Out of the Box 10 Page 4

  Before I could answer, she said it.

  “I love you.” She took a deep breath. “I never wanted to, and it complicates everything, and makes everything a little more painful, but that’s the only truth I have to give you. I love you, Anando.”

  I traced her lips with my thumb. She was trembling against me. I knew what she wanted to hear—what she hoped to hear. I was afraid to say those innocent and yet demanding words. Do we ever say them without expecting to receive something in return, be it matching words, a kiss—or much more than a kiss?

  When had I last said those words? I didn’t want to think about it, but the answer came without effort. Three hundred years, give or take a couple of decades. Simple words. Silly words. And silly me for hesitating so much.

  “I love you, too.”

  She bowed her head and pressed her face against my chest. I could feel her shaking against me, and for a moment I thought she was crying. I soon realized that she was laughing, however, and tightened my arms just a little around her. A happy laugh was much better than tears; I had caused too many of those already, I imagined.

  We danced for hours without another word—without needing to say another word. Oh, there was more to say, of course, and we got there soon enough. But at that moment, we were both happy to hold on to that small piece of perfection of shared love. Details, consequences, past and future could all wait a little longer.

  We were still dancing, her cheek against my shoulder, my hand stroking up and down her back, when the DJ announced to the few couples left on the dance floor that he was playing his last song for the night. We stopped dancing, but neither of us let go of the other. With an arm around each other’s waist, we made our way to the upper level, the last few measures of the song accompanying us. We joined a handful of customers who were waiting to get their coats back, and I helped Virginia into her jacket. Hand in hand, we left the club, still silent. The air was fresh but not cold. A sliver of moon cast a faint light over the sleeping town. Without thinking, I started toward the parking lot where I had left my car.

  “I drove here, too,” Virginia said as we reached it. She gestured toward a small sedan just a few feet from us.

  I stopped, wondering if it was her way of saying she would be going home alone. After a flash of disappointment, I told myself it was probably better that way. It was soon apparent, however, that I was seeing more in her few words than she intended.

  A light blush was spreading through her cheeks as she said, “Would you like to follow me back to my place?”

  My cock jumped in the confines of my pants, making its opinion known. My head, however, was more hesitant.

  “Maybe… maybe we should say goodnight for now.”

  Her face remained expressionless. “If that’s what you want.”

  A joyless chuckle passed my lips. “Not what I want, no, but what I need.”

  She nodded very slowly, and I thought she understood what I wasn’t sure how to explain. She had been in my place before, needing to take a step back, slow down, figure out where she was. I was afraid I hadn’t given her as much space then as I was asking for now.

  She started to turn toward her car, but seemed to think better of it and faced me again. A determined look strengthened her gaze when she met my eyes.

  “Anando? Why did you come back?”

  Her question took me by surprise, and I blurted out the easy answer, the one that explained both everything and nothing. “I love you.”

  Her face softened a little with a small smile “I know you do.” She took my hand in hers and squeezed gently. “I’ve known for a while, and I’m pretty sure you did, too. It’s why you left. But not why you came back. Just last night, you said you didn’t come back for this.”

  She looked down at our joined hands. I followed her gaze. In the faint moonlight, her fingers were very pale against mine. I squeezed them lightly. I wasn’t too sure how to explain myself, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to, but I figured I owed her an explanation.

  “Something changed,” I said, struggling with each word. “A couple of days ago. I was told that something I had believed to be true was a lie.” A flash of pain echoed through my mind, but it faded quickly, more a memory than a reopened wound. “It made me question a lot of things I thought were true.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “It made you doubt my love?”

  I grimaced. I had asked her for the truth; I might as well return the favor. “It did. I came back because I needed to know.”

  Her crestfallen features left me no doubt. She was hurt. I had hurt her again. Was that the only thing I could do anymore?

  “You needed to know,” she said painfully slowly, “if I really loved you?”

  “I needed to know if you loved me, or if you wanted…something else from me.”

  I had wanted to finish what I had started, but one more time I found myself hesitating. Hadn’t I hurt her enough already? Did I need to show her exactly how deeply my doubts had run?

  She made the decision for me. She crossed her arms and asked on a tone that demanded an answer, “Something else like what?”

  I sighed. “I’m a vampire, Virginia.”

  “I know you are. What does that have to do…”

  I could see in her eyes the moment when she got it. She made a small snorting noise, then leaned forward to kiss my cheek. I oddly felt as though that chaste kiss was forgiving me for acting like an idiot.

  “The first time I came to the club,” she said, her voice firm as she looked straight at me, “I wanted to know what it felt like to be bitten. You showed me. I enjoyed it a lot. I have no objections to you doing it again if you want to.”

  My eyes strayed to her neck as she talked, and even though her jacket hid the bite marks on her throat, I could see them clearly in my mind’s eye. She brought my attention back to her earnest face when she continued.

  “But I didn’t come back to you because I wanted to be a vampire. I only ever wondered what it’d be like when you chose our game on Halloween. You brought it up, Anando. You told me I could ask questions. And you punished me when I did.”

  Her voice started shaking on those last words, and I suddenly realized she was angry. She had every reason to be, I admitted to myself.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She stroked my face with the fingertips of her free hand, her forgiveness silent but unmistakable in the tenderness of her touch.

  “I won’t ask,” she said, her voice once again even and calm. “You said you didn’t want a promise, just the truth, and this is the truth.” Her eyes bore into mine, urging me to believe her. “I like my life. I like the sun, and food, and all the little things that humans experience. I like that you can feed from me and get warm from my touch. I don’t want to be a vampire.” Her lips twisted into a lopsided smile. “Having forever with you would be nice, but you’d get tired of me long before forever ended.”

  I started shaking my head, ready to deny that such a thing could happen, never mind that I had no intention of seeing her become a vampire, but she stopped me with a finger across my lips.

  “I won’t ask to be turned,” she said again. “I won’t ask you, and I won’t ask anyone else. Not today, not when I get my first wrinkles, not ever.”

  She replaced her finger with her mouth, tracing the seam of my lips with the tip of her tongue before drawing back. “Goodnight.”

  I had to force the word past my tight throat. “Goodnight.”

  I watched her get in her car, watched her go. Moving was beyond me. So was thinking. Her car had long since disappeared when I managed to shake myself off and start moving. Slow steps took me to my car. I stopped with my hand on the handle, my mind abruptly kicking into overdrive.

  Could I believe her?

  As soon as the question formed in my mind, I knew I could, and did, believe her.

  I thought back to the few women I had lived with over the years. Their faces were still clear in my mind, even if I had nothing left but fond
memories of them. I had always dreaded the day when they would ask to be turned, because that day had marked the beginning of the end for my first real love, because I had been so sure they’d stop loving me if they were turned. I had always left while they still loved me, unwilling to give them what they had always asked for, certain that turning them would mean losing them.

  Now, though, the pain had cleared away and the wound had started healing. I could look at my past and admit that, maybe, they would have loved me still, if they really had before the change. I wasn’t afraid of history repeating itself anymore, nor was I afraid to trust my own judgment. Back then, I hadn’t realized my love wasn’t returned but I had grown, and learned to read others. I didn’t only trust myself. I trusted Virginia. I trusted that she loved me enough that her love would endure if she ever was turned—not that I wanted that to happen, or thought it would. I just knew I would be a fool to let Virginia go after what she had said, after everything we had shared, after I had managed to tell her I loved her.

  I was a fool. Why had I asked for time? Why was I running away, still? Hadn’t I run far and long enough already?

  I shook myself, saying aloud, “You’re an idiot,” then finally getting into the car. I drove automatically, without paying much attention to the road, my mind still reeling from the changes of the night. It’s probably a good thing it was so late and the streets were deserted, or I might have ended up causing an accident. I parked the car without really thinking. I went up to the door and knocked. When I heard scrambling footsteps inside, it hit me. I had no idea what to say or do, really. I just knew I had to be there. Nervousness filled me. If my heart had been beating still, it would have been breaking out of my chest.

  The door opened and she appeared, dressed in a white bathrobe, her hair in a short ponytail, her face rosy and free of make-up. She didn’t say a word but she swallowed hard, and I could tell she was wondering—was I there to stay, or to say goodbye one last time?

  Refusing to listen to doubts or hesitations any longer, I walked in and pushed the door shut behind me. I cupped her face with both my hands, then leaned in and crushed my mouth against hers, putting in that kiss everything that I didn’t know how to shape into words anymore. For a second, she was very still against me, but soon she returned my kiss feverishly, her arms weaving around me and pulling me closer. With a gasping breath, she suddenly pulled away and pressed her face to my chest, her body already shaking. I thought she was laughing as she had earlier, but the scent of salt soon told me otherwise. This time, she was crying. My heart felt like it was breaking.

  “Virginia, please don’t…”

  I gently coaxed her face up. She looked at me through big, tearful eyes, but I could tell she was trying to stop her quiet sobs. I kissed her cheeks, erasing the tears that stained them. Guilt was a steel hand tightening over my throat. How many tears had she spilled because of me?

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “So sorry. Please forgive me. I was an idiot.”

  “Yes, you were,” she said, smiling through her tears.

  “Let me make it up to you.”

  She answered with a nod.

  I picked her up and, holding her to my chest, carried her to the bedroom. As I kicked off my shoes on the way, it occurred to me that the last time I had been in there I had left after a few hours, intending never to see her again. I pushed the thought away forcefully. This night would end quite differently.

  I put her down on the foot of her bed. She watched me with teary eyes as I tugged at her belt and gently pushed the bathrobe off her shoulders and to the floor. For a second, she stood nude in front of me, her arms moving just an inch before she stilled again. Had she been about to cover herself, I wondered? Was she still shy? How could she be, when she was so beautiful? All of a sudden, telling her so was the most important thing in the world.

  “You’re beautiful,” I murmured, my voice so soft and reverent that I might as well have been praying at the altar of a goddess.

  She was blushing when she took my hand and allowed me to help her onto the bed. I knelt at her side, my hand now gliding millimeters above her skin. I wanted to touch her, but at the same time I wanted to make this moment last just a little longer. Virginia put an end to my hesitation by arching her back and pressing her right breast into my open hand. Her nipple hardened against my palm.

  “No teasing,” she demanded, and her request drew a quiet laugh from my lips.

  “No teasing?” I repeated. “You should know me better than that by now, sweet Virginia.”

  She started saying something, but the word turned into a raspy moan when I leaned in and sucked her nipple into my mouth before giving it the tiniest bite with my blunt teeth. As I had known she would, she moaned louder, her blood now roaring in her veins, her entire body flushing in pleasure. Her hands flew to the back of my head, and for a second she seemed to hesitate between pushing me away and pulling me closer. She settled on weaving her fingers into my hair, leaving me to do as I pleased. I swirled my tongue around her nipple a few times before abandoning it to trail a path of kisses down the swell of her breast. For the next few minutes, I kissed, nipped and licked at every inch of her skin, rediscovering the many spots that had her moaning, sighing or writhing on the bed. From the side of her knee to the inside of her wrist, from her neck to that spot just an inch above her navel, from her ankle to the crook of her elbow. The only place I left alone was the one she kept trying to draw me to: the apex of her legs. I would get there, eventually, but in my own time.

  I remembered the first times I had explored her body, running elusive silk over her sensitive skin, massaging her with oil before dripping hot wax over each sensitive spot I had discovered. Early self-taught lessons in how to pleasure her; I had used that knowledge a lot, and I hoped to use it many more times in the future, if she would only let me.

  She was trembling, ready for more. My name fell from her lips, pleading for me to enter her. I wasn’t ready yet, however, or at least I wasn’t ready to enter her with my cock. I wanted to see her pleasure before I started thinking of mine.

  Sliding down her body, I settled between her thighs and pushed them open with gentle hands. Her intimate folds were revealed to me, already glistening as they waited for my touch. I circled them with my tongue before quickly darting in. The flavor of her need exploded on my tongue, and she moaned, her thighs opening a little more. I shuffled closer to her and lapped at the lips of her sex. She arched into my touch. Her hands at the back of my head tried to pull me even closer.

  “Shh… I’ve got you,” I whispered.

  My lips brushed against her clit when I spoke, and she jumped. I covered it with my mouth and sucked lightly. She moaned again, then more loudly when I pushed two fingers past her dripping entrance and as far as they could reach. I crooked them up and searched for the spot that would make her thrash beneath me. When I found it, she lifted her hips clear off the bed, and for an instant my lips lost her clit. I soon found it again, and sucked relentlessly even as I kept stroking her.

  Her thighs suddenly came up on each side of my face, holding me to her. She came with a shuddering gasp. I gave a last lap at her folds, and she gasped again, her hands weakly pushing me back even as her thighs fell open.

  “Too much,” she breathed. “It’s too much…”

  I relented and worked my way up her body, kissing a trail over her stomach, then up the valley between her breasts. Her skin was feverish, as were her kisses when I reached her mouth. Her tongue slipped into my mouth and rubbed against mine as though she were trying to find herself in my mouth. I was the one who could taste her pleasure, though, and it was that much sweeter without the bitterness of our last encounter when we had both known we were saying goodbye.

  She struggled to unbutton my shirt and wrench it from my shoulders. With an impatient huff, she pushed at my chest until I rolled onto my back next to her. Sitting up beside me, she lost no time in finishing undressing me. She then knelt astride my thighs. He
r eyes traveled across my chest, down to my cock and back up to my face.

  She hadn’t even touched me yet, but I could see the hunger on her face. Fire coursed through me, leaving me shaking with desire. In my mind, the memories of our Halloween role-playing were battling with earlier ones, when I had offered her full control over me for the first time. When she clasped her hands over my wrists and guided my hands over my head, silently demanding that I keep them there, I could almost feel the cold metal of the handcuffs snap over my skin.

  That, right there, was but one of the many reasons I had fallen in love with her. She could be so pliant at times, even submissive if I felt like playing that game, and yet she could take charge without a hesitation when the mood struck.

  From the moment she knelt between my parted legs and took hold of my cock, I knew she was going to make me pay for the long moments of indulgence I had offered myself while mapping out her body. The gleam in her eyes said as much.

  And I was right. For a few minutes, she came as close to torturing me as she possibly could. She licked along my shaft from tip to root and back up with just the tip of her tongue, the touch so intangible that it was frustrating. I started bucking up, unconsciously trying to increase the pressure of her mouth, but she pulled back, lifting her lips from my skin in a silent but unmistakable message. It was her game, and I was to let her do as she pleased.

  I took a shaky breath and closed my eyes. After a couple of seconds, she resumed her torturous licking. At the same time, her hand cupped my balls and massaged them gently. Jolts of pleasure were sparking up my spine, and it was all I could do not to thrust my hips up. When she seemed satisfied that I wouldn’t move, she licked her way to the tip of my cock one last time and slipped it past her lips. She swirled her tongue around my achingly hard cock as she slowly took me in, driving me mad with want.

  I wanted to say her name, plead with her as she had pleaded with me, but forming even a word was beyond me. Low, guttural sounds were rising from my throat, but they had nothing to do with language. I wasn’t the only one who had learned where to touch, how long, how hard. She knew my body just as well as I knew hers, and in her hands, in her mouth, I was nothing but an instrument for her to play.