the misty blue of her confusion. Forgive me if I don’t recall a past bite.
She obviously had enough blood in her system to blush—yeah, actually blush—because she could feel the embarrassed heat coating her skin as she entered the first bedroom. There, Troy, Jeremy and Powder were fiddling with some kind of amp in their little pirate power station. They had everything—players, mixers, a transmitter and antenna, filters, compressors, computers. Kim couldn’t name everything and, frankly, she didn’t care. Electronics weren’t her joy.
Troy wore headphones—one ear covered, one not—over his golden hair. He was a good-looking guy who shouldn’t have been a geek, but his out-of-control love for the esoteric prevented that. He dug chess, science, computers, movies and Marvel—every one of them the kiss of death for a male struggling to get dates in the real world. At his day job as a corporate lawyer, he was even known to have a framed picture of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on his desk. Most girls probably weren’t sure what to make of him, although, he reportedly did okay in that department. Kim herself thought he was too sweet to seduce, even if the thought had crossed her mind once or twice.
But sex in the workplace, much less the tight-knit League, was never a good idea. “Don’t poo where you get your grub,” Lori would’ve told her.
More sadness piled onto what Kim was already feeling. It was the icing on her cake of rejection.
Seeing her, Troy stood straight, hands on hips, dark blue eyes frosty. “What the hell, Kim?”
She had no gumption to get lippy about what she’d done at Mystique earlier. She merely made a bring-it-on motion with her hand while putting on a decidedly blasé expression.
“Listen,” he said, his cheeks getting two little pink spots on them, “we’ve got rules for a reason. You could get hurt.”
While wiring something or other, Powder nodded seriously. Jeremy just futzed around with the computer, blushing for her.
“I know the rest,” Kim said halfheartedly. “My ego’s writing checks my body can’t cash. And if I don’t shape up, I’m going to find myself flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.”
Jeremy and Powder cracked up at the Top Gun quotes. Troy wasn’t quite as amused.
For Kim’s part, discovering that she could still toss out a decent joke, even in the clutches of depression, was a bit of a boon.
Well, at least it should’ve bucked her up, but when the bite on her neck began pulsing, she wanted to cry. Was it because it had the power to turn her on
again?
Troy was shaking his head, knowing his chiding was fruitless. “I’m about to go on the air, so I’ll give you a complete butt-chewing later. But I don’t want you to end up like one of those women in the E.R.”
At her blank stare, he turned back to Powder, who looked away from Kim quickly, too. Troy had been the one who’d gotten the information about the blood-loss victims from the hospital—he knew someone who knew someone else who had the scoop. But Kim realized the so-called epidemic bothered him on a profound level, because it was evidence of the vampires they talked about on the radio and the Web site. It meant they were that much closer to actually getting proof.
But, when they found it, how would they react? How would these fanboys deal with a face-to-face encounter?
With the boys off her back, Kim left the room, drinking more OJ. She should get right on the computer to file a report about what had happened to her tonight, and she knew Troy would want to interview her on the air, but for the first time since joining, she didn’t want to be here. She needed to get sleep, to think through what’d happened, to decide what to do next.
“Pssst!”
The sound stopped Kim, and she backtracked to the third bedroom, across the hall from the first. Inside, near the guest bed and at a spartan desk, she found the only other girl in the League, Darlene, tapping away at a laptop computer. She was probably answering excitable message-board postings from people responding to the general sighting headline on their Web site.
“You get busted?” Darlene whispered, dark eyes wide. Her parents were Portuguese, and they’d bequeathed her a head of dark brown, very curly hair that she usually wore in a low bun at the nape of her neck. She had a fine nose and olive skin, never wore makeup and never went out of her apartment except to come here and go to work at the preschool where she taught each weekday.
“I haven’t gotten punished yet, but the wrath of Troy is considerable.” Kim stood on Darlene’s left side, sheltering Stephen’s bite from her coworker. She took another gulp of juice. “I’m on the bad list right now.”
The Ultimate Bite Page 4
