Page 28 of Shut Up and Bite Me

“It’s too much,” I insist.

She giggles. “Trust me, it’s not. Greyson, I want you to have the life you desire. This money won’t dent my account, so please stop fighting me on it. You are the most genuine and honest person I’ve ever met. I want you to have it.”

I know if I open my mouth to say anything else, I’ll protest her generosity. So instead, I show her my thanks in another way.

Skating my hands up her sides, I grab her face and pull her down to me, capturing her mouth with mine.

Licking the seam of her lips, I taste the inside of her mouth as my fingers find the hem of the shirt she’s wearing and bunch it up right above her hips.

We devour each other with our kisses, our tongues melting together. Her lips are silky soft as they melt against mine, only parting long enough to gasp for air. But I’m willing to suffocate as long as she doesn’t stop kissing me.

I pull away just enough to whisper, “What was it you said you wanted? Feeding and fucking?”

Grabbing the cotton fabric, I lift it up over her bare breasts, which bounce from the motion, making my mouth water as I lift the shirt over her head and drop it to the floor.

Tipping my head to the side, I tap my neck with two fingers. “I’m all yours.”

She wets her lips, her hazel gaze turns dark red, and two white fangs protrude as she bites down on her bottom lip. In the blink of an eye, I feel her sink into my neck, pain and pleasure blending into eternal ecstasy.

Vivian took me on a private tour of Saint Eldritch yesterday, showing me places I’ve somehow never been. Or maybe it felt that way because I’m looking at everything through a new lens.

She also told me some things I was desperate to know. I learned that vampires don’t eat human food. They can consume it just fine, but their body discards it, disintegrating it the second it hits their stomach. That might be the sole reason I would change into a vampire. Bottomless calories for life.

Many of the things I thought I knew about vampires prior to meeting Vivian turned out to be false. They have a reflection in the mirror. Garlic does absolutely nothing to them. Same goes for crosses. They don’t need to breathe air to survive. They can’t suffocate. Their bodies just held on to that involuntary movement after death as a tool to help them trick their victims into thinking they’re human.

But a few traits about her kind turned out to be true. They live for eternity. They survive on human blood. And a stake through the heart is deadly, but only when it’s carved from a white ash tree.

She patiently sat and answered a thousand questions for me before she had to leave to attend to some High Council business, leaving Lucy and me home alone.

Vivian said that Lucy doesn’t like new people, but that doesn’t apply to me because she’s started to follow me everywhere I go in the house, including the bathroom. She has lost all regard for privacy.

It’s been a few days since I got a good run in, so when I woke up this morning, I changed into joggers and a hoodie, slipped on my tennis shoes, secured my phone in my chest bag, and headed out for a run.

It takes me about five minutes to even get off Vivian’s property and get back into the community. I’ve never been on this side of town, and I quickly understand why. Every house I pass looks like it was plucked out of a magazine. Not a single one of these houses looks like it’s less than ten million dollars. Every driveway has a private security gate. The landscaping consists of trimmed hedges and perfectly maintained flower beds, although with the weather cooling down, a majority of them are starting to fade.

Deciding that I need to see parts of this town I feel like I belong in, I travel the mile toward the center of town, near the apothecary we visited. Music plays in my ears, drowning out the noise of the cars driving by and the rest of the world.

As I turn onto a new street, a small pit forms in my stomach like a warning sign. Coming to a halt, I decide that today is not the day to investigate that feeling.

Spinning around, I dig my feet into the ground and take off, following the same path back toward Vivian’s. But I still can’t shake that feeling…the sense that someone is watching me. Goose bumps erupt on my arms, but I chalk it up to the brisk fall air.

The hair on my neck rises as I cross back into the wealthy, ritzy neighborhood, and I tap my earbud to stop the music. I want to be able to hear around me.

Turning my head, I glance back behind me, but I don’t see anyone. This is weird. I’m probably overanalyzing it. Creating it all in my head. The idea that I sense someone watching me is manifesting into a real sensation like a paranormal hypochondriac.

Running down the main road, I turn right at the end to head up the short hill to Vivian’s place. But even as I try to force the thoughts of someone following me out of my mind, I fail.

As I turn into her long, winding driveway, lined by tall pine trees, the hair on the back of my neck settles back down, and the eeriness looming over me dissipates. I don’t know if I should tell Vivian or not. I don’t want to freak her out if there’s nothing to freak out over. Besides, if someone was watching me, it could have been innocent. I just can’t help the tingle in the back of my brain that knows that wasn’t the case.

Jogging up the front steps, I pull my sweatshirt off over my head, wiping the pouring sweat from my face and letting the wind cool down my body. Crossing my fingers on top of my head, I take a few deep breaths to calm my erratic breathing and racing heart. As I take one last deep breath through my nose, I open the front door and step inside, immediately hearing someone rustling around in the kitchen.

“Hello?” I call out, shutting the door, slinging my hoodie over my shoulder, and walking across the giant space toward the open kitchen.

No one responds.

Lucy jumps down from the couch and runs over the second she sees me, and I bend down to give her soft head a few pets, earning sweet purrs.

A pot clatters to the floor in the kitchen, and I rush over, the culprit finally coming into view as I turn the corner and find Vivian viciously mixing something in a bowl.

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