Page 17 of Her Vampire

He smirks, some of the tension flowing out of him.

I find my jeans and wriggle into them, sticky without my panties.

Torsten looks at me with complete enthrallment swimming in his gaze, as though any second his inner beast could reemerge and force him to leap at me like the animal he secretly is.

My head swims as I take in the enormity of his expression, the absolute dedication of it making the way the jocks used to look at the cheerleaders in high school seem insignificant in comparison.

“I can’t believe you really want me that badly,” I whisper.

“Well, believe it,” he laughs grimly. “Because I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything. And that’s what scares me. I’m just surprised you didn’t start screaming when I lite up red like a one-man disco ball.”

I giggle. “Actually, that was kind of hot.”

“You’re one of a kind, Tammy. Goddamn. You’re perfect.”

I sit on the bed, squeezing onto my thighs, feeling more vivacious and alive than I ever have before.

“I’m not going to turn into a vampire now, am I?” I joke.

Or half-joke, anyway, since I’m not exactly sure how all of this works.

“No,” he murmurs. “It’s not like the movies. Garlic does nothing to us. We have reflections. We can’t turn into bats. A blessed stake will kill us, that much is true. But water does nothing, holy or not. And vampires aren’t made by other vampires. They are – were – made by sorcerers. But there are none left. I’m the last alive, Tammy. So don’t fear. You won’t sprout fangs tomorrow morning.”

“It must’ve been lonely,” I say. “Being on your own for so long.”

He walks over to the bed and cups my chin in his hand, his skin turning cool again and sending shivers down my neck and over my body. But even as cold as the grave, there’s a tingly sensation to his touch that makes me want more, that makes me as hungry as he was when he bit me.

“I have never wanted anyone else apart from you,” he whispers softly.

“You’ve lived over a thousand years,” I say, stroking my hand up his arm. “Do you really expect me to—”

“I would never lie to you.”

He sits down next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me close to him. Then he turns and takes a long inhale of my hair. Briefly, warmth blooms all through him, until with an effort he brings the cold back.

“Shit,” he says, laughing grimly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you all these years to be on your own,” I mutter, trying to get him back on subject.

“And you haven’t been on your own?” he probes.

“Well, sure,” I say. “I didn’t exactly have friends at the orphanage. Singing was my only escape, really, because there was this one teacher who said I had talent and let me hang around the music room after class. She became a sort of mother figure, I guess you could say. But she passed a few years ago. And then I was on my own. I found Chipper, though.”

“He’s a good dog,” Torsten says, gripping me tightly, his body so solid and strong I know that nothing in the world can hurt me right now. “A loyal friend.”

“Yeah,” I say, stunned at the sob trying to creep into my voice. “He’s called Chipper because he was rescued from a wood chipper, you know. That’s what the guy at the rescue place told me. How could somebody be so evil to try and do that to an innocent animal?”

“Live long enough and you realize there’s no limit to evil, Tammy,” he says. “Thank you for telling me more about yourself. It makes me feel closer to you.”

“Wait a second …”

I look up at him, grinning through the budding melancholy.

“Did you just use one of your charm thingies on me? Because one second I was dead-set on asking you about yourself, and now here I am, spilling my ugly guts out.”

His lips go tight at the word ugly, and he shakes his head slowly.

“No part of you is ugly, Tammy.”

“You’re a master at changing the subject.”

He smirks briefly, flashing his human-looking teeth, his fangs retracted. “There was a war about two hundred years ago between humans and vampires. Some radical sorcerer became convinced that a leader of my kind had discovered a way to make more vampires without the need of a sorcerer. I was at the fringe of the war. I had no interest in it. I was older than most of the petty pups squabbling like humans. No offense.”

I laugh, nudging him, my mind swimming as I try to convince myself yet again that this is all true.

Outside, a light wind howls.

The night watches.

Moonlight shines into the bedroom.

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