 |
| I swear not every picture for this story will be a cat. |
Cal's cat Ghost is based off a stray cat that adopted my family when I was a kid. He was brown rather than gray but the personality is the same. Whiskers was a big, tough, cat who would disappear for days or weeks at a time and saw humans mostly as food dispensers.
<<Part I -- Part III>>
Cal lived on the outskirts of Falmouth, still close enough to Portland to make the drive less than twenty minutes on the nearly empty roads, but far enough out to be almost rural. The house sat back a ways from the road, partially screened by a line of trees. Stretching out around and behind the house was a half-acre of, mostly wooded, land that served as a buffer zone between her and the neighbors. It wasn't a large place, just an average two bedroom cape with fading yellow siding and gray shingle roof.
The only thing that made it stand out from the hundreds of similar houses along the Maine coast was the front yard. There was no lawn, instead there was a riot of perennials, flowering shrubs, and wildflowers that reseeded themselves each year. A haven for butterflies, bees, and birds. This late in the autumn, however, it was dead and brown except for a handful of evergreens and the bright red of winterberries.
“Do you live here alone?” Lucas asked, as they climbed out of the vehicle.
“Just me and Ghost. Don’t expect that cat to make friends, I’m not sure he more than tolerates me.”
“Big place for just one person.”
“Yeah, my mom owns the house but I’ve been renting it from her since she moved to Florida.” That was more or less true, there was no need to explain in more detail to someone she might not see again after tonight. No need to say that her mother had taken off and left her as an emancipated minor when she was sixteen. She had been taking care of herself long before her mom left and everything had worked out in the end.
Lucas was attractive and his voice was sexy as hell but relationships weren't easy for her, especially not with someone so normal. People had accused her of being cold on more than one occasion, mostly ex-partners. It was true she rarely saw anyone for very long and never seriously but it wasn't because she was heartless and did not want a relationship. She would have liked to have a normal relationship but her life made it hard to keep one going for any length of time. The secrets added up.
“We won’t have to be quiet then,” Lucas said as they reached the side door that led from the garage into the house, “no roommates to wake up.”
Cal had a momentary worry about whether this was a good idea but shrugged it off and unlocked the door. She was bringing a man she had only known for a couple of hours into her home and that wasn't always the safest course of action. It was an acceptable risk to her.
She led Lucas into the house, through the small kitchen to the living room. A large gray Maine coon hissed at the pair from his perch on the arm of the sofa. Ghost was not happy to see them. Cal wasn't too happy to see him either, he had further shredded the living room furniture while she was away. That it was all second-hand was a minor consolation. Despite his foul attitude towards new people and destructive habits she was quite fond of the cat and she hadn't seen even a hint of a mouse since the former stray had adopted her.
Taking the initiative Cal gave him another kiss. His lips are still cold but not as icy as before, they would warm up soon enough. For of moment the two of them stood there, in the middle of the living room, each getting to know the taste of the other's mouth. This time it was Lucas who broke the kiss.
“Bedroom?” His voice was even lower than before, almost growling. Cal had been wrong, his voice could get sexier. Nodding she took his hand again.
Her room, like much of the house, was sparsely furnished. Cal wasn't much for decorating, she just did not see the point of keeping any furniture around that was not used regularly or knickknacks Ghost could break. A queen sized bed stood in the middle of the room, covered in soft blue cotton sheets and a darker navy bedspread. A small night stand stood next to it with only a lamp, her alarm clock, and a half full glass of water from the previous night still sitting on it. There was a dresser littered with makeup and hair products next to the closet and a hamper close to overflowing. Cal wished she had picked up a bit more earlier.
She had not been exaggerating when she told Lucas about her love of art. The walls were the one place she had spent some effort to decorate, they were number of prints and even a few original paintings hanging around the room. She had bought them all from galleries in Portland so most of them were local artists. Her favorite hung over the bed, a large watercolor of ravens picking over the bones of a body lying in the snow.
Lucas did not waste much time taking in the room, all his attention was on Cal. He was running his fingertips lightly up and down Cal's waist over her corset.
"This is what caught my attention first." He said. "So many girls look like they're wearing a costume in a corset but you are completely at ease in it, and it's laced properly."
“Thank you.”
He kissed her again softly. His hands slid from her waist to her back, finding the knot in the laces over her corset. Without even fumbling, his fingers quickly untied it and loosened the laces. Cal was a bit impressed, she had run into enough men who had trouble just unhooking a bra. She reached between them and popped open the busk then tossed it on top of the dresser. Her aim was off and the mass of burgundy fabric and steel boning tumbled down to the floor, trailing laces that caught on the drawer knobs. Cal let it lay there.
Lucas slipped behind her, kissing first the back of her neck then working his way up to nibble her earlobe while Cal worked on unfastening the buttons of her shirt. She let it hang open when she turned around to face him again. His eyes widened as he got his first glimpse of her body. Cal was muscular and her tall frame carried it well, strong but not bulky. In high school and college she had been a competitive swimmer until the car accident had ended her championship ambitions. The training had stuck and while her hip injury limited how rigorous her exercise could be she still swam several days a week. A little less muscle mass and a little more padding was the result but she still didn't have what could be called curves.
Lucas seemed to appreciate what he saw if the eagerness with which he pulled Cal back to him was anything to go by. He snaked his fingers into her curls as they kissed. It was good, really good, but Cal needed more. She ended the kiss with a few nips to his bottom lip.
"You don't need to be so gentle," she said, "in fact I'd rather you weren't."
Lucas responded by gripping her hair tightly and kissing her with more force. Cal moaned against his mouth when he bit at her tongue. That was much better.
"You like it rough?"
"Gods, yes."
"Safe word?" That was an unexpected question, a very welcome one though. Maybe more than one night was a possibility.
"Red. Yellow to slow down. I like to keep it simple."
"How far can I go?"
"Bruises, no marks on my face and no broken skin. Condoms are in the nightstand drawer."
"Prepared and you know what you want. Very, very sexy."
The room became a blur as Lucas flung her face first to the bed by her hair. When Cal flipped herself back over Lucas was leaning over her. He had managed to lose his shirt in that brief time and Cal enjoyed the view. He was slender but well-built, muscles lightly defined. Almost skinny but not quite. From the ease he tossed her to the bed, deceptively strong too.
He crawled up her body, placing biting kisses along all her exposed skin. Cal floated on the waves of hormones and endorphins flooding her body.
A sensation like invisible fingers at her temples pressed against her mind. In a fraction of a second all the arousal washed away like being tossed into an icy river. Someone was trying to use mind control on her. What she did next was pure reflex, throwing up her psychic defenses, slamming her shields shut on the invader's psychic fingers. Lucas leapt off her in a blur. The pieces fell into place.
"Shit! You're a fucking vampire."
No comments:
Post a Comment