Immortal Cravings

The first thing I notice is the ceiling.

It's very high. Embarrassingly high. The kind of ceiling that suggests whoever owns it has never once checked their bank balance before ordering wine.

The second thing I notice is that I can hear someone pouring that wine three rooms away.

No. Not wine.

Something thicker.

I sit up too fast. The room snaps into focus so violently I almost duck. Every thread in the cream-colored duvet. Every speck of dust turning in the violet light. A tiny crack in the far window, no wider than an eyelash.

And me, in the middle of it, wearing an enormous white shirt I definitely do not own.

"Okay."

My body feels...wrong. Not hurt. Worse, almost…perfect?

No hangover. No stiffness after an eleven-hour shift. No familiar ache between my shoulders from leaning over the bar while men named Tyler explain bourbon to me.

Just a strange, electric pressure beneath my skin. Like every nerve has been polished. Then suddenly, all at once my memory of last night cracks open. It all comes back in pieces.

The bar after closing. A man waiting outside. His hand crushing my wrist. His mouth at my throat.

“No, please…”

Blood on my collar.

And then…

him. The beautiful stranger from the corner booth. Dark eyes. Expensive coat. One hand around my attacker’s neck as if he weighed nothing.

A car. This penthouse. His arm around me while I tried not to fall apart.

His voice asking,

“Do you want to live?”

My voice saying,

“Yes.”

After that, only flashes. A sharp pressure. His mouth. Heat flooding through me until the whole world went black.

"You're awake."

He sweeps into the room carrying a crystal glass. Perfectly composed, of course. Meanwhile, I look like I've been exhumed in a luxury hotel.

"You're here."

"I do live here."

"Right. Your ceiling gave it away."

"Drink this. You'll feel better."

The closer he gets, the quieter my panic becomes. I remember that from last night too. The peculiar safety of him. Like standing beside a locked door while something terrible scratches on the other side.

I take the glass. Our fingers brush.

Pain tears through my mouth. My gums throb. The room turns painfully bright, his face so precise I can see the dark ring around each iris.

The glass slips in my hand and before I even have time to react, he’s caught it, effortlessly.

"Easy. Your fangs are coming in."

"My what?"

"You were bitten last night. The man outside the bar was starving and careless. By the time I reached you, you were dying."

"And your solution was… to give me fangs?"

"My solution is the one you asked me for."

"I didn't ask for…

…this."

"You asked to live. I told you the price. You said yes.

You’re like me now."

“Like you?

My bank account wishes.”

"A vampire.”

I search his face for a tell, anything that might give him away. A grin, a punchline, evidence that rich men have developed an especially deranged form of aftercare.

There isn't one.

"No. No, come on, vampires aren't..."

"Real?"

He smiles, and two sharp white points descend behind his lower lip.

“Boo.”

"Oh, fuck you."

"That is often the initial response."

"You made me…a vampire? A vampire. Do I die in sunlight? Do I sleep in dirt?

Am I going to start talking like a nineteenth-century landlord?"

“Only in the movies… well, the shitty ones.”

"Sunlight will hurt until you grow stronger. You may sleep wherever you like. And I will personally intervene if you begin calling anyone 'wench.'"

Despite myself, a laugh escapes. Small and cracked, but real.

He takes the untouched glass from my shaking hand and places it aside.

"You're frightened, and I can only imagine what you've lost. This is a lot, understandably.

But there’s beauty too. Let me show you what you've gained."

I nod, my hand feeling small and warm in his, and let him lead me to the wall of windows and out onto a rooftop terrace.

The night hits me all at once, and the scents alone are sensory overload.

It’s rich and silvery, smelling of iron and fresh rain.

The city unfurls below us in impossible detail. I can read the face of a clock twelve blocks away. See a woman laughing behind the steamed window of a noodle shop. Count the individual beads of rain still clinging to a radio tower.

"I can see everything."

"Look farther."

I do.

The horizon sharpens. Rooftops, bridges, the black ribbon of the river. And sound. All the noise. A thousand private worlds arriving without invitation. A taxi door slamming. A dog dreaming on the thirty-second floor. Music leaking from someone's headphones on the sidewalk below.

"It's...incredible."

"Close your eyes."

"I just got super-vision and you want me to stop using it?"

"Humor me."

I close them.

"What do you smell?"

The rain trapped in concrete. Hot copper from the train tracks 20 floors below us. Orange peel from a cocktail two rooftops over. The night-blooming jasmine planted along his terrace.

And…him.

Clean linen. Cedar. Something smoky and ancient underneath. His skin smells warm despite the cool wind, and beneath it is a darker scent that makes my new fangs ache.

"Jasmine. Rain. Your offensively expensive cologne."

"I don't wear cologne."

My eyes open. I didn’t hear him move but he’s closer to me now, and I can feel the heat of his breath, see tiny specks of gold gleaming in his irises.

"Then you naturally smell expensive.

Somehow that's worse."

"You'll learn to separate every scent. Every voice. You can move faster than the eye can follow. Heal from almost any wound. Influence weaker minds. And, eventually, if you trust another vampire enough..."

His gaze settles on mine.

"You can let them hear you."

The words don't come through my ears. They unfurl inside my head, low and intimate as a mouth beside my neck.

"Like this."

"Oh."

"Too much?"

"No. Do it again."

"Greedy already."

Heat skims over my body. Not embarrassment exactly. Something lower. Stranger. I can feel the words in all the places my pulse used to be.

He turns, striding deliberately across the length of the terrace.

"Run to me."

"You're six feet away."

"Trust me."

I take one step towards him.

And collide with his chest.

"Holy shit. I’m fast."

His arms close around me to keep us both upright. I cling to him, my laughter sinking into his shoulder, flooded with wild, dizzy relief.

"You probably saved me from accidentally splattering on the pavement. Wait, can vampires splatter?”

“Anyway, thanks for saving me.

"I’m glad… you stayed."

"And you stayed with me."

I turn into him, hugging him gratefully. Then I feel it. The subtle shift of his body against mine. His breath catching near my ear. A rush of warmth, spice, and something achingly male blooming through his scent.

With my new senses, his arousal is not a suggestion. I know it with the same certainty as I recognise my own.

I go still in his arms.

"Is that...you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your scent changed."

His hands loosen at my waist, giving me room to step away. I don't.

"Your senses are extremely delicate tonight."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes. It's me."

A brighter flare of arousal moves through my own bod with startling intensity. My nipples tighten beneath the shirt I’m wearing. Heat gathers between my thighs so quickly I actually glance down, betrayed by my own anatomy. He smells that too.

I watch as his eyes darken, turning from light-filled coppery gold, to pitch black.

"Well. This is mortifying."

"You have nothing to be embarrassed about."

"Easy for you to say. You smell like a controlled burn. I smell like-"

"You smell exquisite."

The words move through me. I can hear his heartbeat now, slow, powerful, then suddenly not so slow.

"Let me hear you."

"Are you sure?"

"You crawled inside my skull without asking five minutes ago. Don't be polite now."

He studies me. Then the wall between us caves inward before it collapses completely, leaving us both exposed, vulnerable, connected.

"I thought you were beautiful behind that bar. Furious, exhausted, pretending not to notice me watching you. But like this..."

His thumb brushes my waist through the shirt.

"Like this, you are unbearable."

Every syllable lands directly between my thighs.

I tilt my face toward his.

"Kiss me."

"You have been through something traumatic. Your body is changing. I won't take advantage of-"

"Listen, I might be a little freaked out. Just a bit. I'm also standing on a roof hearing a violinist practice four buildings away while I smell exactly how badly you want me.

I contain multitudes now, and I want this."

His mouth twitches.

"Please."

His expression changes at that. Something hungry finally allowed off its leash.

"Ask me again."

"Kiss me. Please.”

His lips are cool at first, then warm beneath mine. Every tiny movement is enormous: the soft drag of his lower lip, his fingers spreading across my back, the faint scrape of one fang when I deepen the kiss. I shiver hard against him.

"Sensitive?"

"You have no idea."

"I have some idea."

He kisses down my throat without biting, though I feel the careful edge of his teeth. The restraint of it makes my knees weak. He catches me easily, lowering me onto the wide cushioned chaise as if I weigh nothing.

The city glitters behind him. His beautiful face is all hunger and reverence.

"May I touch you?"

"God, yes."

He opens the shirt slowly, each button a tiny cruelty, then pushes it from my shoulders. The night air moves over my bare skin and I feel all of it. Every current, every rise of gooseflesh, the heat of his gaze traveling down my body.

"Beautiful."

His hands skim my breasts, my ribs, my stomach, as though he's learning me by touch. My skin sparks beneath each pass.

"I can feel your fingerprints.”

"Every one?"

"Every single…

fuck...one."

He bends and closes his mouth around one nipple.

The sensation is almost too bright. His tongue, the pull of his mouth, one hand stroking my other breast. I arch helplessly toward him, hearing his satisfaction inside my mind.

"That's it. Let me feel what you like."

"You can feel me too?"

"If you let me."

I don't know how I do it, but I feel it when I let him in. He’s there suddenly, under my skin, filling in the empty spaces. I welcome the invasion, curiosity taking over my need to hide and..

The connection floods open. His pleasure moves through me alongside my own, his hunger at the taste of my skin, the ache of his cock inside his pants, his almost painful need to make this good for me.

"Oh, that's not fair."

"No. It isn't."

He trails kisses down my stomach. My thighs fall open before he asks, my body shamelessly certain of him.

"Tell me what you want."

"Your mouth."

"Where?"

"You know where."

"I want to hear my beautiful new vampire say it."

"I want your mouth on my pussy. Please."

"Good girl."

The praise hits like another sense coming alive.

He spreads me open with his thumbs and inhales, slow and deep. My whole body clenches at the sound.

"Can you really...smell how wet I am?"

"I could find you in a city of ten million people right now."

"That is deeply unsettling."

"Would you like me to stop?"

"I will throw you off this roof."

He laughs against my inner thigh, the vibration humming through me. He drags his tongue across me, painfully slow.

Oral sex on VO1 begins.

"Your arousal is its own kind of feast."

His tongue circles my clit and every muscle in my body tightens at once. I can hear the wet movement of his mouth with humiliating clarity. Hear his fingers press into the cushion. Hear the thought he lets slip into me.

"More. Give me more."

"You're the one...with your face between my legs."

He sucks my clit harder in response.

His pleasure doubles mine. He loves the taste of me, loves how my thighs close around his head, loves each helpless little sound he pulls from my mouth. I feel worshipped and devoured in equal measure.

"Don't stop. Please, don't..."

"I won't. Cum in my mouth."

His fingers slide inside me as his tongue keeps a perfect rhythm against my clit.

Penetration with fingers begins, Cunnilingus continues

Everything becomes scent and sound and heat. His mouth. His thoughts. The stretch of his fingers. My own wetness slick across his lips. The entire city disappears beneath the blinding white pressure building low in my body.

"I'm...I'm going to-"

"Yes. Let me have it."

He drinks down every shudder, every pulse, holding my thighs open when they try to close. The pleasure feels endless in this body. Sharper. Deeper. Until I am boneless beneath his mouth.

He lifts his head. His lips are shining.

"You taste extraordinary."

I pull him up by the front of his shirt and kiss him hard, tasting myself on his mouth.

"I want to try."

"Try what?”

"Don't make me produce another formal request."

His composure finally breaks when I free his cock. Thick, hard, already slick at the head. The smell of his arousal rolls over me, dark and warm, and my mouth waters so abruptly it's almost funny.

"So that's new."

"What is?"

"Wanting to put someone in my mouth because they smell so good."

I lick slowly from the base to the tip, tasting salt and heat, feeling his pleasure flare inside my mind.

I take him deeper. His hand gathers my hair without forcing me, the thought of how my mouth looks around him slipping hot and unguarded into my head.

"Perfect. Fuck, your mouth is perfect."

Then he grips my shoulders and gently pulls me away.

"Why did you stop me?"

"Because if you keep doing that, this lesson ends on the floor with embarrassing speed."

"I thought you liked my mouth."

"I adore your mouth. I just want a chance to adore the rest of you too."

He rises over me, naked now, all elegant lines ruined beautifully by need. He hooks one of my legs over his shoulder, the other around his waist, and drags the head of his cock through my wetness.

"Please."

"Again."

"Oh, don't become insufferable now."

"Beg me."

The command unfurls inside me, velvet and heat.

"Please fuck me. I need to feel you. Need to be filled with you."

"Good girl."

And with that, he gives me what I need.

Penetration begins.

He pushes into me slowly, letting me feel every inch. My new body records everything: the pressure, the stretch, the slick drag as I take him all the way. His forehead drops against mine when our hips meet.

"You feel..."

The thought dissolves into raw pleasure.

"Very articulate."

"You are distracting."

He pulls back and thrusts again, harder.

The chaise shifts beneath us with each thrust. Wind cools the sweat on my skin. The city glows below, but all I can see is him. His jaw tightening, his pupils blown wide, the beautiful fracture in all that composure.

I pull him closer, my nails dragging down his back.

"Let me hear everything. I want it all."

Our connection opens completely.

His pleasure crashes into mine. The tight heat of me around him. My breasts move against his chest. I can hear my own wetness each time he fills me. His need to hold back, to make me cum again before he lets himself go.

"Oh, fuck. I can feel you feeling me."

"And I can feel you taking me so beautifully."

He bends and catches my nipple between his teeth, not breaking skin, just enough sharp pressure to spark through every nerve.

"Again. Please.”

"Greedy girl."

He bites my shoulder, rougher this time, and drives into me hard. My body clamps around him.

"That's it. Take what you need from me."

I can hear his control fraying. Feel it. His orgasm gathering like thunder beneath my own.

"Don't hold back."

"I want you with me."

His hand slips between us, fingers finding my clit and matching the hard rhythm of his hips.

"I'm close. God, I'm so close."

"I know. I can feel you opening for me."

He drives into me once, twice, and the entire connection floods white-hot.

"Cum with me."

His pleasure tears through me alongside my own. I feel myself pulsing around him, feel the exact instant he loses control inside me. For one impossible moment there is no border between us at all. Only sensation, doubled and reflected until I can't tell which sensation belongs to whom. The pleasure is just, pleasure. Boundless and overflowing.

The city returns sense by sense. Wind. Traffic. That violinist still practicing the same miserable measure.

"I can still hear him."

"Who?"

"The violinist. Four buildings over. He's very committed to being terrible."

"Your compassion is moving."

"I died yesterday. I think I've earned honesty."

His hand smooths slowly down my back. I listen to his heart settling beneath my ear.

"Does it always feel like that?"

"No."

"Oh."

"That was the first time I let anyone all the way in."

I lift my head to look at him. For the first time since he walked into the room, he looks almost uncertain.

"In how long?"

"As long as I’ve been living. Or, not living, I guess."

"That's suspiciously vague."

"You asked me not to speak like a nineteenth-century landlord. Revealing my age would make that considerably harder."

"Fair."

The fear is still there. Somewhere. Morning will come, and with it a thousand questions I don't yet know enough to ask. But beneath the fear is the whole electric city. Jasmine. Rain. The warmth of his skin. His thoughts, quiet now but no longer closed to me. And hunger, yes. But not emptiness.

His fingers trace the healing marks at my throat.

"I am sorry I couldn't save your old life."

I take his hand and press my lips to his palm.

"You saved the part that matters."

"And what part is that?"

"The greedy part."

"That, I had gathered."

"Good. Because I still haven't tasted that drink you brought me."

"You may find you prefer it warm."

"Is that an invitation?"

"It is a promise."