The Vampire Next Door (16 page)

She was skyrocketing toward a higher climax than ever before. Even with all her squirming, Sly stayed right on her clit. He stroked it quickly, and the glorious vibrations led to a shattering orgasm.

Morgaine bucked and screamed. He didn’t let up and she kept coming. Electric jolts shot through every cell and nerve ending. Her thighs shook uncontrollably.

At last, he let go and landed on his elbows over her. He jerked and spasmed with his own release and blew out a deep breath.

“You’re amazing,” she whispered hoarsely.

He pushed back the hair from her face. “You too.”

“How? All I do is let you play me like a piano.”

He chuckled. “You’ve got a great keyboard.”

She would have laughed, but she didn’t have enough breath.

He withdrew slowly and flopped onto his back. After a few moments, he asked, “Do you want to stay the night?”

Morgaine was barely aware of his question or her obvious nonverbal answer as her consciousness slipped away.

Morgaine awoke the next morning feeling well rested, refreshed, and… blind! Oh, my Goddess! She felt her eyes with her fingers. Yes, they were open. But no matter which direction she faced, she remained in total blackness. Could the myths possibly be true? Could sex make you go blind?

“Where the Hell am I?” Her heart squeezed.

“Relax, pumpkin. You’re okay.”

“Chad? Is that you?”

“I’d say, ‘In the flesh,’ but… well, you understand.”

“Oh, thank Goddess, I’m not alone!”

“Really? Wow, I think this is the first time you’ve ever been happy to see me. Usually you tell me to get lost.”

“I-I’m really sorry about that. I don’t mean to sound—”

“Forget it. Listen, you’re not alone anyway. Sly’s right next to you.”

She patted around the mattress until she hit an arm. “Oh!” She tried to shake him awake, but he didn’t move or make a sound. “Sly? Are you okay?”

“Nah, he’s out cold. You won’t be able to wake him until sunset—unless you set him on fire or something.”

She was too freaked out to laugh. “Chad, can you help me? I need to find the door. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Sure, but first you might want to slow your breathing. If you keep hyperventilating like that, you’ll pass out before you get there.”

She deliberately took some slow breaths. “Okay. I think I’ll be all right long enough to reach the door if you can help me find it.”

“Stand up and I’ll guide you.”

“Wait. I have to find the floor first.” She covered her chest with the sheet, leaned away from Sly, and felt for the edge of the bed. When she had it, she dragged her feet over and set them on the hardwood. She tugged on the sheet, but she couldn’t pull it free. “Okay. I—uh, I’m not dressed. You won’t look, will you?”

“How the hell can I guide you out of the room if I can’t look?”

Morgaine mentally rolled her eyes. “Okay, you have a point, but don’t stare.”

“Fine,”
he said, sounding bored.
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen a million times.”

She gasped. “You’ve seen me naked a million times?”

He laughed.
“No, but I got your mind off what’s happening, didn’t I? Now stand up and I’ll put my hand under your elbow. We’ll walk around the bed to the door.”

Morgaine chewed her bottom lip, but she forced herself to stand, leaving the safety of the mattress behind. Good to his word, Chad applied gentle pressure on the underside of her arm, near her elbow. She shivered at his cold touch but was grateful for it.

“Ready, set, walk with me.”

She tentatively advanced a few baby steps at a time. “I thought you promised to stay out of our bedrooms. Does my waking up and finding you here mean you’re not doing that?”

“Not at all. I just noticed you didn’t make it back to your place last night, and knowing how freaked out you get in the dark, I figured you’d be in deep shit when you woke up.”

“Uh, yeah. I guess everyone knows my little secret now. Thanks.”

“What? That you’re afraid of the dark? Please. Any thirty-year-old who sleeps with a night light on is either afraid of the dark or thinks she’s five.”

Eventually she ran into something soft with her foot. “Oh! My dress.” She bent over and scooped it up with her free arm. “Thank the Goddess. Now I have something to wear when I get out of here.”

“Damn,”
Chad said.

“Don’t tease. I’m about a hair away from losing it.”

“Okay, okay. Relax. We’re almost there.”

She walked a few more steps completely blind and stubbed her toe. “Ow!”

“Sorry, I should have warned you. You made it. That was the door.”

“Oh!” She fumbled around until she found the handle. As soon as she twisted it, relief washed over—only to be replaced by despair when she discovered that darkness lay on the other side of it too.

“Shit. The living room is blacked out too. Now what?”

“I’ve got you. I’ll just take you to the other door.”

“Wait. I need to put my dress on.”

Fortunately, it was a peasant-type dress with elastic around the neckline and bodice, so all she had to do was slip it over her head. Once she had it on, it felt funny and she tried to adjust it.

“You have it on backwards.”

“Oh, for Goddess’s sake.” She blew out a frustrated breath.

“What’s the matter?”

She heaved a deep sigh. “Screw it. Just get me to the hallway door.”

“Aren’t you even going to say, ‘Please’?”

“Sheesh! Fine. Please take me the rest of the way.”

As he took her elbow and guided her, she pondered out loud, “I wish there was something I could do to repay you.”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

She clamped her lips together, realizing she should have kept her mouth shut.

*   *   *   *

Merman Jules enjoyed splashing around for several minutes in his saltwater fish tank before he relaxed and gazed outside his front windows. What was going on? He’d seen people filing in and out of the building all day. Now several people were traipsing up the walk together. Mostly related by the looks of them. Was somebody having a family reunion?

Fortunately, the landlord and his pregnant wife were out of town, but if they had been home, all these guests would have put them at risk for discovery. Since his job included protecting the landlord’s privacy as well as his property, Jules had warned everyone to keep visitors to a minimum. So who was ignoring the rules?

Jules’s super-sonar hearing picked up the vibration of the buzzer as someone let in the whole troop.
Damn.

He hopped up onto the wall of his tank and waited for the water to sluice off. When his body sensed he was no longer submerged, his tail divided and he jumped onto the hardwood floor, landing on his bare feet.

He grabbed a towel off a shelf, wrapped it around his waist, and trickled water all the way to his bedroom. When he had changed into blue jeans and a “Save the Mermaids” T-shirt, he ventured into the hallway.

To anyone else, it would have seemed quiet. He fine-tuned his sonar until he could have heard blips passing through the air instead of through water. The group had apparently wound up on the third floor. He jogged up the flight of stairs and listened. The sounds were coming from the right. Ah, Morgaine Marlowe’s apartment.

He stood outside with his ear to the door for a few moments. Suddenly all the chatter and movement inside stopped. He heard someone taking deep breaths and then more quiet. At last a single voice said, “He’s here.”

He? Me? Crap.
He knew the girls were rumored to be psychic, so he backed away from the door. Suddenly he heard a scream across the hall.

Rushing to the opposite apartment, he tripped and fell before he reached the door. He glanced around his feet but didn’t see a thing he could have tripped over.
What the hell is going on up here?

Suddenly the door he had been running toward opened. Gwyneth Wyatt, the pretty redhead who lived there, gazed down at him. She held a phone in her hand and looked like she was just finishing a call.

“All right, sugar. I’ll be here if y’all need me.”
Click.
Reaching down, she took his arm and helped him up. “Why, Jules! What on earth happened to y’all?”

“I—uh, heard a scream coming from your apartment. I was on my way to make sure you were all right, but I tripped.”

Gwyneth looked at the ceiling. “Hush, Chad. That wasn’t funny. Y’all could’ve killed the man.”

Jules looked up and saw nothing, even though he glanced all around. Eventually she filled him in.

“That was our ghost you tripped over. Chad thinks it’s funny to see people fall down—now that he can’t.” Then she set her hands on her hips and aimed a stern expression at the ceiling again. “But t’ain’t funny a’tall, Chad. Not cool, as y’all would say.”

Jules’s spirits plummeted. He’d thought the redhead might be relationship material or, at the very least, a good romp in the sack.
Why are the prettiest ones always the total nut jobs?
“So what was the scream about?”

“Y’all want to come in? I can explain everythin’.”

“Uh, no. I have a… thing… to do… downstairs…”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I was gonna tell y’all about our phone-sex business.”

He raised his eyebrows but managed to hold his reaction to no more than that. She continued on as if she’d just said she worked as an accountant.

“Yeah, well, me an’ my cousin, Morgaine, we started the phone-sex thing to pay the rent here. Y’all know we’re witches, right?”

Yup. Nut job.
“No, I didn’t realize that.”

“Yes, well, it’s agin’ the Witches’ Rede to charge money for magic, and my cousin goes by the letter of the law when it comes to the Rede, so she started the phone sex as a home business. She don’t like to leave the apartment.”

“She’s not doing phone sex over there now, right? There’s a whole crowd visiting, from what I saw and heard—unless…”
Oh no, she couldn’t be…
“She isn’t having an orgy in there or anything, is she?”

Gwyneth burst out laughing. “My uptight cousin? Naw, y’all just saw the folks who came for the séance. She’s a first-class medium too.”

Séance? Medium? Nut jobs must run in the family.
“Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Gwyneth. I wish I could stay and visit.”

“Y’all come back now. I’ll put on the kettle, and we can have a fine ol’ time.”

“Oh, sure. Sometime when I’m not so busy…”
Suuuure…

He turned to leave, then thought he should ask while he was talking to her: “Do you remember when I found you and your cousin in the basement, drunk out of your minds?”

Gwyneth’s spine straightened. “We was
not
drunk. Just a little tipsy is all. My gran-pappy used to say, ‘As long as y’all can hold on to one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth, you ain’t drunk.’”

“Oh, I see. Well, then, do you know why the cellar still smells like alcohol?”

“Huh? It do?”

“Yes, it do… I mean, does. Any idea why?”

She scratched her chin and squinted like she was pondering hard. Then she snapped her fingers. “I got it. I bet y’all just got the smell up your nose and now you cain’t get it out. That’s happened to me when something stinks real strong. Like skunks and gasoline.”

Jules shook his head. “No, I—uh. Never mind.”
Total. Nut. Job.
“I’ll see you around.” Then he dashed back downstairs.

As he was passing Lillian’s door, he almost bumped into a guy who was leaving in a hurry. He was still tying his tie.

“Oh! Sorry.”

The guy just gave him a frantic look and said, “Be careful. She’s hot!” Then he rushed down the stairs and out the front door.

What did he mean by that?
Maybe all the women in the building were beautiful crazies. Or was it more? He remembered Lily’s sizzling handshake. Jules stood there for a few moments, trying to decide whether or not he should check on his tenant in 2A.

“Nah, screw it,” he said out loud. Returning to his apartment, he figured that dating neighbors wasn’t the best idea anyway.

*   *   *   *

“You’re probably worried for nothing.”
Chad floated over her bed as Morgaine packed her suitcase.

“What do you mean, probably?”

“You know. There are no guarantees in life. Now, death on the other hand…”

“Chad, shut it. I’m nervous enough as it is.” She folded her favorite cashmere sweater, running her hands over the soft, comforting fabric before moving on to the next item.

“Why are you nervous? You’ll be with a vampire. A big, bad, bloodsucking killing machine, who can use mesmerism to make people do whatever he wants.”

“For fuck’s sake, Chad!” Morgaine threw her black satin nightgown at his frothy image. It passed right through him and fluttered to the floor.

“Why are you throwing your lingerie on the floor?”

“Why are you still here?”

He vanished, then reappeared on the other side of the room.
“Man, if you let every little thing freak you out like that, you’ll be a wreck before you even leave the building.”

She blew out a deep breath. “Tell me about it.”

Chad scratched his head.
“I don’t get it.”