Forbidden Days (The Firsts) (15 page)

Dawn came quickly.   Bas usually came awake instantly and this morning was no different.  He went on alert immediately as he realized something warm was touching him.  Jerking his head back he saw her.  Park, her body pressed against him.  She smelled like the hospital, but she felt wonderful.  He told himself again that it was outrageous how she’d interrupted his life, gotten under his skin, became important.  It didn’t matter.  He needed her.  He wanted her.  If his enemies through the years could see him lying here fawning over a weak little human they would have run him through on principle.  Only that wasn’t right, was it?  She was not human.  His task for the day, to answer that question.

He didn’t wake her as he got up and moved across the room, looking for his mobile phone, and remembered that it had been in his pants pocket the night before.  He was bending over, reaching for the discarded jeans when he heard a long “ummmm” from the bed.   He turned to find Park sitting up watching him.

“My god, you’re perfect,” she said, “Are all vampires built like you?”

He walked toward her, comfortable with his nakedness.

“Not Dez.”

“Ew, no.  But you are spectacular.”  As he approached the bed, she got up on her knees and turned him around.  She’d noticed something on his back, on his shoulder.  A tattoo.  A large bird, wings outstretched.  She couldn’t stop herself, traced it with her index finger.

“It’s lovely.  A Phoenix?”

“That’s what it’s like, becoming vampire.  Being reborn.  How are you feeling?”

“Bas, I’m fine.  I…don’t exactly remember what happened…was I…was I…shot?”

He reached to her and lifted her off the bed and stood her gently on the floor.

“You were.  We got you to surgery, the bullet is out.  You healed faster than I would.  We need to talk about that.”

She wasn’t paying much attention to what he was saying.  Her hands were exploring his body, slipping over the tight cut muscles of his arms and chest.

“You are so beautiful.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful than you.”

“I have.  Let me get a mirror.”

“Oh, we sound ridiculous.  Besides, I’m right.  Bas, I really think no man was ever made more perfectly.”

He picked her up in his arms and laid her on the bed, came onto the bed too and touched her face, brushed her hair back, looking over her face with a smile.

“Hmm.  Talk about perfection.

The first touch of his lips was gentle, a cautious kiss, but she grabbed him and it deepened.  She could feel his body respond and her own tightened, ready for him after a lifetime of saying no to intimacy.  That he lay there, every inch of his magnificent muscled body uncovered, was more than she could take.  She rolled over and got on top of him, fitting his erection between her legs.  She touched him and ran her fingertips around the slick smoothness.

“Now, Bass.”

He closed his eyes and sucked in the air.  She was recovering from a gunshot wound.  He couldn’t.  He might hurt her.  With every cell in his body, he wanted to grab her, roll her over, and enter her as deep as possible.  It wasn’t the right time.  He sat up and lifted her aside, got up, leaving her straddled on the bed.

“You were nearly fatally shot last night.  You need to heal.  Do not mistake me.  I want you.”  He let his hand glide downward to stroke his erection.  “Obviously.  But this is not the time.  Vampire sex is more aggressive than human.  I won’t risk it.  You understand?”

She did.  Her body didn’t.  She nodded though.

“I need to take a shower.  I smell like alcohol and anesthesia,” she told him and went to the door.    But she turned back.

“It’s okay, Bas.  I know you want me.  And when we can be together, you won’t get out of it.”

He started to say something but she was gone. 

She understood.   She could wait.  But back in her suite, in her shower a few minutes later, she pulled the pulsating showerhead down and let her body have what it needed.  He didn’t hear her moan and cry out as the magic fingers of warm water swept her over the edge.

144

Chapter Ten

Vancouver was quieter than he expected for such a busy city.  And of course, he had no idea where to start.  Zach pulled his cell out and texted Dwayne to let him know where he was and how he got his lead.  Dwayne didn’t text him back, but it was pretty late by the time he arrived in Canada.  But he thought someone should know where he was.  In case something went wrong.

A good hotel was first order.  He knew he was running on empty.  A good night’s rest and he’d be able to begin figuring out how to try to find her in this city.  For that, he was definitely going to engage a private detective.  He’d already found one through the internet that had a good reputation in this area.  Another quick search and he engaged a room at a medium level hotel just inside the city limits.  And food.  Aw, god, he wanted to eat everything in sight.  But the classic, a fully loaded pizza, was what he really wanted, so after he checked in, dropped his small bag and made a call to his secretary, he locked up and went down to his car.  On the way in he’d passed a late night pizzeria.

There were two young women ahead of him, so he waited patiently to place his order for a pizza they called the Great Northern Beast.  He had them add a two liter bottle of coke to the order and stepped back to wait the twenty minutes until the huge pizza would be ready.

Three hulked up men came in after he’d finished his order, laughing riotously, hitting each other, and tripping each other.  Rough play.  One of them drew blood when he struck the other on the cheek.  Zach stepped back as far against the wall to finish his wait.   They ordered six of the Northern Beasts and stepped back to wait, too near to Zach.

One of them glanced at Zach and dismissed him immediately.

“Only place to get food this time of night.  This city would suck for our kind.  But, the pizza is pretty fucking nice,” the largest guy said to his companions.

Zach kept his eyes downcast, glad to hear at least his food would be fucking nice.  His mind wondered to his purpose here and he pulled the photo out of his pocket and looked at the reason he’d gone off his grid. 
Where are you
, he thought. 
Just please be alive when I find you
.

He noticed one of the raucous guys staring at the picture.  When he saw that Zach noticed him looking at it, he grinned.

“Pretty girl,” he said with an odd smile.

“Yeah,” Zach said and slid it back in his pocket.  Bad vibes from these guys.  Very bad vibes.  He moved over to the other side of the eatery to wait.  His pizza was ready a few minutes later and he left quickly.  God, he hoped some asshole like them didn’t have Park.

The pizza
was
awesome.   At least four different types of meat and three different types of cheese, loaded three inches deep.  He’d have awful heartburn, but right now, it was so good, he didn’t care.  He couldn’t find anything on the television that kept his interest, so when he’d killed three quarters of the Beast, he shut off the lights and lay down to get much needed rest.  Almost as soon as he touched the cheap linen, he was out.

Somewhere in the night, from a deep dreamless sleep, Zach awakened to the sound of voices, whispers, but they woke him and he knew instantly he was in trouble.  The door to his hotel room had been double locked with the safety chain on, but someone had broken in and he was unarmed and naked.  In a strange city with no support, he couldn’t imagine this going well.  When he opened his eyes, he saw the smaller man from the pizza joint grinning at him in that strange way he had earlier.

The man leaned in, his teeth bad and his breath worse.  “You got bad luck, buddy.  Bad timing, little human.  We just need to send a little note to a friend.  Sorry, but you’re it.”  Zach tried to rise up, prepared to defend himself, when a sharp blow to the back of his head made the world spin.  The last thing he saw was a sheet being pulled over his head.

Bernie lay prone on the hard concrete floor, rolled up on her side.  She’d managed to tear part of her clothes off, the front of her shirt in tatters hanging from her side, the thin bra shredded and discarded on the floor.  It was common.  The transition was all about heat and fire as the cells transformed, but taking clothes off didn’t help…the heat was internal and relentless. 

Vaz thought she had the most magnificent breasts he’d ever seen.  They were really full, rounded, with no sag at all.  When she was raging at him earlier he hadn’t been able to look at anything but the spectacular globes bouncing as she yanked the chains and suggested he do things that, even as a vampire, he didn’t think was possible.  But looking at her body, he thought, once she finished the transition, and was less dangerous, he’d like to give a few of those suggestions a try.

She was dirty… covered in blood and drool.  Her hair had been a bleached blonde, but was growing at an accelerated rate with the change, and was now its original color of dark honey blonde, still tipped with the platinum.  Her eyes had finished the transition and were now milk chocolate brown.   With her Scandinavian coloring, he didn’t think they would go black like so many of them did.  Still, he thought she looked wildly sexy, and that made him sitting there on the bench, watching her, horny as hell.

Even though she was lying still at the moment, she was fully awake and staring at him. 

Suddenly she lifted her head and stared at him.

“What the fuck.  You have an erection.”

He didn’t answer, it was apparent he did.

She got up and pulled against the chains again, stretched as close to him as she could get.

“You want some of this.  Come on, come and get it.”

He laughed.  “You’d tear me apart right now.  Ask me again when you’re sane.”

Bernie put her hands on her breasts and began to slowly roll her nipples around.  Vaz felt his penis twitching.  Man this was a hard job.

“Come on.  Vampires are sex animals, I already got that.  All you have to do is come over here and I’ll take you in my mouth.  Come on,
that
you can’t refuse.”

He watched her, his pants so tight he was going to have to do something about it.  Not what she suggested though.

“Lady, I can if I know you’ll bite it off.”

She continued to stare and then unsnapped her pants, unzipped them and let them drop.  She was naked beneath them.  Putting her finger in her mouth, she licked it sensually and then dropped it between her legs and fingered the slit that had all of Vaz’s attention now.  He kept his eyes there as she kept hers on him.  She started moving against the finger, slipping it in and out, faster and faster, watching his breathing become more rugged.  And at some point she moaned and forgot she was doing it to punish him and dropped down on the floor, frantically working the area with her whole hand now, rubbing, twisting, until she came, hard and fast, with a scream right there on the floor in front of Vaz.  He was on the floor now, too, closer than he should have been, nearly reached out to her, the top snap of his jeans undone, the zipper slid down to release the tightness.  She reached for him and their fingers touched.  She dove for him then, tried to grab him, but he rolled away, collapsing against the front of the concrete bench.

Bernie growled and yanked against her chains.  “That could have been you in there.  Fuck you.  You won’t get another chance!”

God, she was magnificent, wild and fiery from the orgasm and anger.

He stood up and lowered his pants, let her see him.

“Yes, I will.  When you are finished with this, I’ll come to you like this and you’ll want it.  You haven’t had sex as vampire yet.  There isn’t anything on this earth that feels like it.  I’m going to be your first.”

He pulled his pants up and walked to the door.  “I need to go take care of this.  I’ll be back as soon as it’s done.”

Bernie was licking her lips.  “Why don’t you do it here, right now, let me watch.”

He was huge, long and hard, and she did want it.  Him.

“That’s a reward you’ll have to wait for.  I mean it, baby vampire.  I want to see you licking your lips like that again when you’re finished.”   He left quickly, closing and locking the door behind him.   Bernie stood quietly for a moment and then pulled against the chains so hard her wrists bled.

He could hear her shrieks through the heavily reinforced door and he smiled.

Jake carried the body into the foyer, being careful not to let the blood get on the carpets.  He dropped it in the middle of the custom tile.  Damn, he hoped the grout would clean up.

Bas had just arrived, Iain and Mick right behind him, Dez trailing them.

“Who is it, do we know?”

“No.  Human.  He’s done for.  Like the others, torn to hell.  Anyone recognize him?   Is he anyone’s blood-bond?”  Jake asked.

Iain, Dez, and Mick shook their heads.  It was an odd warning.  A human who had no connection to them?  What was the message?

“I don’t understand,” Iain said.  “What is he trying to tell us?”

“He’s a fucking nut.  I hope he isn’t telling us he’s going to start killing random humans.  If this becomes a blood bath, we won’t be able to contain it.  It’ll go wide.  The human authorities will be all over it.  We can’t let that happen.”  Bas squatted to get a look at the dying man who was gasping for his final breath.  It wouldn’t be long now.  He could smell death coming.

“Sorry, buddy.  In the wrong place at the wrong time.”  He stood back up.

“Well, if he’s not connected to us, that’s probably exactly what it means.”

A sharp snap on the stairwell behind them got everyone’s attention.  And they turned to see Park coming toward them with a smile and a handful of Oreo cookies.

“Hi, guys, what…”

Her eyes suddenly caught the image of the man on the floor that had been obscured by the legs of the men.  Oh, no…