Lover's Kiss (11 page)

Beth nodded and backed up a few steps. She tried to wipe the grin off her face and failed. She held out her hand. "Let me taste you."

Penny's head twitched up. "Taste me? When are you going to learn how unsatisfying sex is for us?"

"That's not what I meant," Beth said. "I want to drink from you, Penny. I want to feed on you so that you know how devoted I am to you. I'd like you to do the same to me, but I understand if you don't want to."

Penny's eyes widened as she talked. She stared at her for a long moment. "It wouldn't be like before," she said.

"It wouldn't? What's different?"

"For me I would share a bond with you. I would sense your moods and at times even thoughts. I would have an idea where you are, but not like before, where I was aware of nearly everything."

"Everything?" Beth gulped. "Even when John and I…"

Penny smiled. "The exception to the rule about sex being disappointing for us."

"Oh my god!" Beth groaned. She ignored her slip and shook her head. "What about me? What would it mean for me?"

"The same," Penny said. "But drinking my blood, now, would make you stronger. You could do more and go longer between feedings. That is why, in the past, some men were also hunters among our own kind. They would gang up on other vampires and try to defeat them."

"Wow, and that makes us stronger? But you didn't say it would do that for you?"

Penny smiled. "You are young. A baby. I am…not."

Beth laughed. "You're beautiful."

"And you're like an arrow through my heel."

"An arrow through— I don't get it."

Penny smirked. "It's before your time. Before mine too, but not by much."

Beth blinked and shook her head. "Okay, so is that good or bad?"

"Good for you, maybe bad for me."

Beth frowned. "I don't understand."

"I can't deny you anything," Penny admitted. "You're fresh and young. Spontaneous— Irresponsible, maybe— but definitely irresistible."

Beth grinned and threw her arms around her mentor. "You're what I was always looking for."

"I am?" Penny asked. "So why the policeman?"

"You're my sister and my best friend. John is… something else. He's my knight in shining armor, I guess."

"If we do this, your feelings for me will change some."

"They will?"

Penny backed up a step and nodded. "To drink from another is to embrace an intimacy that lasts. You will love me."

Beth shrugged. "I already love you."

"You will love me more. Perhaps that will be enough?"

"I've never heard of a heart being too full of love. There's always room for more."

Penny tilted her head and slowly nodded. "Perhaps. You are full of surprises. So, how would you like to do this?"

Beth grinned and shrugged off her coat. She tilted her head and pulled her hair back.

"Now?" Penny asked.

"Why not?"

Penny studied her neck and whispered, "Why not indeed."

"You want to go first, or do you want me to?" Beth asked.

Penny shook her head. "Same time. Otherwise things can get complicated."

"Oh, um, okay. So what's that mean?"

Penny held out her wrist and lifted it. "From the wrist. Slower, so we can control it better. Keep your heart beating with mine. Drink and try not to lose yourself. It will be difficult for both of us to turn the other away."

Beth stared at Penny's wrist and then shook her head to get herself out of her trance. She held her arm up and looked at her wrist. She smiled and offered it to Penny. "I'm excited, aren't you?"

Penny looked at her wrist and took it in her hands. She lifted it near her face and hesitated. "I'm scared. I've never done this."

"But you trust me?"

Penny nodded. "I do. Feel my heart and match it. Bite when I do."

Beth swallowed and lifted Penny's wrist to her mouth. She felt the smooth skin beneath her lips and kissed it before opening her mouth and letting her fangs extend. She locked her eyes with Penny's and squeezed her heart in time with Penny's.

Penny closed her eyes and seemed to lose herself in the joined rhythm of their hearts. Beth sensed the blood flowing beneath her fangs, calling to her. She fought the growing urge until she felt the sharp sting of Penny's teeth parting her flesh. She bit down and tasted the mixture of spice and metal flood her mouth. Her instinct to swallow saved her as she was swept away by the rapture of feeding and being fed.

Chapter 15

Beth stood in front of John's door for the second night in a row. This time she was clean, sober, and terrified. What would he do when he saw her? Did he hate her? Would he send her away? Was he even still alive?

She shook the thoughts away. Worrying about them was given, she couldn't stop that, but she also couldn't find out if she didn't see him. She already knew he wasn't downtown, she'd seen his partner walking their beat by himself. Had he called in sick or had John never woken up?

She turned and looked around her. John lived in suburbia, with small yards and cookie cutter houses designed at being affordable and easy to build. Nice, but not extravagant. And at this time of night nobody was outside shoveling or snow blowing driveways. Light poured out through windows, but nobody knew or cared that she was there.

"Quit stalling!" Beth hissed at herself. She turned at the door and squared her shoulders before reaching up and ringing the doorbell.

She heard a noise inside. A heavy footstep or something hitting the floor? A moment later there was a noise of the wall beside the door being struck. A fist, or something else? Did he throw something at the door? Before she could wonder more about it she heard the deadbolt click and the door was pulled open.

"John!" Beth hissed when she saw him standing with his shoulders stooped and dark circles under his eyes. Even his hair looked limp and lifeless. He wore the same sweat suit from last night, though it was showing wrinkles and hung limp on his frame.

He leaned forward and stared outside, turning his head back and forth. She could see the two band-aids on the side of his neck instead of the half dozen she'd placed there. He'd changed them. He grunted and stepped back, inviting her in.

Beth stepped past him and waited for him to shut the door. He shuffled around her and sat down in his recliner. No, he didn't sit, he collapsed into it. Complete with a heavy sigh of exhaustion. She stood there and watched him before glancing down at her boots. "Do you, um, want me to take these off?"

A tired chuckle slipped from his lips. He waved his hand and sighed.

Beth bit her lip and nodded. She moved to the end of the couch closest to him and sat down, leaning on the arm to be closer to him. "How are you?"

He stared at her and shook his head. His hand rose to touch the bandages on his throat. "Is this a sick joke?" he asked. "Some kind of twisted prank?"

"No!" Beth blurted. "It's— it's not like that at all. It's complicated."

He nodded. "Complicated. I can see that. It's not every day I wake up naked with holes in my neck and the girl I slept with the night before missing. It's been a very complicated day for me. I've felt like shit and every time I tried to go outside I almost passed out."

"John, I'm sorry. I really am. I've been fighting for you."

He ignored her rambling and went on. "I tried searching my house, looking for a poisonous snake. I mean, what else could do this to me? Make me feel like I was dying with a couple of puncture wounds? That's the only thing that made sense - a big poisonous snake. Or a spider from some kind of bad horror movie, maybe. I couldn't find either of them though, so I had to go back and try to figure it out."

"John—"

He shook his head, silencing her. "I remembered when I saw you the first time. You looked like hell. Beautiful, but crash cart beautiful. I've seen prom queens turned meth addicts that looked better than you did. And you had a bandage on your throat."

Beth reached up to where Penny had bitten her. It seemed like a lifetime ago, not a matter of weeks.

"You said what you had was a condition. A disease. A disorder. You didn't say I could catch it. But I did, didn't I? You gave it to me. That's why you're connected to Penny, she gave it to you."

Beth's eyes widened. How had he figured all that out on his own?

"So that's it," he said as he watched her react. He sighed and leaned his head back. His eyes flicked to his right, where his gun rested on the end table beside his chair. "You're fine now. How long does it take? What does it mean? When can I go back to work?"

"John, you can't," Beth said.

He looked at her. "You're fine now."

She shook her head. "No, I'm not. I mean, I am. I'm better than I've ever been. Better than you can imagine, even. But it wasn't easy getting here."

"What did you do to me, Liz?"

She nibbled on her lip for a long moment before she admitted. "I bit you."

He blinked and shook his head. His eyes went to his pistol again. "Bit me? That's impossible."

"You don't think I can bite you?"

"Of course you can bite me, but you're not a cannibal. And I'm not missing any pieces or parts."

"You are," Beth confirmed. "Blood. A lot of it."

He cleared his throat and looked to the stand again. This time his eyes fell on a mostly full glass of water. He turned back to Beth. "I've seen some crazy stuff in the time I've been on the force, but this may be the worst yet. You bit me and drained some of my blood?"

"I drank it."

He shook his head, trying to refute what he'd heard. "You can't drink a person's blood! It will make you sick! Are you into some crazy goth cult or something I haven't even heard about?"

"That's not it. Not at all," Beth said. She glanced around, desperate for something to bring the conversation around. It was going badly. No, worse than badly, at this rate he'd be going for his gun and try to arrest her. Or just shoot her.

"Oh, then what is it?" he demanded. "The way I see it I've been assaulted, maybe even raped. It's looking premeditated too. I can come up with a few more charges to file too. Why, Liz? Why? I really liked you. Love you, even. I don't understand."

Beth looked up at the ceiling. She couldn't cry anymore but she wished she could. She wished she could show him how she felt. How upset she was by what he said. His words hurt, but they hurt because she deserved them.

"This is my fault," she whispered.

"Yeah, that's kind of what I've been thinking," he agreed.

"You were so nice to me. So caring. I didn't think. I mean, I tried to stay away, but you wouldn't let me. That kind of makes it your fault too."

"You attacked me," he reminded her. "Don't try to push this off on me."

Beth hung her head. He was right, she couldn't blame him. How dare he be nice to her. How dare he treat her like a person who was worth being treated nice. She snorted and laughed at her own thoughts.

"This isn't funny," he growled. "What's going to happen to me?"

Beth swallowed her laugh and lifted her face to his. "It is funny, but the joke is on me, not you."

His brow furrowed. "What?"

"John, you're going to die," she stated.

His head jerked and he glanced at his gun again. He was going to go for it.

Beth focused on him and demanded he ignore her while she lunged forward with everything her supernatural body had to offer. She grabbed the pistol off the stand and reversed course, landing back on the couch with enough force to make the wooden frame crack and shift the entire thing a few inches back on the carpet. The wall stopped the couch from moving but the movement jerked his eyes back to the couch and then to her.

"There's no medicine or prayer in the world that can stop it," she continued as though she hadn't paused. She held the pistol in her lap with her hands resting on top of it. "The way you look and feel, I think two days. That's all you have left."

"What— how— give me that back! How did you do that?"

"John, I'm a vampire," Beth said. "The real blood sucking sort that terrified you when you were a kid and watched a movie about them."

He shook his head and then did it again. "Impossible!"

"My heart doesn't beat unless I want it to. My lungs don't breathe unless I need to talk or look like I'm breathing," she said. "How else could I get your gun from you so easily?"

John jerked his head to the side. His eyes widened when he saw his gun wasn't on the end table. He looked back at her lap and saw her lift her hands to reveal his pistol. "What the fu—" his words trailed off as he lifted his eyes to her face and saw her toothy smile, complete with needle sharp fangs where her canines should have been.

"Believe me yet?" she lisped around her fangs. She frowned and kept her mouth open as she shrank them back to her normal sized teeth.

A strangled cry slipped from John's open lips. He stared, unblinking, and tried to shake his head in denial.

"The sex last night was nice," she went on. "Very nice, I enjoyed it. But I can't come like that anymore. Or at least I haven't been able to yet. Sex for us is up here, in our minds. And when we feed. Drinking from you was more fulfilling than you can imagine."

He shook his head again. "This isn't real. I'm dreaming. A nightmare. That's it."

Beth frowned and looked down at the gun. "Would it help if you shot me? No, that's too loud, someone else might hear it. I know, a knife. Do you have one?"

"What?" he stared at her, overwhelmed and confused.

Beth placed his pistol on the couch beside her and stood up. She walked from his living room into his kitchen and found a block with cooking knives on them. She pulled one out and tested the edge before walking back into the living room. John had jumped to his feet and retrieved his gun. He held it out and pointed it at her.

"Put that down," Beth scolded him. "You can't hurt me with it. And like I said, it would make a lot of noise. We can't have that."

"Put the knife down!" John demanded. The tone of authority he used when on duty crept into his voice. It sent a shiver down Beth's spine. A shiver of excitement. She would show him who was in charge.

"This knife?" Beth asked, holding it up. She shrugged her coat off her shoulders and let it fall to the ground. She wore another pair of jeans beneath a black cami that was stretched tight across her chest. She frowned. "Do you mind, I really don't want to ruin my jeans."

"What?" he shook his head. "No, put the knife down!"

Beth rolled her eyes and used her free hand to unbuckle her belt and unbutton her jeans. "Hang on," she said while shimmying and shaking to use one hand to push her skin tight jeans over her hips and down to her calves.

"I don't want to have sex with you! What's wrong with you? Put the knife down, please! I don't want to hurt you, Liz. Even after all this."

"You can't hurt me, baby," Beth said. She lowered the knife slowly and touched the sharp point against her thigh. "See?" she asked as she applied pressure and pushed the knife into her leg slowly.

John's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He lowered the gun as he watched inch after inch of the kitchen knife sink into her thigh. He leaned sideways in time to see the point emerge from the back of her leg. A tiny dark red trickle of blood started to run down the back of her leg.

"What the fuck?" he hissed.

Beth glanced down and twisted. "Shit!" she muttered. She let go of the knife and wiped the descending pearl of blood off her skin. "I don't want to stain these jeans."

John staggered and collapsed onto the couch.