“I got turned in college.”
“Rough.”
Vincent glanced back at the window. He shifted one leg off the bed. “I should really be—”
“No, wait.” Wes leaned forward, a hand out like he was going to grab for Vincent.
Vincent flinched, but Wes had already stopped, halfway.
His hand tightened, blood-tipped fingers curling in. Carefully, like each motion was an effort, he sat back. “I mean, you should come back. I know we weren’t friends or anything, but it would be cool to catch up. Besides, I have blood. You need blood. It’s a win-win.”
“You would let me bite you?” It sounded like a joke. It had to be a joke. “Voluntarily?”
“No, you’d have to catch me first.” Wes snorted. “Yeah dude, voluntarily. But only if you ring the doorbell. My screen is looking like hell and you really don’t know what I might be getting up to during all hours of the night.”
Vincent didn’tknow, but he was pretty sure he couldimaginesome of those things. Had been imagining them. Was imagining them now, picturing himself slipping into the room to find Wes with his head tipped back and his hands moving in time to the same kinds of gentle sounds he made when bitten, and… oh dear god, Vincent really had to stop thinking like this. He was fairly sure now that Wesley had been that obnoxious eight-year-old who wouldn’t stop blaring Disney music off his mom’s iPod as he scootered down their street, and he was definitely a very real person currently sitting across the bed from Vincent, staring at him like he might be able to see into Vincent’s brain if he looked hard enough.
Vincent opened his mouth, and his fangs slid out. He closed it again.
“So that’s a yes?” Wesley asked, brow raised.
It shouldn’t have been. Somehow, Vincent knew that agreeing to come back was just setting himself up for disaster, or at least emotional mayhem. But he did need to feed, and now the person he’d been feeding on more and more over the last month was offering himself up on a silver platter. “Why?”
Wes’s gaze slid toward the wall with all his photos. “I’ve always kind of wanted to do this.”
It matched with everything Vincent could piece together about him, and it sounded genuine. That the man was only inviting him back for kicks felt a little disheartening, but Vincent couldn’t actually say no to an opportunity like this. The word wouldn’t physically come out of his mouth even if he wanted it to. He nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be here. At the front door, I mean.”
Wesley’s lips parted, his smile a crooked, cocky thing that reminded Vincent of movie stars and adventure heroes. “Then we’re on. See you at eight tomorrow?”
“I have a job then.” Half a job, really, and possibly illegal. Vincent hadn’t bothered asking. “Thursday?” That was three days away. After the couple days he’d already gone without blood and the incomplete meal he’d just had, he’d need to find someone else to feed on in the meantime, but it was probably better not to come to Wesley so hungry for their first time anyway.
Wes didn’t even hesitate. “Thursday, then.”
5
Vincent leaped down from the window, still not quite sure how he had gotten this lucky. This unlucky? Was it a good thing to have your breathlessly handsome, less-than-consensual snack turn around and offer his neck to you while also telling you he’d thought you were a weird, lonely vampire even before you became a weird, lonely vampire?
It had to be, Vincent decided, because otherwise why would his chest feel like it was full of helium and his feet like they could carry him to the moon? He had to keep reminding himself that it was just going to be a few nibbles. Wesley would eventually get bored and learn to lock his windows at night. This wasn’t going to change Vincent’s life. But it could be nice. It could be nice to talk more with someone who already knew he was a vampire and didn’t give him odd looks when he came too close to their personal property. It woulddefinitelybe nice to have even a few stable blood meals accounted for, so he could focus on putting regular old food into his body and fresh clothes on his back.
This would be good for him.
And that meant he was allowed to be excited.
5
WESLEY
Wesley had found a vampire. A real life, honest to god vampire, who had agreed to return in three nights. Which meant in three nights he was getting into Vitalis-Barron. In three nights, his mother’s death would be confirmed, then avenged. If he could just distract himself enough to keep from falling apart until then.
Vincent was, unfortunately, a distraction all on his own.
Half of Wes’s brain kept replaying the way the vampire’s hair had fluffed as he jumped out the window, dark jacket fluttering and ice-blue eyes meeting Wes’s one last time. Wes shook his head. Vincent wasn’tthatcute, and no amount of enigmatic charm could make up for the fact that he’d been breaking into Wes’s room, violating his private space and taking from his body without his consent.
It didn’t matter that he was the shy, awkward kid Wes had briefly been acquainted with in elementary, or that he seemed no less shy or awkward as an adult. Whether he acted like a monster or not, he had done something monstrous. Vincent didn’t seem like the serial assault type, but looks could fool. Wes knew that well enough; he’d just used his charm and enthusiasm on the vampire in order to cover up his real intentions. He felt no worse about that than he did for all the charismatic lies he’d given the Vitalis-Barron interviewers.
He still felt a lot of other things though, his nerves shivering with the memory of Vincent’s tongue and the intrusive bliss it had forced upon him. The vampire had to be inflicting him with some kind of inhumane thrall. That was the only thing that could explain why, after cleaning himself up and climbing back in bed, Wes kept slipping into dreams that were half memory, half desire. He bolted upright more than once, slapping the light back on to find his room empty, window shut tight, the phantom breath on his neck only his imagination. His skin tingled where the dream vampire had pinned him down, one knee pressed to his inner thigh and fangs shining despite the dark of the night. They had looked like Vincent’s fangs, had felt like Vincent’s as they drew gently across his skin. He’d squirmed in the dream, but he hadn’t fought it.
Because it had been a dream, after all. It wasn’t even the weirdest adrenaline rush, almost wet dream he’d ever had. That was what dreams were for—getting you horny in circumstances that made your waking self reevaluate your sanity.
