The Red Collection (48 page)

Wedding lust. Mating rituals. The whole atmosphere was ripe with pheromones and sex.

She turned to Zack and found him staring at her, his eyes dark and strange-looking. His expression was an irrational blend of intense desire – the mirror of hers – and what could only be described as apprehension.

What have you got to be afraid of?

What have
I
got to be afraid of?

‘Look … I mean … do you
really
want to get out of here?’

The words floated in the air as if they suddenly had a life of their own. It wasn’t at all what she’d meant to say, but it was too late to call it back. She swallowed, feeling hot blood
rush
into her face and neck. ‘Damn it, I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I? Forget I said it.’

She couldn’t look him in the eye, but Zack lifted her face to his with one finger under her chin. His expression was more troubled than ever, complex and sexy, and slightly wild.

‘No! I want it too –’ his voice was odd too. Gruff and deep, yet it seemed to ring. Several people looked around, frowning curiously in their direction ‘– but as they say in those soaps … it’s complicated. More complicated than you can possibly believe.’

Staring down at her, his eyes were hot and confused. He pursed his lips and then seemed to run his tongue over his teeth, again and again, as if examining them somehow.

Checking for fangs, Zack?

Her unspoken words seemed to electrify him. He took her firmly by the arm and hustled her from the room and into a small adjacent lounge that was conveniently deserted.

Pushing the door shut behind him, he backed up against it and hauled her into his arms.

His mouth came down on hers, hard and sweet and demanding, just as it had been in her fantasies. The sharp contrast between her warm lips and his cooler ones made her tremble with an excitement that was beyond sex. It was a strange stimulus she was at a loss to understand.

Zack’s tongue was cool too. Cool and bold and greedy and undisciplined. There was a rough unpractised quality about the kiss that made her blood sing and her knees go weak as jelly.

Throwing her arms around him, she pitched herself into the embrace, sucking on his sweet chilly tongue and pressing her belly against his, blatantly enticing him. The pressure
was
intense, and raw, and she couldn’t get enough of him. It was as if her body was trying to climb inside his and be closer than his skin.

A moment ago, Zack had expressed doubts, but now they were forgotten. He pressed his pelvis back at her, circling the hard knot of his erection against her softness, growling in his throat as she reciprocated, rocking and pushing against his cock.

I knew you wanted me. I just knew it.

Her exultation was silent, but she could tell Zack had read it. He dug a hand into her hair, angling her head as his lips left hers and began to travel across her cheek, and down the line of her jaw and neck.

The touch of him and the taste of him were exquisite. His breath was almost scented, and it lingered on her lips where she ran her tongue over them. Her mouth felt bruised even though the kiss had only lasted a few moments.

Zack’s lips were like thistledown on her skin, the contact magically light and circumspect as he explored her. She sensed that elusive reticence in him again, an impression of caution and lack of experience. Moments ago he’d been a wild man, but now he was holding back.

Sliding her hands under his jacket, she slid them down his back until they reached his firm male buttocks. Then, cupping the delicious muscular rounds she gripped him and pulled him against her belly.

He growled again. Deeper this time. The sound seemed to bounce around the small room as if it were a cathedral, like a feral utterance coming from another dimension. It was the weirdest thing, but it only made her surge against him. And then utter a groan herself as his mouth opened against her throat.

She felt the questing touch of his tongue, licking, searching – and then the contact of his teeth, sharp and hard, against her skin. The sensation made her sex clench involuntarily. Though his mouth was cold, it was the hottest, most exciting moment of lust.

‘Please … please …’ she heard herself implore, tilting back her head to give him better access to her neck.

She pressed her groin against him, to ease the ache and reinforce her invitation.

And then she felt it.

Tiny, sharp and keen, his teeth broke the skin of her neck in a little bite. It was pain, but it made her hips lurch, rocking harder and seeking closer contact. Her entire body was burning and silently screaming to be naked against him.

‘No!’

Zack’s cry was deafening. Teresa swayed, with her back against the door as she clutched and scrabbled at it in order to stay on her feet.

Across the room – impossibly – Zack was standing as if staring at a tall glass-fronted bookshelf full of leather-bound volumes. His dark-clad back was a wall of raw tension and, at his sides, his pale hands were two clenched fists.

He was here. And now he’s there. What happened?

He was kissing me. Now he can’t look at me. What have I done?

‘What’s the matter, Zack? What is it? Did I come on too strong?’ She started towards him, but he stilled her with a chopping gesture, as if he’d seen her. The air between them seemed to hum. Like an external expression of that strange interior phenomenon she’d attributed to some inner ear problem. ‘I’m sorry … I don’t usually behave like a trollop … I thought you wanted me.’

‘I do,’ he said, his voice low, tormented, ‘I want you more than you can possibly understand and in ways … ways that you won’t understand.’

There was pain in his words, agony in his taut body. Teresa felt a great surge of compassion that somehow melded with her desire.

‘Try me, Zack. I’m here for you in any way you need me. I’m crazy about you. Surely you realise that?’

He let out a noise like a sob, as if the news were exactly what he wanted to hear, but painful too.

‘I – I’m crazy about you too, Teresa. Really. But this can’t possibly work. I thought it might, but I was wrong. So wrong –’ his tense shoulders lifted, and then subsided ‘– I couldn’t have
been
more wrong.’

‘But why?’

Watching him closely, achingly, Teresa suddenly braced herself – half dreading, but now almost
knowing
what she’d see when Zack turned to face her. Every breath of air whooshed out of her body, and she began to sway.

Then, as if time itself were mutable and malfunctioning, Zack spun slowly towards her.

His eyes were red, and his canine teeth were sharp white fangs.

6

Someone was gently tapping her cheek, and a dear familiar voice was speaking softly but persuasively in her ear.

‘Teresa, my love, are you all right? Come on … snap out of it. Please talk to me.’

Teresa’s eyes fluttered open, and the first thing she saw was Zack’s face, pale, handsome and worried. He was kneeling in
front
of her, and she was slumped in one of the large damask-covered armchairs that were arrayed around the small room.

She had absolutely no idea how she’d got there.

Zack took a glass of water from the low table beside her chair, and offered it to her.

Teresa sipped, feeing numb and weird but with her hackles on the rise, aware of something, she knew not what, barrelling towards her.

‘Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!’

It all returned to her.

The glass started to tip, but Zack caught it faster than the eye could see and set it back on the table.

Unable to look him in the face, Teresa stared at the glass, then at his hand, long and smooth, still holding it.

‘You
are
one, aren’t you?’ Her heart thudded, fast and hard. Her mind felt like a wild pony, cantering about, trying desperately to avoid the truth. ‘A vampire? They’re real, aren’t they? And I’ve been living with one for six months!’

An overload circuit tripped somehow and, without thinking, she whipped out her hand and fetched Zack a ringing slap across the face. He could have deflected it without effort, but he stayed still.

There was no red mark on his cheek where the blow had struck.

‘I’m sorry.’

His apology came before hers. She hadn’t really intended to hit him, it’d just happened. A reflex.

‘I wanted to tell you, Teresa. Time and time again. But I didn’t think you’d believe me. And if you did believe me, I was afraid it’d make you run for the hills – and leave me.’

His whole face was full of remorse. Full of humanity. No hint of pointy teeth or ruddy eyes.

Teresa dragged in a shuddering breath, totally at a loss. This was the most momentous discovery of her life. A critical turning point. She needed advice. She needed someone to turn to. Someone to tell about this completely unbelievable thing.

But the only person she longed to tell was the man staring worriedly into her face.

Laughter bubbled up in her throat. How could anyone, ever, manage to get themselves into a situation as ridiculous as this? She’d finally found the perfect man – a decent man, who she wanted as a friend as well as a lover, and who was spine-meltingly gorgeous into the bargain – and he was a vampire!

Hysterical laughter broke free, took a hold of her, and got out of control. Her body shook and tears of manic merriment trickled down her face. Zack’s strong arms slid around her and she could feel his chest heaving with laughter too.

Several chaotic moments followed. They rocked together, bonded in a bizarre glee, until the door to the little sitting room opened and someone popped their head in.

‘Whoops, sorry!’ They were gone again before either Teresa or Zack could stop, but the spell of their mad fit was finally broken.

She stood up, forcing Zack to rise gracefully to his feet too.

‘Well, as they say in every romantic film or drama I’ve ever seen, we need to talk, don’t we?’ He smiled down at her, his beautiful mouth quirking.

‘That’s putting it mildly, dark prince.’ She reached for his cool hand. ‘Shall we retire to our chamber?’

Zack shrugged eloquently. ‘I think we’d better.’

In the lift, Teresa noticed something she hadn’t seen the last time they’d ridden up.

‘Hey! I can see you … sort of … I thought you weren’t supposed to have a reflection?’ She pointed to a small courtesy mirror at the back of the lift. In it was Zack’s image, faint and shadowy, but definitely visible.

‘Don’t believe everything you see in movies or read in books.’ In the glass, Zack’s beautifully curved mouth was hazily reflected. ‘There are degrees of vampirism, and as many different kinds of us as there are normal people.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Yes. And I suppose you’d say I’m at the more human end of the spectrum.’

She thought of his kindness towards her, and the way she always felt cared for and protected by him. His attitude had been help, not harm, from day one.

Or at least it had seemed that way.

‘So you’re not planning to … to drain me dry and either kill me or make me into a vampire too, then?’ She tried to speak lightly, but her voice wavered.

Emotion played across Zack’s face, complex and haunting, and she felt guilty for betraying her lack of trust.

But – but he was a vampire. A
vampire
. Human end of the spectrum or otherwise.

‘I would never intentionally do any of those things …’ He bit his lip, and Teresa thought of all the times she’d naively noted how white and shiny and sharp his teeth looked. No wonder they were sharp, didn’t he bite necks with them?

She put her hand on his arm. He felt so strong, so normal – and so human. But still she trembled.

‘What do you mean by “intentionally”, Zack?’

The lift door sprang open, to reveal a couple who Teresa vaguely recognised, waiting outside. She smiled briefly
at
them and then led the way towards the room. It would be easier to talk there, but her heart still thudded. How foolhardy was it to lock herself behind closed doors with a vampire?

‘So, “intentionally”, Zack,’ she repeated once they were alone.

Instead of answering, he walked towards the mini fridge. He took out a whisky miniature for her and poured it into a glass, then a flask of his ‘iron shake’.

‘I’m so stupid … I didn’t even work out that was blood!’ She grimaced as she took a sip of her own drink and she sat down on the bed. She’d never been a whisky drinker, but these were desperate times. Clutching her glass, she stared long and hard at Zack’s throat as he took a swallow of his own ‘drink’. Dark, terrifying thoughts began to circle.

‘Please, for God’s sake, tell me that’s
animal
blood!’ The whole universe seemed to hinge on his answer. Was she just feet away from a mass murderer?

Zack frowned. ‘It is … and you did, actually …’ He put aside his flask, as if he’d lost his appetite. ‘Work out that it was blood, that is.’

Layers of shock piled on one another. Teresa drank more whisky, not tasting it.

Slowly, he shook his head, lingering across the room from her as if he daren’t approach.

‘What do you mean, Zack?’

‘This is so complicated … so hard to put into words. What’s happened to me, the way I am – and the stupid, selfish things I’ve done.’ He studied his long narrow hands for a moment, running the pad of his thumb across a nail, then suddenly made a strange elegant gesture, a kind of pass.

Accompanied by that elusive, silvery humming in her
ears
, images, impressions, sensations all flooded in. Blanked out memories and exquisite, unearthly pleasure.

‘You bastard!’

Teresa flew across the room as if she was the one with vampire powers. Fired by confusion and fury, she thumped and beat at Zack’s chest and shoulders. It was like belabouring a statue made of granite. He didn’t lift his arms to protect himself. He just took it.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered when the energy had gone out of her, and she stomped back across the room, retrieved her glass and sloshed down more whisky.

‘How could you?’

Deflated, Teresa slumped, and let her jumbled emotions settle.