“Swear to the heavens that where I came from, coffee tastes like ground-up dirt. Unless I was with Jasper overnight, of course.”
“Such a tragedy.” I shove my pocket watch into my vest while ignoring the bitterness that Jasper’s name leaves in the air. I join her at the table. The chair wheezes under my weight, inviting her attention.
And then she double takes. “You’re sitting in the sun.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I finger the jewel around my neck. It’s a simple ruby charm held by an oval-lock chain. The clip is charmed to never break. “I’m sure yourJasperhas explained spells.”
“You don’t have to say it like that.”
“Like what?”
She licks her lips slowly, allowing them to part on a sly smile. “Like you’re jealous.”
I titter. It’s more of a mocking laugh than anything. “You’re mistaken, little viper. It’s early. I’ll forgive your misinterpretation due to recent events.”
“Recent events like…?”
“Your arrival to a new home. Your adjustment to a new schedule, a new vampire.” I cross my right ankle over my left knee. I lean back casually, ignoring the groan of the chair attempting to hold my weight. “Your food being prepared and delivered to you by your vampire.” She runs her fingers through her hair. The way it tickles her chin prompts chills to slither up my spine. “Your sleep uninterrupted.”
She frowns. “How do you—?”
“As I’ve said, little one. Your hips are wide, you’re fed well, but you’re not nourished in the least.”
Her throat clicks when she swallows. It’s a distinct sound, one I must have missed last night.
But it makes me want to discover it all over again.
I shift my position, straighten my back, and tousle the curls over my forehead. “You’re clearly used to being treated as nothing more than food.”
She stares at her plate. “Because I am food.”
“No, you’re the lifeforce that imbues me with energy.”
Her eyes cut north, not quite meeting mine, but focusing instead on a point above—perhaps it’s the center of my forehead or the bridge of my nose. But I know she’s not looking directly at me as most bloodbags traditionally do.
She’s not like most bloodbags. I’m taking the layers as they come despite how much it annoys me.
I motion vaguely toward her. “You fuel our society. Do you not understand that? Did Jasper not impress this upon you?”
She bristles at the name. Perhaps she harbors hatred for her previous host being so... inhospitable.
And then her gaze falls. She lifts a fork. She pokes the sausage on her plate. I find myself frozen as she cuts a piece and lifts it to her lips.
The wildest things I’ve witnessed stay locked away in my mind. From the first straps of BDSM gear to the initial introduction of commonly produced porn, I’ve certainly seen it all. The most erotic. The most strange. The most gut-wrenching displays of inhumane sadism done in the most consensual of ways. If one could ever believe it.
But this display of pleasure is most unfamiliar.
As soon as she places the food on her tongue, her eyelids flutter, and her nostrils flare with a sharp intake of air. She holds it for a second, both the food and her breath. She seems to freeze with the weight of flavor.
From there, it’s a rapid descent. Her eyebrows unfold. Her features relax into pure surrender. Her mouth slowly shifts with each focused chewing motion. The way her muscles churn around her jaw, the way her throat bobs when she inevitably swallows, and the way she struggles to pry open her eyes…
No, the gods must hate me. To put such an image in front of me where I can reach her, where I can actually lunge across the table and pop my thumb into her mouth just to see that look again, there must have been a deity I pissed off ages ago.
Because this is more torturous than the gallows.