The Vampire Next Door (5 page)

The door opened behind me, and we both fell backwards into the house. His weight knocked the wind out of me and the impact jolted my knee. I cried out in pain.

Suddenly a dark shape moved from the shadows of the room, and the boy was lifted off me. He growled in frustration. “Let me go! She’s mine!”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” an unfamiliar voice demanded, and its roughness and thinly veiled aggression sent a chill through my body. “Get out!”

“She’s mine!” the vampire insisted, struggling fiercely against his captor. He was shoved outside, but immediately lunged forward, intent on getting to me.

The shadowy figure became slightly more identifiable in the light from outdoors, and I saw that it was a tall man, solidly built, who wore nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. The muscles of his arms bulged as he grabbed the boy and lifted him off his feet, pinning the youth to the doorjamb.

“
My
house.
My
kill,” the larger man hissed, and I saw the flash of fangs in his mouth. I scrambled into a sitting position, realizing that I’d gone straight from the frying pan into the fire. This new vampire was much bigger, and obviously much stronger, than my previous assailant.

My knife was outside- along with my crossbow. I yanked my last stake from my vest and scooted backwards until my shoulders hit the wall. I would have rather faced him on my feet, but with my knee injury, I knew I was probably better off staying on the ground.

He tossed the smaller vampire out of the house and slammed the door behind him, drawing the deadbolt before he turned back to me.

My heart was in my throat, beating so fast that I thought I might lose consciousness at any moment. I’d never been so terrified in my life. Somehow I managed to find my voice, dry and cracked as it was. “Try to eat me if you want, but I am not gonna make it easy for you.”

He paused, and the faint light from an adjoining room barely allowed me to make out the astonishing breadth of his shoulders, the impossibly well-defined muscles of his bare torso. His face was mostly obscured in the dim illumination, but I could see the slight curve of a smile on his sculpted lips.

“A thank you would be nice,” he said.

I said nothing, and my chin trembled as I stared up at him, my jaw clenched as I desperately tried to hide my fear from him. I knew I had no chance against a vampire of this size. Undead were notoriously strong anyway, but this giant man looked as if he could snap me in half using only his pinkies.

His eyes moved down to my leg, which was stretched out in front of me. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice that it was injured. I winced as I struggled to bend my knee, trying to bring my foot a little closer to my body in the hopes of making it appear less appetizing.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

In spite of everything, or maybe because I was so frightened, the note of kindness in his tone rushed over me like a tidal wave, warming my insides. His voice was a revelation, silken and soothing, but dangerous at the same time.

Again, I didn’t respond, and he sighed heavily, running a hand over his face. “You woke me up from one hell of a dream,” he said. “The least you could do is talk to me.”

“I’m not interested in casual conversation with bloodsuckers,” I snapped, wielding my wooden stake in front of me.

“I’m your neighbor,” he said, sounding indignant, “and I saved your life. I’m not just a bloodsucker, any more than you’re just a human.”

That did give me pause. He knew we were neighbors? “You know me?” I asked before I could stop myself, and then I shut my mouth. He was probably just trying to get me to let my guard down.

“Hard to miss you, with all that hair,” he said. “And those eyes.”

I blushed, and stayed silent.

After a moment, he turned away, moving towards the open door. “Leave if you want,” he said. “It’s up to you. But that kid is probably waiting outside.”

I knew he was right, and I knew that Kellie was just around the corner, too- but I didn’t know if facing off against them would be preferable to staying here, with possibly the sexiest…um, strongest vampire I’d ever seen.

He closed the door, plunging me into darkness again. I bit my lower lip, wishing like hell that I’d brought a flashlight with me. Heck, if I were going to rewind time for do-overs, I might as well wish that I hadn’t even bothered leaving the house this morning. Or- oh, I
definitely
would have had sex with Eddie yesterday. If he were here, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have gotten caught unawares at the dollar store, and I wouldn’t have crashed my scooter and hurt my knee. I definitely wouldn’t be trapped here now, with a vampire who was probably just toying with me, the same way that a cat plays with a mouse before disemboweling the poor creature.

The door opened again, and I stiffened, but when the vampire stepped out, he was carrying a lit candle in a shallow dish. As he drew closer to me, I tensed, clutching my stake tightly.

He stopped a few feet in front of me, and knelt to put the candle on the floor.

In the flickering illumination of the candle’s flame, I saw his face clearly for the first time, and his undeniable beauty took my breath away.

Thick black eyelashes, strong nose, chiseled jawline, full, sensual lips, and
holy hell,
if this was the guy who was going to suck my blood, I could totally think of worse ways to die.

“Who are you?” I whispered, suddenly wondering if I was dreaming.

“I’m Reeve,” he said, and held out his hand.

I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and touch his fingers, but I figured there was no harm in telling him my name. “I’m Kennedy,” I said.

After a moment, he dropped his hand. “I know,” he said. “Your fan club is out in force today.”

“Fan club?”

He stood, and the candle only lit his muscular calves, the rest of his features disappearing into the darkness. “That woman. The one who comes every night to sit outside your house. I can hear her screaming now.”

I shuddered. If I had one thing to be grateful for, it was that the vampire in the alley had not been Kellie- and that if I was going to die today, at least it was at the hands of a gorgeous man, and not the woman who’d made my life hell for the past five years.

“Why does she hate you?” he asked, and I looked up, searching for his face in the darkness. I could barely see him in the light coming from the other room. The outline of his dark hair was shaggy, the heavy strands slicked back from his face but curling under his ears.

“I married her ex-husband,” I said bitterly, “four years ago. And she never got over it.”

He nodded, and turned away, going back to his room.

I sat there in the semi-darkness for a long while, trying to make sense of the predicament I found myself in. My knee throbbed, and I folded my opposite foot under it, trying to elevate the injured joint a little. I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t know how extensive my injury was or whether it was something that required medical care.

I glanced at Reeve’s bedroom door. He was the real wild card here. What would possess a vampire to rescue a human and then leave her unsupervised in his living room?

I pondered the possibilities. A midnight snack? A diversion from the monotony of everyday un-life?

...Sex?

That last thought sent a shiver down my spine, and I gave myself a firm mental reprimand. I was still married. Possibly. And no matter how attractive Reeve was, he was still a vampire who was probably, at this moment, dreaming up all sorts of delightful ways to kill me.

But what a way to go,
came the random thought, and I rolled my eyes. Trust my libido to make its appearance now, when the only human male I knew was probably a hundred miles away, and when the only vaguely human-like male in the vicinity was a vampire who would probably love nothing more than to tear my throat out.

After an hour or so of listening to the rain pound away on the roof, I finally gave up on waiting for Reeve to come out and drink my blood, and I eased away from the wall so that I could lie down on the floor. Though it was still mid-afternoon, several hours from sunset, I was exhausted.

My knee still hurt, and I found myself wishing I had some aspirin with me. And an ice pack. And maybe some dry clothes and some food. My stomach chose that moment to growl noisily in agreement, and I sighed, thinking of all the Chef Boyardee cans in the bag on the back of my scooter outside. Would the teenage vampire have taken the scooter? I hoped not. The key was firmly in my pocket, and the scooter was out of gas anyway, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have stolen the thing, just to spite me. Not like he thought I’d be coming back to get it.

I remembered Reeve’s words.
My house. My kill.

Why was he waiting?

Why not just eat me now?

I held onto my wooden stake, feeling completely lost and alone. This was not how I’d planned for my day to go. Not at all.

CHAPTER 4

Unofficially, I consider myself an expert on the art of human yo-yoing. I’d watched Cole do it numerous times over the last few months before the pandemic. After my perusal of his text messages and emails and our subsequent confrontation, he’d promptly locked his phone and announced that he wanted a divorce.

A week later, he decided he didn’t want a divorce after all.

Two weeks after that, he wanted a divorce again, and I said I was fed up with his indecisiveness, and left.

In another two days, he was apologizing through email and asking me to come back.

“You give me whiplash!” I’d growled at the computer screen, sequestered in the guest room at my dad’s house in Phoenix. Even then, though, I’d known that I would accept his half-hearted attempt at an apology and go back home. Cole would assume all had been forgiven, and I would grow ever more embittered. From then on, I braced myself every day for Cole to change his mind for the millionth time and ask for a divorce. I told myself that if he flip-flopped just one more time, that would be it- I was gone.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m a total doormat. You’re probably tearing your hair out, screaming, “He’s such a jerk! Why the hell did she bother giving him another chance?”

I don’t know the answer to that question. I have all sorts of theories, but there really is no clear reason why I stayed with him. Maybe it’s because I didn’t want my marriage to fail. Maybe I was also scared…scared of being alone, and scared of losing touch with the girls. A stepmom is in a precarious position, especially in Arizona. I had no legal rights to my step-daughters, and I certainly didn’t trust Cole or Kellie to allow me to continue my relationship with the girls in the event of a divorce.

You can probably tell that I think about Cole, and our relationship, a lot. Even at inappropriate times.

Even while trapped in a house with a vampire.

To make matters worse, while I was reflecting on my relationship with Cole, I somehow managed to fall asleep on Reeve’s floor. Some vampire slayer, right? I’m like the anti-Buffy. I’m sure vamps everywhere are quaking in their boots at the thought of me napping in their living rooms.

I slept pretty soundly, and the next thing I knew, I was blinking sleepily as my body tried to wake itself.

Once my tired eyes began to focus, I saw Reeve looming over me.

Though it had obviously been taking a coffee break when I’d lulled myself to asleep, my survival instinct kicked into overdrive at the realization that there was a vampire just inches away from me.

I yelped and threw up my arms, striking him right in the nose with the heel of my hand. I was wriggling backwards on the floor, searching desperately for my wooden stake, when he reached over and grabbed my wrist.

“Calm down!” he ordered, and I froze, staring wide-eyed at him as a thin trickle of blood made its way from his nose to his upper lip.

He reached up and wiped it away, then looked down at the blood smearing his fingers. “I’m not going to eat you,” he said crossly. “You can stop acting like I’m some kind of mindless barbarian.”

Aren’t you?
my wise-ass inner voice shot back at him. I decided not to regurgitate that particular retort, figuring that it was probably not a good idea to goad the giant vampire who had me at his mercy. Instead I nodded and tried my best to look apologetic. As I shifted my weight to sit up, I felt my hand bump into something rough and solid.

The stake.

My fingers closed around it.

Reeve grabbed a cotton pad from a shoebox on the floor beside him and wiped the remaining blood from his nose, then cleaned off his hand. “I was just going to bandage your arms,” he said to me, crumpling the pad in his fist. “You’ve got some nasty road rash.”

I looked down at the shoebox and realized, with some surprise, that it was a first aid kit. There was a small bottle of peroxide, medical tape, gauze, and cotton pads, along with several other items that I couldn’t identify.

“You want to…bandage my arms?” I repeated, wondering what possible angle this guy was coming from. Why would he care if my road rash healed? Was he looking to use my skin for a creepy leather coat?

He nodded, and the light from the candelabra next to him lit up his handsome features as he gave a rueful smile. “I told you, Kennedy. I’m not going to hurt you. You can relax.”

After some hesitation, I held out my left arm, keeping the stake firmly gripped in my right hand, next to my hip. He took my forearm and began swabbing the scrapes with peroxide. I clenched my teeth at the sting of the alcohol, and tried to ignore the thrill that ran through me at his touch.

My knee was throbbing dully, and when I shifted it towards me, it felt heavy and awkward, like a log attached to my body instead of a living limb.

“Why did you help me?” I asked at length, when he was done with the peroxide and was smearing some kind of antibiotic ointment on my skin.

He pressed a cotton pad over the largest part of the scrape and applied several pieces of medical tape to hold it in place. He didn’t speak for several long moments, and I began to think that he wasn’t going to answer at all, but finally he shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it wouldn’t have felt right to just let you die on my back patio that way.”

“But don’t you…don’t you eat people?”

His eyes met mine for the briefest instant. “When I have to.”

My voice was shaking. “Why do you care what happens to me?”

He taped the last bandage in place, and straightened up, using one hand to push the shaggy strands of his dark hair back from his face. “I don’t know.”

I braced myself, flexing the fingers of my right hand as I prepared to ask my next question. “Are you going to let me go?”

Something flashed across his face- was it disappointment? Irritation? I couldn’t quite tell. His eyes were so dark that it was difficult to read his emotions.

He sat back on his heels and stared at me. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he answered. “You’re not my prisoner. I saved your life- I didn’t claim it as my own. You’re free to leave anytime. Hell, you can leave now, if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’ll be hours before dawn, and your friend is still outside your house.”

“She’s not my friend,” I said automatically, and scowled. “I still don’t get it. You’re a vampire. Vampires kill people.”

“I told you, it didn’t feel right to leave you out there like that. You were a helpless woman fighting off an attack. Give me some credit here. Becoming a vampire didn’t kill my humanity.”

A long silence followed his statement, and I regarded him curiously. What he’d said was in direct contradiction to everything I’d ever thought about vampires. Of course becoming a vampire killed all humanity within a person. Why else would society have deteriorated so quickly?

Maybe he was lying. But I had to question why he would even bother with such an odd deception. As tightly as I was clinging to my stake, I knew damn well that if he attacked me now, in these close quarters, he’d overpower me easily. There didn’t seem to be much reason for him to lie- unless he was some kind of sadistic creep who liked to make friends with his victims before eating them.

Which was entirely possible.

If that were the case, then I needed to find an escape route, stat.

After some deliberation, I lifted the stake and deliberately slid it back into its pouch on my vest. “Thanks,” I muttered, though my gratitude was belated. “Thanks for saving my life.”

I could see the tension bleed from him as his shoulders relaxed, and he let out the breath I hadn’t been aware he was holding. “Don’t mention it,” he said, and motioned for me to hold out my other arm.

We were quiet while he bandaged my arm, and I heard Kellie yowling like a cat next door. True to form, she was crying out my name, over and over again. It stretched into a haunting wail, like the mournful keen of a scorned lover. “Keeeeeee-nne-dyyyyyyyyyy…”

I sat in silence, listening to her, my heart twisting within me. I’d never dreamed she would hate me this much.

“That’s one hell of a grudge,” Reeve said when he was done patching me up.

“Huh?” I was so consumed with my own thoughts that it took me a second to realize what he was talking about. “Oh. Well, yeah, I guess it would have to be, right? She’s there almost every night. You’d think she’d have more important things to do, now that she’s a vampire.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is that vampires do for recreation. Redecorating her crypt. Brooding. Filing her teeth.”

I spoke without thinking, but fortunately Reeve didn’t seem offended by my flippant response. He chuckled and said, “Her ex obviously traded up. Wouldn’t you be bitter, too?”

My cheeks heated at the compliment. “Thanks…um, bitter? If my ex-husband moved on with someone else?” I’d asked myself that a million times before, and always came back with the same answer. “Maybe. But I wouldn’t be so pathetic as to try to make his new wife miserable. I can be vindictive, but I do have some standards.”

“You, vindictive?” He raised an eyebrow.

I smiled before I could stop myself. “Yes, me, vindictive. Don’t act like you’re surprised. You hardly know me.”

He grinned back, and my heart did a little somersault in my chest, surprising me.

His eyes were dark, almost black, with only the faintest hint of the usual vampire red showing in their sable depths. As I stared at Reeve, the urge to lose myself in those eyes became almost overwhelming, and I tore my gaze from him, horrified at the goosebumps that prickled my skin, the undeniable acceleration of my pulse.

I wasn’t just attracted to this vampire. Every nerve ending was electrified in his presence, every cell standing at alert and whispering,
MINE.
My entire body was reacting to him in way that it most definitely should
not
be.

I hadn’t experienced those fluttery feelings of flirtatious infatuation since I’d first met Cole five years ago. And I hadn’t been genuinely attracted to a man since…well…since I found out about Cole’s emotional affairs early last year.

Honestly, until today I’d thought that Cole had killed off all possibility of those feelings, had bludgeoned them into oblivion with his incessant breaking and re-breaking of my hopelessly damaged heart.

I was none too pleased to be experiencing those feelings now, with a vampire.

My stomach growled helpfully, doing its best to interrupt the awkward silence.

Whatever else he was, Reeve wasn’t stupid. He stood, collecting the soiled first aid materials as he did. “Are you hungry?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“There isn’t much for a human to choose from,” he said, his voice fading as he moved into another room. “But the previous owners left a few things behind.” He reappeared in the doorway, pushing up the sleeves of his white shirt. “Come on, you’re welcome to take your pick from the cupboards.”

I pulled up my right knee and braced my hands on the wall behind me. My one good leg trembled beneath me as I stood, inching my hands up on the wall as I rose. Finally I was upright, and when I looked up at Reeve, his expression was incredulous.

“You hurt your leg?” he said, and I realized then that he’d had no idea about my knee injury.

“How did you miss that?” I retorted, letting my smart mouth get the best of me once again. “You think I just like to sleep with one leg stretched ramrod straight out in front of me?”

He pushed his hair back from his face again- obviously a nervous habit- and shrugged sheepishly. “I…well, I guess I did. What happened?”

“Some guy was trying to steal my scooter, and I crashed…kind of. I hurt my knee.”