CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Removing my own t-shirt didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would have. There was pain, sure, and more than a little discomfort, but considering I had spat blood earlier and had been dropping in and out of consciousness, probably due to a punctured lung, I couldn’t complain.
I winced, not because of how I felt, but because of the way my skin looked. The area where the vampire’s fist had struck my ribs was a mess of purple, blue, and yellow shades—a knot of color roughly the shape of the African continent. But I was alive, at least, and that thought made the hurt a little more bearable.
The front door opened, and Jared walked into the house. “Madison?” he called out, his voice echoing throughout the apartment.
“I’m in here,” I said from the bathroom, though I quickly pushed the door closed with my foot.
Jared approached the bathroom door, which hadn’t completely latched. “How are you?”
“I’m… surprisingly okay.”
“Surprisingly?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Should I come in, or…?”
I turned my torso this way and that in front of the mirror to get a better view of the bruise. He would worry. I knew he would. But he was going to see it eventually; better I control the story than let the story control me.
“Yeah, come in,” I said, and Jared did, but the smile on his face deflated when he saw the state of my ribs. I had a bra on, but the bruise was so prominent and pronounced it was impossible to miss, even from the back.
“Holy shit,” he said, approaching, “Madison, what happened to you?”
“I think you’ll have trouble believing me when I tell you.”
He placed one warm, delicate hand on my waist—on the good, unhurt side—and his touch set my skin aflame. Warm, wanting ripples vibrated through me. I shuddered, and then he touched the bruise with the tips of his fingers, and I shuddered again as pain mixed with pleasure. I wanted to melt into him, to grab his collar and smell him, taste him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sighed into his neck as the urge to lick him, to bite him, began to swell within me, but I resisted.
If only barely.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice low and tender.
I pressed my lips against his neck and exhaled deeply. “I think I almost died tonight,” I said, pulling away from him.
“You… what?”
“I caught a vampire feeding in the French Quarter, and he attacked me. I was lucky Delphine was with me, otherwise he may have killed me.”
His face darkened, and I watched him swallow hard, taking a moment to process everything I had just said. “And you’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine now.”
“But your ribs…”
“I know. He hit me so hard I think he pushed one into my lung.”
He scanned me like I was some miracle of modern medicine. “How… how are you still standing?”
“Like I said, Delphine saved my life.”
I wasn’t sure why I didn’t just tell him what Delphine had done for me, how she had bitten her wrist open and fed me her cold, undead blood. But I didn’t. Maybe I didn’t want him asking questions I couldn’t answer, or maybe I didn’t want him knowing what had happened out there—how close to death I had really come.
“Well, remind me to thank her,” Jared said.
“I will.”
Jared looked over my shoulder and spotted the towel I had laid over the sink. I had been about to get into the bath before he arrived. “Do you need any help?” he asked.
“With this? No. I think I’m okay. I really just need to get cleaned up—I feel like I’ve been dragged through the mud.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“Something warm. Like tea, or hot chocolate, or something. Not coffee, though; I’m already buzzing.”
It took a little longer than it might otherwise have, but I managed to get myself into the bath with only minimal grunting and only a handful of sharp intakes of air. The warm water felt glorious against my skin, though; just hot enough to relax me and soothe my aching bones and muscles, but not too hot that it aggravated my pained body.
By the time I got myself out, dried, and into a clean t-shirt, Jared was ready with a cup of hot chocolate, which I happily drank while sitting on his bed.
“Do you think we should go to your house?” he asked.
I set the mug down on the bedside table and took a deep breath—which hurt. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Your place is protected by magick, right? We’ll be safer there than in my apartment.”
“Maybe, but if we go to Lumière, then we have to go to Lumière. And we aren’t about to stay inside the whole time; we’ll be going in and out of the house, attracting attention to ourselves. If the vampires are feeding in the French Quarter, it’s only a matter of time until they spot us. The last thing I want is them catching on to where I live.”
“But it’s okay if they know where I live?” he asked with a smirk on his face.
“From what I know about vampires, they’re territorial creatures who like to stick to their areas. If they’re in the French Quarter, I doubt they’ll come all the way out here. Not often enough for one of them to spot me, at any rate. I think I’m safer spending my nights here… as long as you don’t mind.”
“Are you serious? I want you here.”
I tapped the empty space beside me. Jared kicked his shoes off and laid back. “I just hope no witches have been hurt. Even with my magick, that vampire almost managed to get the better of me, and he would have, too.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“He attacked me back at Remy’s mansion. I stuck my heel into his eye and pulled one of his eyeballs out. It was still missing tonight. We found him feeding off some girl in an alley.”
“And then Delphine brought you here?”
“We walked a block or two down and called an Uber. The driver was a little chatty, so Delphine used some of her vampire charm to take his attention away from me and put it on her. Not that she needed any special powers to accomplish that.”
Jared exhaled, relieved. “At least you’re safe, now. What you need, though, is some rest.”
I agreed with him, and in the silence that followed found myself suddenly drawn to the feeling of Jared’s hand on my knee, and the way he softly smoothed it with his thumb. The t-shirt I was wearing had come up a little, exposing the skin for him to touch, and now it was all I could think about. That, and the delightful little ripples pulsing through me.
When I looked at him, I caught him staring at me. “I’m really glad you’re here,” he said.
“I am too,” I said, my voice soft now.
“I don’t know what the hell I would have done if something had happened to you.”
“Really?” My voice was a whisper, now, and I became aware of our faces slowly drifting toward each other.
“Don’t do that again, okay?”
“I won’t.”
Our lips met, and Jared’s hand tightened around my knee. I cupped his face, despite the pain in my side, and surrendered to the kiss, my lips parting to accept his tongue. Before I knew it, adrenaline was rushing through my system as fast as my heart could pump it, and—ignoring the pain—I straddled him, propping one leg on either side of his abdomen.
The kiss intensified, and I felt his hands trailing up my thighs, past the shorts I was wearing, and up my back. But he stopped kissing me and gently pushed on my shoulders. “I can’t,” he said, “You’re hurt.”
“I was hurt before,” I said, reaching for his lips, “But I’m okay now.”
“I don’t want to risk it. What if I hurt you some more?”
“You don’t know that you will…”
“I don’t know that I won’t, either.”
I pouted, but kissed his lips lightly. “Okay, not tonight.”
Dismounting caused me to wince, and to realize that, yes, maybe I had healed from the most serious of my injuries, but I was still hurt. So, I lay on my back, shut my eyes, and let my body relax. When I felt the bed move, I opened my eyes to see that Jared had slid down to my legs. My heart began to thump, and as he removed my shorts and started kissing my thigh, it began to pound.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my breathing already ragged.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, “But I do want to take your mind off the pain.”
My legs opened for him, and he brought his mouth and tongue to rest between them. He was right. The pain in my ribs disappeared after a couple of minutes of his delicate kisses. And when he brought me to climax using only his tongue, I felt myself start to float away on a sea of tingles and quick, short breaths.
Jared returned to his side of the bed when he was done, and I let myself lay on his chest, fully satisfied and strangely more alive than I had ever felt in my life. Jared’s heart was also pumping hard and fast against my ear, but it, too, was starting to slow, to calm down. Gently he drew his fingertips across my back, but then he stopped.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“What?” I asked, looking up at him.
“I touched your ribs. Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I said.
Thinking about it, I hadn’t felt anything—only the tickling sensation that came with the passing of his fingertips across my skin. I had expected a little pain, at least, had he touched the damaged flesh.
“Maddie, your bruise,” he said.
“Oh shit,” I said, after craning my neck around to check. The once purple, black, and yellow skin was starting to take on a healthy, peach color. “It’s… healing.”