Nectar (Nectar 1)

“What? You can’t just snatch people from their lives, pluck them out and steal them? I don’t…”

He put his index finger on her lips, “Shhh, Kyla, please. This is your life we’re talking about. I don’t care about some stranger. She’ll be fine. She won’t remember a thing when she’s returned home.”

“You have such a long way to go, Tristan.”

“Huh?” He looked genuinely perplexed.

“I can’t have you just stealing people to train me. It’s not fair. It’s so wrong.”

He rolled his eyes at her. She felt her temperature rise. She was pissed. She squirmed out from under him, stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door.

How could she just be okay with him having Sam stealing someone else from their life so that she could learn how to act? It was unconscionable.

A moment later he stepped into the room. She was brushing her teeth to within an inch of their life.

“I need you to calm down,” He said, cautiously.

She spat into the sink and wiped her mouth with a towel, “I can’t. I’m freaking right the fuck out. I think you should call Sam now and call this off.”

“Baby.” He pulled her to him and for a change she didn’t even feel like fighting or throwing something at him. She didn’t know what she was feeling. So she grabbed him and held tight.

“Call it off, Tristan.”

“No.”

She tried to pull back, he didn’t let her go.

“Seriously, Tristan…”

“Kyla, I need you to let me handle things. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

She wanted to fight back but found herself melting against him, wanting to trust him, wanting him to be able to fix things.

“So you’ll drink from this girl?” she mumbled into his chest.

“No, baby. Shh, I won’t drink directly from anyone but you ever again. Ever. She’s for Sam and to show you. It’s just a few days. I have my blood bank, if I need it but I should be fine.”

“Dirty water,” she said softly, feeling relieved. Relieved he wasn’t going to feed off some poor innocent girl and relieved that his mouth wouldn’t be on some other woman.

“Yeah.” They were both quiet for a minute and Tristan was contemplative.

The idea of Tristan’s mouth on another woman made her heart sink and bile rise in her throat. She found it hard to believe he was promising his fangs would never touch anyone else again. That seemed like it must be a huge thing for a vampire to do.

“Let’s take a bath,” he broke the silence, “We’ll relax for a bit. You’re all tense.”

“So are you,” she squeezed the back of his neck and felt him relax a little.

~~~

They cuddled in the water together for a long time, Kyla between his legs, her back resting against his stomach, her head back against his pecks.

“I could live in this bathtub. It’s almost as big as my bedroom.” She stretched out and flexed her toes in the bubbles, enjoying the warmth and the sizzle of the bubbles on her skin. He started to massage her shoulders.

“Tell me about your life,” she said, “What makes you a bad guy? Why do you feel like you’re in a haze all the time?”

“Let me guess; you were planning on studying to be a journalist in school.”

“No… it was going to be business.”

“You should reconsider. Specialize in interrogations, maybe.”

“You avoid questions. I don’t know very much yet. Things are all happening so fast with us and with all the drama…we hardly know each other. I hardly know anything about you, about your world, about a day in the life of Tristan.” She smiled, thinking about his suggestion to reconsider her major. Did that mean school was still in the cards? Was life outside this bedroom with him a part of her life a possibility?

“I don’t feel like I’m in a haze anymore.” He planted a kiss on the top of her head.

She smiled wider. Her thoughts trailed off to school and her plans, plans she’d made before she met him. He touched her back and eased her forward so he could to soap up her back with a bath puff.

“The group I’m involved with is what outsiders, if they knew about us, would probably describe as a vampire coalition. There’s a hierarchy based on strength, bloodlines, age. It’s a collective. Likeminded vampires who work together to drive wealth, eliminate threats, prevent vampires from being exposed. We feed our hunger, our urges, and protect our secrets and do it at whatever cost. I’m president of a corporation and we have our hands in legit businesses so there’s a lot of very ordinary things happening. A lot of what I do also revolves around keeping our secrets under wraps, eliminating threats. And outside of business there’s a lot of hedonism. I guess after living like that for a while you fall into a pattern. I didn’t know happy. Everything is so much more vibrant and real now.”