Page 2 of First Blood
“Seriously,” he said, with a sad little quirk of his lips that didn’t make it into smile territory. His eyes held the same wry, wary unhappiness. What color were his eyes? The streetlight washed him out enough that I couldn’t tell, even with my keen vision. Dark. Very dark brown, maybe? “I know how I look. If I was lying, wouldn’t I say I was eighteen or nineteen, which might be believable? No one’s going to buy twenty-two. But it’s true. Don’t bother asking for ID,” he added. “I don’t have any.”
Well, that I believed, since even the outline of a driver’s license would’ve stood out on the fabric of his pants.
“You look like you’re seventeen at the most.” And I was being generous.
“Yeah, well, some guys like that,” he snapped. “If I actually was seventeen, I’d play it up. I wish I was. I could charge more.” He lifted his chin, the gesture heartbreakingly brave for someone like him facing down someone like me. And he didn’t even know the half of it. “Fifty for a blowjob, a hundred to fuck me. Take it or leave it.”
For a millisecond, I considered it. He might be physically fragile, but he wasn’t a pushover, and he wasn’t weak. No one who talked back to me like that was weak.
And it stirred something in me, made my cock perk up and take notice.
But Ionlyconsidered it for a millisecond. I had a rule that’d served me well over the last hundred-plus years, a rule I’d only broken once, early on — and regretted breaking shortly after. I didn’t fuck where I ate. It wasn’t a matter of hygiene, but of magic. There was no fucking way I was ending up accidentally mate-bonded, and mixing blood and sex got way too close to that line. If there was any compatibility, especially.
I didn’t want compatibility. I wanted convenience.
More than that, I wanted to taste him. Fucking him wasn’t in the cards. So be it. I could jerk off later on.
“Three hundred,” I said. I could afford it, and I needed to sweeten the deal. “No blowjobs, no fucking. I’m hungry.” I let my teeth extend a little, and shot him a grin to flash the gleam of them.
He took a quick step back, almost a stumble. “Oh, fuck,” he muttered, as his arms went flailing. “Um, okay, look, I don’t do that. I don’t — I’ve never done that. I don’t!”
His voice had risen, getting shakier and shakier.
Damn it. I got where he was coming from. In a town owned by vamps, drawing a hard line about being a feeder wasn’t uncommon. Once you got that reputation, it was hard to fend off more aggressive vampires who thought if you said yes once, it was yes permanently. I wasn’t one of those, and I wasn’t going to force him, but…I had to have him. Fear only made his heart beat faster, and now I could hear it as well as scent him. The warm sweetness of him pulsed in my every sense like a beacon.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said, knowing as I did that I looked and sounded exactly like someone who’d hurt him badly. “I’m not a new vamp. I’ll only take what I need, and that isn’t much.”
He took another step back, his whole body stiff with tension, and bit his lower lip, like a nervous tic.
The sight of his teeth digging into that plush flesh had my own fangs all the way down, my own body tightening. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, but I wanted to be the one nibbling his lips, a millimeter away from drawing blood.
His scent intensified. There was a low, rumbling sound, and it took me a second to realize it was coming from me — a deep, nearly subsonic growl. My fists clenched as I tried to hold it in.
And he broke and tried to run.
He stumbled, fell into the lamppost…and his teeth broke skin.
The smallest bead of crimson rose on his lower lip, and the scent of it filled the air like a bloom of wildflowers.
I had him pinned against the post with the full weight of my body an instant later, my chest against his and one thigh pressed between his legs. I hadn’t even known I was moving.
His hands came up and pushed against my chest. I hardly felt it. I couldn’t see or feel or smell anything but that tiny drop of blood. I leaned down, his panting, frantic breaths and the flutter of his heart against my chest so much meaningless background noise.
“Please,” he gasped. “Please, what are you — please!” His voice rose, panicked and high. The droplet shone in the streetlight’s glare like a jewel. “Please.” Soft, and breathy, and resigned, like he knew I was going to do anything I wanted with him.
Like all he hoped for was that maybe I’d leave him alive at the end of it.
That snapped me out of the bloodlust. Fuck. I hadn’t lost control like that in most of a century.
I tore my eyes away from his lip and looked up to meet his. They weren’t brown. They were blue. The darkest, richest shade of blue this side of the depths of the ocean or the sky at the edge of twilight and night.
His fingers twitched against my chest.
“Three hundred,” I said, as clearly as I could through the tightness in my throat. It came out raspy, and he flinched. “Three hundred. To — lick your lip. Think of it as a kiss if it makes you feel better. And then I’ll walk away.”
His lower lip had already been chapped from the cold, and the bite had split it. The blood was still welling up, that drop hanging at the edge of the soft curve of it. It couldn’t fall. If it fell to the ground I might howl. It would be such a fucking waste.
I had to taste him or I was going to vibrate out of my skin.
