Page 47 of Thirsty

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Then he felt a hand on his shoulder—Charlie turning him back around, pulling him closer. “Quick,” he said urgently. “Pretend we’re—”

He didn’t get a chance to finish before the door swung open. Instead, Charlie just pulled Lorenzo roughly against him, hands fisted in Lorenzo’s shirt, and threw his head to the side, baring his neck. Lorenzo’s hands came to cradle his head and the small of his back instinctively, and with Lorenzo crowding him back against the wall, his head buried in Charlie’s neck, he knew exactly what they looked like: a vampire and a human locked in a passionate bite.

He did not actually bite Charlie. He brought his mouth down to Charlie’s neck, burrowed his face into the crook of Charlie’s throat, and kept his lips about an inch away from his skin. But with the way they were pressed together, their bodies entwined and wracked with tension, no one would be able to tell the difference.

Charlie was panting out into the room, his pulse pounding wildly in his throat. His scent, so thick and close now, was rapidly fogging up Lorenzo’s ability to focus. Charlie had gasped and arched into him when Lorenzo grabbed him, wrapping his arms around Lorenzo’s shoulders and digging his nails in. That would help sell it, as would the way Lorenzo growled and ground himself against Charlie.

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But it wasn’t real. That’s what Lorenzo had to hold on to, as he tried to ignore the sweet warmth of Charlie’s thin, delectable skin just a hair’s breadth away from his lips. His pulse was right there, beat beat beating away, a delicious bass note to the sound of Charlie’s frantic breath. And he could feel, in the way Charlie’s muscles jumped under his hands, and the way Charlie clutched at him back, that he wanted it.

“Guys,” someone said, with the irritated tone of having said it more than once.

Lorenzo pulled back and wiped his face, hiding the fact thatthere was no blood there. Charlie hastily grabbed his own neck, covering the nonexistent bite. “Yes?”

“This is an off-limits area,” the guard explained wearily. He’d probably chased people out of here dozens of times before. “You want to get your bite on, do it downstairs.”

“Oh, uh—very well,” Lorenzo said shakily. “Come, human.”

They made their way unsteadily down the grand staircase and back to the party.

Chapter 13

Charlie had been staying up so late with Lorenzo, he’d taken to sleeping in until one or two in the afternoon. So when his phone rang and rang and rang at 9:48 a.m. on the Sunday after the vampire party, he was jolted out of an otherwise deep sleep.

He picked up his phone and saw his dad’s unamused face filling the screen, bobbing slightly as he paced around their family living room.

Panicking, Charlie hit ignore. But even as he dove back under the covers, he could tell it was too late; he was up, and after ten minutes of grumpy denial, he decided that he might as well have an early morning.

There were fewer emails waiting for him to get through—that was nice. He decided to go for a walk to take in the sunshine, mentally plotting a path to his favorite Mexican place for breakfast.

It was unsettling, as he walked, to realize how strange it all seemed—the sight of Brookville under the daylight. This was his hometown, and these were street corners he’d walkedpast hundreds of times; but they looked different now, crisp and warm and bright. It all looked different since he’d started spending so many of his hours with Lorenzo, under the moonlight.

If he lived a thousand years, he would never forget Lorenzo taking him into his arms last night, even if that was, unfortunately, the only way in which Charlie had been taken. The moment he’d realized that Lorenzo was going to go along with his ridiculous plan, the air had been knocked out of his lungs; and then Lorenzo had touched him, molded their bodies together, brought his fangs oh so close to Charlie’s throat—and it was like a damnBridgertoncover started playing. He would never forget the drag of Lorenzo’s hands against his back, pulling him closer; the heat of Lorenzo’s mouth; the dampness of his breath against his throat. He felt branded there. It was the worst kind of ache—the tendons of his shoulder felt tense and raw, the skin of his neck tender. Like he couldn’t stop bracing himself for something that would never come.

He couldn’t stop replaying it in his head, tormenting himself—the almost-bite. The bite that nearly was.

And he couldn’t stop wondering—what would have come next, if it had been real?

He got an outdoor seat at El Varadero, and waited until the waiter had left after putting in his order before he succumbed to his shameful curiosity. Charlie pulled his phone out and searched—