Lust for Life (19 page)

“Slow down,” he says shakily. “What do you want?”

“It’s been two weeks,” Deirdre answers. “I’m thirsty.”

“Sorry, I just fed Ciara.”

“What!? I thought you were mine now.”

“Uh, no, I never said—”

“You saved my life!” Her voice is clogged with tears, and probably rum.

“I was happy to, but we never made a deal where I’d be your new donor.”

Deirdre’s whimper hurts my ears. “Is she there now? Are they both there?”

He looks at us. Shane reaches out, offering to take the phone, but Jeremy shakes his
head.

“I don’t know where they are.” Jeremy winces as Deirdre raises her voice, calling
him a liar. Vampires can not only smell a lie, we can also hear it in the timbre of
voices we know well. “I thought the DJs were giving you a couple of Jim’s donors,
plus all the bank blood you need.”

“They are, but I want you. I like you.” Her voice goes low and seductive. “If you
want, we could just hang out, see what happens. No biting.”

“Are you asking me on a date?”

“Is that so bad?” she shrieks. “Am I too old for you?”

He holds the phone away from his ear. “Jeez, no! I have a girlfriend.”

“I’ve seen your girlfriend. I know where she works. Does she know what you do with
Ciara?”

His face freezes. “Um—”

“She doesn’t know the truth about vampires, does she? Maybe it’s time she found out
the hard way.”

“Don’t you dare touch Lea.”

“Silly, I don’t mean
I’d
show her the hard way. I meant
you
would. Jeremy, I could give you what you want,” she purrs. “I could turn you.”

Jeremy’s face goes blank, his eyes vacant. I’ve seen that look on game-show contestants,
the moment before the reality of their megabucks-win sinks into their brains.

I grab the phone, barely beating Shane. “Deirdre, this is way out of line. You can’t
take care of a fledgling. You can barely feed yourself.”

“You’re not Jeremy’s mother. He can do what he wants.”

I look at my friend sitting in front of me. Though we’re the same age, I’ve always
considered him kind of a teenager, the way he dwells in fantasy and experiences every
emotion at such great heights and depths. But Deirdre’s right: Jeremy’s a man who
can make decisions for himself.

“Don’t do this,” I tell her. “You’ll both regret it.”

She lets out a drunken cackle. “We’ll see.” She hangs up.

Jeremy hunches over, his whole body folding in on itself. He looks exhausted and beaten.

“We can’t stop you,” Shane says. “But you need to
wait at least two weeks from tonight. If you try to change before that, you won’t
have enough blood to finish. You’ll die for good.”

Jeremy nods slowly as he raises his hazel eyes to meet Shane’s. “Two weeks, then.”
He lets out a sigh, then picks up the remote from the coffee table and turns the stereo
volume up. “I’ll walk you guys out.”

I laugh a little, since the door is only ten feet away. “Thanks for, you know.” I
give Jeremy my hand to help him stand, my muscles singing with new strength.

“You’re welcome. And thank you.” He manages a crooked smile as he walks us to the
door and undoes the dead bolt.

I follow Shane out, then stop and turn to Jeremy. “When you said, ‘Two weeks, then,’
did you mean two weeks to make your decision?”

He answers as he swings the door shut. “Two weeks to tell life good-bye.”

18

True Faith

Deirdre’s phone call has not only killed Jeremy’s blood buzz but Shane’s and mine,
too. The mood on our drive home is tense and sad.

“You think she’ll really turn Jeremy?” I ask him.

“She was impulsive and reckless even before she had Jim’s blood in her, so yeah. Then
she’ll regret it later.”

A jolt of empathy hits me. “I wonder if she wants another kid, now that she’s lost
Ben. Someone who needs her.”

Shane’s fingers twitch on the steering wheel. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re
probably right.”

His phone rings. I can see its screen where it sits on the console in front of the
gearshift. Deirdre. He hits Ignore, then shuts the power off.

I think about my own turning, exchanging my blood for Monroe’s. Moments of peace interspersed
with long periods of agony. “I could never do it, not even to save someone’s life.”

“You think that now,” Shane says, “but when the time comes—when Lori or one of your
parents gets hurt or sick—the decision will tear you apart.”

I look at his face in the soft blue glow of the satellite radio screen. Regina’s weekly
three-hour show on the punk channel is playing, but the volume is turned down to nearly
zero. “When you knew I would die, did you consider turning me?”

“Every moment.”

“Even though you thought it’d make you a murderer, and me a suicide, and we’d both
go to hell.”

“Yep.” His lips go toothpick straight, then soften again. “Even though,” he whispers.

I feel a pang in my chest, as if my heart has literally expanded from the incremental
but sudden increase in my love for Shane.

He stops at the traffic light a block from our house, then turns his head to look
at me full on. When his eyes meet mine, his pupils dilate and his mouth opens half
an inch. I want to gaze into the darkness of one and fill the other.

He takes my hand and pulls it to his lips. I slip one finger inside. And just like
that, the blood is flowing again.

The light turns green, the tires squeal.

In less than a minute we’re in our apartment. From the sofa, Dexter quickly raises
his head and wags his tail, then returns to his nap. Miracle.

I shut the door behind us and go to turn the top dead bolt. Shane’s hand covers mine,
his skin burning hot.

By the time the locks click shut, his other hand is under my shirt, his mouth at my
neck. He slides against me, hard against my ass, making me squirm.

Part of me wants to take him right here, right now, against the door. I hate waiting.

But knowing someone wants to kill us, knowing what the days ahead might bring, gives
me one certainty.

“Shane . . .” I can barely get his name out between gasps. “I want you to bite me.”

“What? Huh? What?” He pushes himself away from me and steps back. “What if you’re
not ready?”

“I
am
ready. I want to try again.”

Shane gives me a sidelong look. “I don’t feel like getting punched tonight.”

“I promise I won’t punch you, or throw you against a wall.” I take his hand and lead
him toward our bedroom.

“You can’t promise. You can’t stop a reflex.” He drags his feet as we cross the threshold.
“And if you break the wall with my head, we won’t get our security deposit back.”

“I know.” Reaching our bed, I open the bottom drawer of our nightstand. “So you’ll
have to tie me up.”

His gaze freezes on the set of handcuffs I’m displaying. “Oh.”

I shake the cuffs, jingling the chain. “We know they’re strong enough to hold me.
Heck, they’re strong enough to hold
you
.”

“It’s not that.” Shane is clearly having trouble breathing. “I just—after what happened
to you . . .”

With Jim, he means. Having my throat half torn out. “It was bad. But since then, I’ve
bitten David, I’ve bitten Jeremy, I’ve bitten you. I didn’t hurt any of you. It was
nice. With you, better than nice.”

He takes a tentative step closer. “Do you really want to be bitten, or do you just
think you
should
want to be bitten?”

“I won’t lie and say I’m not afraid. But that doesn’t
mean I don’t want it.” I lay the cuffs in his palm. “It doesn’t mean it’s not worth
it.”

He swallows, then touches my face with warm, trembling fingers. “I promise I’ll make
it worth it.”

I sit on the bed, then pull off my shirt and bra. “You take off the rest after you
tie me up. Our usual safe word?”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Lie down.”

I don’t say the safe word, “Ravens,” out loud, because nothing snaps Steelers fanatic
Shane out of a sexual reverie like the name of his least favorite football team.

I lie on my back, but when he slips one cuff over my wrist, something feels wrong.

“Wait. This’ll be better.” I turn to lie on my stomach.

“You sure?”

“This way it’ll be different than, you know, before.” When Jim bit me. “Plus, easier
access to the best part of my neck.”

Shane leans over me, loops the handcuff’s long chain around the reinforced-steel bed
frame (specially built for vampires), then fastens the other cuff over my left wrist.
“How’s that?”

“Perfect.”

He lies next to me and brushes the hair out of my face, smoothing it back over the
curve of my shoulder. “What’s this about?”

I meet his eyes, the pale blue barely visible in the low light. “We might die soon.
That’s what this is about.”

His eyes narrow with a new ferocity. “No way I’ll let that happen.”

He leaps out of bed, so quickly I wonder if he’s gotten mad and changed his mind.
Instead he jerks open his belt
buckle and jeans. He shoves them to the floor along with his boxers, then tears off
his shirt.

Shane climbs atop me, then kisses a trail down my spine until my back is arched with
need. His hand slips around the front of my own jeans, and I sigh at the feel of his
fingers between my legs, even through the thick denim. He unzips me and slips a hand
inside, over my panties.

“Tell me when to do everything,” he whispers.

I groan at his command. It gives me a sense of power, even as I relinquish that power
to him. “Take it all off me.”

In a few moments I’m naked.

“Your mouth, everywhere.”

He starts at my toes and moves up, his hands a few inches ahead of his lips. Shane’s
human teeth scrape and bite at the backs of my knees, then my thighs, and then . . .
he lifts my hips, spreads my legs, and gives me his mouth and fingers.

I writhe and moan, jerking at the chain that binds me. He takes me close to the edge
but lets me hold on. I want to come later, with him inside me and his mouth at my
neck, tasting me at my fullest.

Maybe not too much later, though.

“Fuck me. Now.”

Obeying immediately, Shane moves forward and above me, sliding his hot, smooth chest
against my back, and then finally himself inside me.

For a moment I forget about the biting and savor the feel of every inch of him, meeting
his long, slow thrusts with my own. For a moment, this is enough. For a moment, this
is everything.

Shane’s hand slips around my waist and down. He strokes me, inside and out, in a perfect
rhythm, but I can’t come, not yet, because when I do, he’ll sink his teeth into me.
And yes, I’m still afraid.

He stops, sensing my hesitation. “Ciara,” he whispers behind my ear. “I don’t want
to hurt you.”

He’s giving me one last chance to back out, avoid the pain, pretend I’m still human,
still fragile.

But I’m not. I’ll never be a real vampire—at least in my own mind—until I can do this.

I turn my head to the side, wishing I could touch his face. But my hands are bound,
so I slowly lift my hips, grinding them against his. “You’ll never hurt me.”

Shane pulls in an unsteady breath, maybe overwhelmed at the trust I’ve put in him.
He sweeps my hair off my neck, then inches forward, filling me up, deep and sweet.
I let out a moan.

The next breath I draw is cut short by the feel of his fangs on my skin.

“Breathe,” he whispers. “Keep breathing, no matter what.”

I do as he says.

“Good.” He runs his tongue, hot and wet, over my skin. “And remember I love you.”

The pain spikes into me. I cry out, jerking my arms to punch, but I’m trapped here,
under him. Shane goes deeper, and not just with his teeth. He seems to expand inside
me, stretching me mercilessly with his unyielding hardness.

The pain shoots out from the back of my neck, burning toward the tips of my fingers
and toes, like lines of gunpowder leading to bundles of dynamite.

It arrives, and explodes, everywhere at once.

My mind turns pure white with fire. I’ve lost the breath to scream. Yet somehow, I
manage to choke out a strangled, pleading “Yes . . .”

Shane groans in assent, sinking his teeth to the hilt. My body convulses with wave
after wave of delirium. I hear him gasp when I come.

“Oh God, you taste . . . oh God.” His voice is muffled with the flow of my life into
him.

The world bursts apart at the seams and all my senses collide. I see sounds and hear
smells and taste light. My mind flashes and spins like a carousel out of control.

Slowly, inexorably, it all fades, and the world returns to normal. Normal, but never
the same again.

Shane rests on top of me, holding his weight on his hands. He licks the back of my
neck, collecting the last few drops, or maybe just soothing me like a cat grooming
its mate. His tongue trembles, as does the rest of both of us.

Finally he collapses beside me. I turn my head to gaze at him.

His eyes half-closed, he sweeps his fingertips over my shoulder. “If you never want
to do that again, I understand. Even this once has been more than I could ever ask
for.”

“Are you kidding? That was literally out of this world. I now believe in astral planes,
because I’m pretty sure I wasn’t here for about a minute.”

His eyes open wide, shining into mine. “Really?”

“Really. Now uncuff me.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Shane grabs the key from the nightstand.

“I promise, no retroactive punching.”

“After that, you can punch me all you want. You can do anything to me.” He frees my
right wrist, then the left, then lies beside me again with a heavy sigh. “Are you
okay?”

“I think you already know the answer.” I reach out and trace the line of his collarbone.
“It’s weird: tied up and held down and bitten, I’ve never felt so powerful. I wish
we hadn’t waited so long.”

“I’m glad we waited.” Shane pulls me into his arms. “It was . . .” He doesn’t finish
the sentence, and he doesn’t have to. For once I don’t need words.