She rolled her eyes and took a step back, waving me forward. “You vampire loser, have permission to enter.”
“How’s your thigh?” I asked as I walked into her apartment. She shut the door behind me.
“I look like a zombie victim.” She slumped her shoulders and sighed.
“You sound ridiculous. Zombies aren’t real.” I chuckled.
“It hurts,” she protested. I frowned. I did feel bad about that. Maybe I did it wrong.
I looked around her living space and grinned. It was a disaster in here. I wouldn’t call it dirty, but messy. There was no garbage lying around but dozens of half-started projects. There was no real theme for decor either. Colors were random and all over, as was everything else. It was charming, just like it’s owner.
“Don’t judge me,” she groaned. “I know. I have a slight hoarding problem.”
“It’s you.” I shrugged. I reached for her hand, and to my surprise, she took it. I pulled her toward her couch. “Come on, we need to talk.”
“Give me my book back” she demanded as soon as we were seated. It was then that I noticed she had showered and changed. Her hair was damp and curly. She was in a purple silk robe, making the ruby color of her hair stick out. She didn’t have make-up on, and I realized then that this was the first time I’d ever seen her this bare. She was beautiful.
There was no way Aleida could be the one I was fighting for.
“You can have it later. I want to talk about—us, first.” I reached for her hands again, and when she let me take them, I squeezed tenderly.
“What about us?” she asked. Her toughness cracked a little at the end.
“I kind of threw that on you with no warning. How do you feel about it?” I stared deeply into her eyes. My hand let go of hers and drifted to the thigh I had bitten. She flinched, and I pulled away quickly.
“I’m not sure.” She looked down at her lap.
“Are you upset about it? Are you mad at me? Did you feel pressured?” I knew I was throwing lots of questions at her, but I needed answers.
“No, to all of those. The only thing that’s bothering me is that it’s not healing. When that human familiar bit me, it was gone in an hour, and it never looked nearly as bad as this does.” She parted her gown and spread her legs for me to see it. I swallowed as I stared down at it. It really did look like a zombie bite from the movies. She closed her robe quickly.
“I think maybe I drank too much,” I confessed. I closed my eyes. I was ashamed of myself. “I was too bold. I got cocky.”
“How so?” She reached out and touched my jaw, urging me to look back up at her. I did so and opening my eyes to see her pretty face only made me feel even worse.
“I’ve never done that before. I told you I had. I pretended to know what I was doing. I almost drained you completely.”
Her smile fell then, and her eyes went wide. It was a gut punch. A sucker punch like I’d never felt before. She was disappointed.
“Why didn’t you tell me? When we were—”
“When my face was in between your thighs? My mind was a little fuzzy. It kind of shut off. I knew what I wanted, and I knew if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t let me.”
She nodded, biting down on her lower lip.
“I’m sorry. We won’t ever do that again. I promise I won’t ever ask you to do that again.”
“It wasn’t bad.”
Her words made me blink. “What?”
She shrugged and gave me an awkward smile. “It felt good when you were doing it. Everything was on fire. Like my nerves were being shot through with electricity. I really liked it. Did you?”
I nodded quickly but didn’t speak. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to feel pleasure from almost killing her.
“I bet it would have felt even better if you had gotten to—uh,” she looked away. “Finish.”
“I was damn close. It was intense.” I chuckled. She laughed too, and suddenly the air around us wasn’t so thick. I could relax some. “If we do it again, I might develop a drinking problem.”
