Flutter (20 page)

“You did take it!” I held the book
up in front of his face, as if he wouldn’t know what I was talking
about. “I
knew
you
took it!”

“It’s
my
book! You stole it from me!” Peter
tried to match my indigence but failed. If I didn’t know any
better, I’d say he was embarrassed at getting caught.

“So?” I faltered for a minute, since he did have a
point. “You weren’t reading it, and I didn’t ‘steal’ it. I borrowed
it.”

“And I wanted it returned.” He reached for it but I
pulled it back before he could grab it. He didn’t look amused, and
he held his hand out to me, waiting for me to give it to him. “Can
I have it back please?”

“I was reading it. I want to know how it ends.” I
opened it, flipping the pages and trying to skim through it.

He glowered at me over the top of the book, so I
couldn’t pay that much attention. It didn’t really read like a
novel, either, but rather it was part diary, part how-to
manual.

“Rosebud is the sled,” Peter
replied flippantly, giving away the ending to
Citizen Kane
instead.

“Why don’t you want me to read this?” I asked and
looked up at him.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to read it,” he said,
but he wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I had a feeling that he wasn’t
being entirely truthful.

“Then why did you take it from my room?”

“Because I…” He floundered for a minute, a very rare
occurrence with him, and rubbed at his eyes. “I just didn’t want
you to have it anymore.” I had never made him this distressed and
irritated before, and I enjoyed it. Usually he was the one driving
me nuts. “Do you remember when I took it?”

“Yeah, it was the night you snuck into my room,” I
said. He had done more than just sneak in that night.

“And I bit you.” His eyes shifted, and his heartbeat
changed. He had deep emotions buried in with biting me, but I
couldn’t tell what they were. “Your blood tasted of Jack, and… so I
didn’t want you to have the book anymore.”

“This is your book, isn’t it?” I stopped taunting
him. “I mean, you wrote this, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “So you can understand why I
wouldn’t want you to have it after everything that happened with
Jack.”

“I do.” I held the book out to him so he would take
it, but he just stared at it for a moment then looked up at me.

“Do you still want to read it?”

“Only if you wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t think it really matters to you what I mind.”
His voice was barely audible, and he turned away from me, leaning
his back against his bed.

“That’s not fair, Peter! I’ve been doing everything I
possibly can to make it up to you!”

“I know you have,” he sighed. “Just take the book.
Read it. It’ll take your mind off how hungry you are so you can
finally fuck Jack.”

My jaw dropped. That was what I was trying to do, but
he didn’t need to throw it in my face like that, making it sound
dirty and bad. It hurt and pissed me off, so I threw the book at
his chest and stormed past him.

“Alice, wait!” Peter groaned and grabbed my arm,
stopping me from escaping his room. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled
for.”

“You’ve gotta meet me half way.” I was almost
pleading with him. “I have been trying and trying. And even Jack is
trying. But you gotta help me out here. You’ve gotta…” I trailed
off and looked away.

“Why is it so important to you that I forgive you?”
Peter asked.

That really was the question at the heart of it all.
Why did it matter to me so much what Peter thought of me? It wasn’t
even just about getting him and Jack to repair their relationship
or making amends for damaging the family. It was something more
than that, something that I couldn’t quite explain.

“Why did you come back?” I whispered, unwilling to
look at him. His hand burned warm on my arm, and I knew that I
should shake it away, but I didn’t.

“You asked me to.”

“No, not from Finland. I mean that night that you
took the book. You’d been gone for months, and then, suddenly, one
night, you appeared in my room and you drank my blood.” I bit my
lip, and I didn’t know why I was asking. Or why I’d even care about
that night. “Did you really want my blood that badly?”

“Your blood is divine,” he admitted sadly. “But I
always wanted more than that.” He exhaled huskily. “What is it
about you? You were more than just a human, and even now that I’m
not bonded with you…” He trailed off, but I finally lifted my eyes
to meet his. “Why can’t I resist you?”

I inhaled deeply, breathing him in when I should’ve
been running away. His skin scorched against mine, but I felt my
own body hurrying to match his temperature. His green eyes burned
so intensely I couldn’t look away. The sound of his heartbeat
rippled through me.

The air was so thick with the scent
and feel of him that I could almost taste it, and I wanted to taste
him. I wanted
him
in the most visceral way.

Suddenly his lips were on mine, and I can’t say if I
moved to him or if he moved to me, but I definitely didn’t resist.
His kisses were rough and soft all at once. Burying my fingers in
his thick, silky hair, I pulled myself as close to him as I could
get. His muscles were like granite forming to my body, and he
wrapped his arms around me, crushing me to him. His mouth tasted
amazingly sweet, and I wanted more.

The blinding hunger surged through me, mixing
bloodlust with passion. All my sense were blurring together into
one. I could taste what I felt, and I couldn’t see anything. My
pulse pounded in time with his, heavy and warm.

And he smelled so delicious I could barely stand it.
My body literally burned for him, like my skin was covered in
flames and the only relief would come if I bit him.

He kissed me ferociously, and almost playfully I
pressed my teeth against his lip. I didn’t bite him, but I tested
the waters to see if I could.

Peter moaned, and the sound of his voice radiated
through me. He would gladly let me bite him, let me drink the
wonderful elixir that flowed through him, and I wanted him so badly
it was painful.

- 20 –

Just before my teeth sunk into him,
something inside me had a moment of sanity and screamed
Jack
.

I’d like to say that just like that, I snapped out of
it, but I didn’t. Thinking of Jack made me hesitate before I bit
Peter, but it didn’t change how badly I wanted to.

Everything about Peter was designed so I’d want him.
His blood, his touch, his smell, really had been meant for me. I
loved Jack, but the physical shell of Peter was everything my body
had been made to want.

Somehow, I managed to free my mouth from his, but I
stayed in his arms, holding him to me. Peter started kissing my
neck, and as wonderful as it would feel to have him bite me, I did
not want to be bitten. I was starving, and losing more blood would
only make it worse.

In the end, it was my intense hunger that saved
me.

“No,” I moaned and tried to detangle myself from his
arms. Either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t want to listen, because
he kept hanging on to me, his lips trailing down the sensitive skin
of my throat. “Peter! No!”

When I pushed at him, he let go of me, but I wasn’t
stable on my feet so I stumbled backwards. In the mess of kissing
him, my hair had somehow come free from its messy bun, and it fell
around my face, blocking my already blurred vision.

The hunger and the intensity of kissing Peter left me
feeling dizzy and strange. It was almost like being drunk. I was
weak, and my eyesight was wrong. Everything had this hazy red edge
to it, but that was from the bloodlust.

“I can’t do that,” I shook my head and my voice came
out weak.

“I’m sorry.” Peter tried to catch his breath, but he
wouldn’t look at me.

I fought the urge to pounce on him again, and I think
he struggled just as badly. To avoid temptation, he turned and
walked out on the balcony.

When he was gone, I grabbed onto the bed to keep from
collapsing. The actual passion of the moment was fading away, but
the bloodlust refused. If I didn’t eat something soon, I would go
mad and slaughter something. A dark animal part of me threatened to
surface, and I had to contain it.

“Milo!” I shouted and stumbled out into the hallway.
I couldn’t take care of this on my own. My stomach lurched and
growled, and my body burned. “Milo!”

“What’s going on?” Milo came out of his bedroom, and
I wanted to bite him. Thankfully, Bobby didn’t follow out after
him, because I’m not sure that I could’ve refused him. “Oh my god!
Alice!”

“I need to eat!
Now
!” I fell to my knees, clutching
my stomach. My vision blurred even worse, and I could smell Bobby
on Milo, making my mouth water. I was on the brink of blacking out,
and it scared the hell out of me.

“Oh, hell! Okay! Hang on, Alice!” Milo put his arm
around my waist, which really wasn’t the wisest move in the world.
His throat was completely exposed to me, and I seriously
contemplated tearing it out.

I closed my eyes and let him lead me downstairs,
trying not to think of anything. The pain was overwhelming, and I
moved stiffly, like a zombie. It seemed to take forever, but I
don’t even really remember moving. The next thing I knew, I was in
front of the fridge and Milo was handing me a bag, promising
everything would be okay.

The blood ran cold down my throat, and that wonderful
searing heat spread over me. Drinking felt good, but it wasn’t like
it normally was. Instead of being real pleasure, it was more the
absence of pain. I swallowed several bags in a very short amount of
time, but I don’t remember much after that. Almost the instant my
thirst was quenched, I passed out.

To make matters worse, I woke up in Jack’s bed to
find him sitting next to me, looking at me with concern and
adoration. I had just kissed his brother, and he was making sure
that I was okay. Admittedly, he didn’t know that I had kissed
Peter, but that made it worse somehow.

And better, too. Because if he did know, there was a
very good chance that he’d never want to talk to me again, and I
wasn’t sure I could handle that.

Once I assured Jack that I was okay, I insisted that
I needed to take a long hot shower. He tried to kiss me, but I
managed to avoid it without raising too much suspicion. He’d be
able to taste Peter on me, and the whole point of this was that he
didn’t find out about that.

The hot shower didn’t really fix things, although it
did give me a chance to think. Why had I kissed Peter? Being so
hungry had left me more vulnerable and weak, but even when I
thought of it now, the way his lips felt against mine, I wanted to
kiss him still. My skin flushed warm, and I turned the faucet so
the water was even colder.

Of course, I could never kiss Peter again. Nobody
could ever even find out about that. I loved Jack, and I do mean
really and truly loved him. Whatever I felt for Peter had to be
some kind of residuals from the bonding and nothing more.

It was like how bloodlust made my body want things
that I didn’t actually want, like when I was crazed and wanted to
drink Milo’s blood or Bobby’s. It wasn’t the same as actually
liking Peter or wanting to be with him. I didn’t have any real
feelings for him at all… did I? I mean, I couldn’t. Not when I
loved Jack and I had done so much to free myself from Peter.

This was everything that I wanted… wasn’t it?

When I came out of the bathroom, the TV was turned on
to shark show on the Discovery channel, and I don’t know if Jack
was trying to be ironic or not. Sharks were known to go into frenzy
when they smelled blood, and apparently, so was I.

Jack wasn’t really watching it, anyway. Standing in
front of a mirror on the side of the room, he had on Dickies
shorts, skater socks, and a white dress shirt with a black tie
around it. He stared intently at the tie, struggling to knot it
properly, but glanced back at the TV every time the music got
dramatic.

“Hey, how you feeling?” Jack didn’t turn all the way
around when I came out of the bathroom, but he looked at me with
concern and a lopsided smile.

“Much better.” I forced a bright smile and walked
over to him.

I had put on my comfy pants and one of his tee
shirts, as was my usual bedtime outfit. The sky would start to
lighten soon, which meant that even though I had slept most of the
night away, I would be getting tired again pretty quickly.

“You look better. Showers are the answer for
everything,” he grinned, then turned back to staring at himself in
the mirror.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Trying to tie a tie.” His expression was in deep
concentration, even though I knew he was half-listening to the TV
too. He would never miss a shark attack. “Ezra usually ties them
for me, and he’s getting sick of it.”

“Any luck?”

“Never.” He looked tiredly at his reflection. “You
know, vampires are supposed to be smarter and more talented and all
that stuff. Can you imagine how badly I’d tie one of these if I was
still mortal?” I stifled a laugh at his lack of skills, and he
looked at me hopefully. “Do you know how to tie one?”

“Nope,” I shook my head. “I never had any need to tie
one, and Milo always knew how. You could hit him up. I’m sure he’d
be glad to help.”

“Maybe. But I think the point of this is that I learn
how to do it myself.” He undid the mess he made of it, preparing to
start over from scratch, but the music on the TV got very loud and
ominous, so he turned back to watch it.

On screen, a shark tore into some kind of carcass the
camera crew had dropped in the water. The narrator was saying all
kinds of things about how perfect the shark’s teeth were for
eviscerating flesh and bone. “