Page 105 of Even Vampires Bleed
I feel dumb for saying that, because obviously I didn’t know. She barely talked to me when we were in theSacré Coeur,and it’s only been five days since we started to be friendly.
Maybe past me knew, but it stands to reason that I, on the other hand, wouldn’t know.
“Where did you learn?” I ask to avoid her answering my previous words.
“With humans. They have a school next to Notre Dame. As you might know, I don’t really fight. All I do is sneak out or read. I thought it would be interesting to be able to know what to do with my hands in another way. I’m bringing pleasure to the world with them instead of destroying things.”
It takes her a second to think through what she just said, and she freezes with her hands on my back.
“Oh god, I sound like a whore. Not that it’s not a respectable profession. Anyone can pick whatever they want to do. If it’s sex and they like it, all the better for them. I didn’t mean it like that. Well, now it’s getting worse. It’s getting worse, right? Oh god, please tell me to shut up.”
“Breathe,” I say instead.
I can’t stop myself from smiling. When I was in Notre Dame, everyone kept repeating that she’s the kind to rant easily, and I’m always amazed when I see it myself.
It’s cute.
55
Cassiopé
I’m pretty sure that I’m as red as a tomato. At least I’m behind Léandre, so he can’t see me. I’m sure I would crumble under his stare.
I finish massaging him in an awkward silence and with tingling fingers.
Each time I move his hair aside to massage the top of his shoulders, I get a rush and have to stop myself from bending down and plunging my fangs into his skin.
The vein on the side of his neck is pulsing next to my hand, and I can’t stop staring.
It takes all of my strength not to act on my instincts, and when I’m finally done, I jump from behind him and go back to the kitchen.
I can’t stay there, close to him, or I don’t know what I will do.
I have no idea what need is the strongest in me right now. Between my heated dreams and my fangs dying to sample him again, I’m a mess.
So, instead, I focus on what I can actually do—breakfast.
That’s what I was about to make when I smelled a lie in Léandre. It was more of a hidden truth, but who cares for semantics?
After breakfast, the rest of the day passes like any other. Léandre goes to cut wood that we absolutely don’t need any more of, and I situnder the sun with one of my books against a tree in the same clearing, trying not to ogle him.
I’m both dreading and anticipating the time when we’ll go to bed.
The thought is so overwhelming that, by the time the sun starts setting, I have no idea what happened in the last hundred pages of my book.
I’ll have to go back to where I started at the beginning of the afternoon when I read again tomorrow.
Léandre takes his shower while I start cooking, and then at the end of the meal, I take mine while he does the dishes.
Everything seems so normal, and yet I feel like something is about to change.
There is some sort of electricity in the air that crackles each time our bodies brush inadvertently, and that seems to draw us together.
After dinner, I go back to reading my book—but once again nothing seems to print on my brain and I’ve forgotten everything I read right away—and Léandre carves something from a piece of wood he picked this afternoon. It doesn’t look like anything so far, and my curiosity has peaked.
It doesn’t help with staying focused on my book, and in the end, I give up.
“I’m going to sleep,” I tell Léandre, hoping that will get him to stand and follow me.
