I was lying on a beach.
I sat up, the sand sticking to my fingers. I brushed them off onto my pants. I was wearing white loose pants and a loose white chemise. I squinted up at the sun again in amazement. Oh, it was so bright and warm. This was real?
Someone was lying on his back next to me, his head pillowed on one arm. He squinted up at me.
”Alexis?”
He sat up and dusted the sand off his hand then shook his curly, hair. It was Alexis. But he was so different. He was tanned, and his eyes weren’t all-over black, nor red, or even gold. They were hazel. He was shirtless with a slight dusting of hair on his toned chest. He wore white pants like mine, and we were both barefoot. He was smiling at me with crinkle lines around his eyes.
”Where are we?” I asked.
”The beach, of course.”
I kept looking around. “But, it’s daylight.”
Alexis looked out to the ocean and inhaled deeply. “Smell that.”
I sniffed. I closed my eyes and inhaled. “Oh, it smells wonderful.”
”I knew you’d love this place.” He stood and offered me his hand.
I took it and squeezed it hard. ”I just wanted to make sure that you were real. I’m not in heaven or anything, am I?”
He started walking and tugged my arm to follow him. “This is not the heaven you’re referring to.” He glanced back over his shoulder at me. “But it is my heaven.”
”But I was ...” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. “Is it over?”
He reached out and touched my face. “You are in a safe place. You are in my place. And it’s safe here.”
“Where are we going?”
”Home.”
Alexis kept a hold of my hand. Sometimes he ran ahead to pick up a rock or seashell to throw into the ocean, but he would always run back to take hold of my hand. I couldn’t stop myself from peeking up at the sun. It was bright. It was the sun.
When he picked up another rock, I ran toward the ocean. When my feet hit the cold water, I screeched. ”It’s cold!”
He walked to me with a mischievous look on his face.
I knew what he was planning to do. ”Alexis, you better not.”
He grabbed me and swung me around. If I was going to go down into that cold water, he was going to go down with me. I wrapped my arms around his neck tightly.
He threw us both into the ocean.
I scrambled up to the surface laughing and screeching at the top of my lungs. Water my eyes and nose, and it was salty in my mouth. I gasped. I was breathing air. I laughed harder.
Alexis stood and smiled with me. He pulled me into his arms. ”I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
He didn’t really look that sorry.
”You have me stuck,” I said.
”Stuck? What does that mean?”
”Confused.”
He licked his lips and got a tongue full of sand. He turned his head, spit, and wiped his lips with his thumb.
All of this mesmerized me. The Alexis I was accustomed to—if I could ever be accustomed to Alexis—was so cold and rigid. He never moved. He didn’t breathe, and the only expression he ever had was amusement, and usually at someone else’s expense.
“You’re human!” I cried.
”And so are you.” He took my hand and guided us out of the chilly water.
When we started walking on the sand, he rested his hand around my hip. It felt so good to be normal. I’m normal! I’m me again!
We walked like that until we came upon a little house nestled among the rocks off the shore.
”Is this it?” I asked. Vampires did everything so big. Though small and with weathered wood siding, the house boasted a big comfy porch deck and Adirondack chairs facing the ocean.
Alexis scooped me up into his arms, and I clung to him. ”The rocks,” he said. “They can be pretty sharp.” He carried me up the worn stairs and used his foot to push the front door open.
The house had a cabin feel, but it wasn’t completely rustic. A huge picture window faced the ocean, a comfy looking suede couch and reclining chair positioned in front of it to garner the ultimate view. It was an open, airy home with hardwood floors, throw rugs, and a stone fireplace that ran all the way up to the tongue and groove wood ceiling. A winding wooden staircase led to the upper level, which was a loft bedroom. I could see a four-poster bed piled high with pillows and blankets.
”This is your place?”
He put me down. “I built it a long time ago, but I’ve updated it for you.” He hurried out of the room. “I’ll be back, I’m going to get a towel.” He came back with an oversized white terry cloth towel that looked as if it could do double-duty as a blanket.
”It’s beautiful here.”
He used the towel to dab carefully at my face. “I’m happy you like it. This is your home, for the time being.”
He placed the towel around my shoulders, reached up, and lightly ran his fingers through the unruly spirals of my hair. He used the towel to dry my dripping locks and gently stroked my shoulders and arms with the terry cloth. When he ran the towel over my breasts, his fingers came up to brush the thin straps of my chemise until they hung off my arms. Only the wet material kept my chemise plastered to my skin.
I could hear Alexis breathing faster. He looked into my eyes then lowered his gaze to the impressions my nipples made in the wet material. He dropped the towel and reached out to stroke the swollen peaks with his fingertips.
I shivered. “Alexis, I ...” How to say it? There was Tony. “I’m with Tony.”
He met my eyes with no reproach. “Then I hope these heal soon.”
He took hold of my hands and turned my wrist up. I looked at my wrist, shocked to see that the raw, nasty brands were gone. In their place were beautiful tattoos! The tattoos were Old World, curlicue crucifixes, like something you’d see in The Vatican.
Alex traced the tattoos with a fingertip. “Tony can’t do this.” He brought my wrist up his mouth and lightly kissed it, first one wrist then the other. Alexis’ tongue came out to trace he tender flesh there.
I gasped and clenched hard down low. He went down to his knees and alternated between kissing and running his tongue along my wrist.
It felt so tantalizing that I was quivering between my legs. But there was Tony. I wanted to make something with Tony.
Alexis’ eyes rose to meet mine. He spoke with his lips still against my wrist. “I know what you will not speak with your mouth.”
I swallowed. “What do you think you know?”
”I know that you’re in love with three men.”
”In love?” I pulled my hands out of his grasp. “I think that’s an overstatement.”
”And I know that three men are in love with you.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Three,” I whispered, because I knew of Tony’s and Paul’s feelings toward me. “Not two?”
”Three,” he responded while leaning back on his haunches to look at me.
Alexis was in love with me? I could barely believe it. “Was it the last link? Because I really didn’t think it was wise.“
He shook his head. “At the Council meeting when I healed your wound and you reacted with nothing more than desire, no fear, no hidden agenda, I loved you at that very moment.”
My head was filled with so many things.
”I also know that Tony wants your commitment, but you never told him that you would be his. You are your own. You don’t have to be any man’s possession. Or if it pleases you, you can be the possessor of any man, but you haven’t made that decision, either. Have you?”
I rubbed my hands over the goose bumps on my arms and shook my head. “Alexis, I really don’t like you reading all my thoughts. Thoughts are supposed to be private.”
”Not read you? That’s near impossible for me.” He chuckled and looked at the floor before looking at me again. His eyes seemed honest and clear. “I’m over twelve hundred years old. I’ve been an Elder longer then y
ou’ve been alive, or your mother, or your mother’s mother. I am so old that I don’t even remember what it is to be anything but a being who witnesses the passage of time. There is a part of all Elders that die with time. There are parts of us that starve until they fall away like dust.” He glanced around himself. ”We are required to build a place that our minds can retreat to so we can remember. When I first became an Elder, I built this beach. No one has ever been on this beach but me, and now you.”
I felt so special.
“Most Elders build towns or cities that look like the same places they lived when they were humans,” Alexis said. “I was born on a farm. I never even saw the ocean until I became an adult and traveled to the coast on assignment. I remember standing on the beach too afraid to touch the sand or the water but feeling drawn to it. It’s been many years since I’ve been here. Mostly I’m where the time passes slowly and the thoughts of Vampires are mundane, the actions of the Councils are self-serving, and humans are insignificant. When something breaks through all of that cold I begin to remember just how much I starve. You see, Kim, you are like a feast to a starving man. I could no more ignore your thoughts than a starving man could resist feasting.”
Wow. I felt as if I was swaying on my feet, but I couldn’t waver though his loneliness was truly breaking my heart. “Alexis, I don’t understand. Why don’t you just get a partner?”
”In my time I have had many partners,” Alexis said. “But if you think everlasting life is tedious, try being bound to one person for hundreds of years.”
I laughed despite my confusion of feelings. “Are you cracking a joke, Alexis?”
”Yes. I have never bound myself to anyone willingly.”
”I kinda tricked you into it. I didn’t mean to.”
He sat cross-legged on the worn wooden floor. “When you drank from me you only linked us. It was the second time that bound us.”
”What does that mean? Bound?”
”You don’t need me to tell you. You already know.”
”Wait. Are you saying that we’re married?”
He shrugged. “That word means nothing to me. We are bound.”
I stood over him, nervous because I wasn’t sure whether I hated the idea … or liked it.
He leaned back, propped up on his elbows.
Oh. My. God. He looked so good like that. He exposed his bronzed chest, rippled stomach, wiry muscles, and a thin line of golden brown hair that started at his bellybutton and disappeared under his waistband.
I stopped breathing momentarily. Through his wet white pants I could see the size and shape of his penis and the dark hair there ...
”What I told you before was the truth,” Alexis said. “You are your own woman, to make your own decisions and to be with whomever you wish.” He cleared his throat.
I raised my gaze to his eyes, embarrassed when he caught me looking.
“I cannot help that I know what you are thinking,” he said. “Even now.”
I felt my face grow warm, something I hadn’t been able to do as a Vampire, and despite the cold and wet clothing, I had beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
”I’ll tell you a secret,” he said. “It works both ways. I know what is in your mind just as you can know what is in mine.”
I tried looking into his mind, and I caught a glimpse of him lying on the same floor with me riding him. My eyes blinked and the image disappeared. A spasm of pleasure began at the core of me and spiraled out until it curled and nestled in my belly. My limbs felt weak with yearning.
Alexis rose to his knees.
I didn’t step back.
He buried his face into my belly.
I could barely breathe.
His hands slid up the back of my thighs where they rested against my buttocks. Gently he pulled me closer to him. I felt his tongue again, this time circling my belly button. My stomach quivered wherever he made contact.
His hands gripped the waistband of my pants and dragged them down past the round of my ass. When he began kissing the hair at the “V” where my legs met, I couldn’t stop myself from placing my hands on his head and holding him in place.
He pushed my pants to the floor so I could step out of them. When I raised the last leg, Alexis positioned his shoulder beneath my thigh so that my leg rested on his shoulder. I tightened my hold on his head as his face nestled in the mound between my legs, his tongue slipping between the folds of my quivering flesh.
I threw my head back and groaned.
Alexis’ tongue rolled and probed.
I shook so badly that I could no longer support myself on one leg.
He gently lowered my leg as he stood, sliding up my body and trailing kisses until he reached my neck.
Neither of us had dropped teeth. I had become so accustomed to linking my sex with feeding that it was strange not to want to eat him.
I felt his hands push down my top until it was like a band around my middle. As his mouth covered my breast, his low groans sent additional shivers up and down my spine. I urged him up until I could place my lips on his. I kissed him so forcefully that he fell back a step, but I was there to follow him.
Our mouths opened simultaneously, and our tongues rolled over each other. He gripped me and pushed himself against me. He was so hard that he slipped between my legs even though he was still wearing pants. I cried out and squirmed out of his grasp to sink to my knees in front of him. I looked up at him as I dragged his damp pants down. He was breathing so hard.
I cried out when I kissed the tip of his cock. I watched his stomach quiver as I ran my tongue around its head. I slipped the length of him into my mouth, and he called out in a strange language. His fingers were in my hair, and he cradled my face with his palms. I sucked and pulled him as deep as I could into my mouth while he gasped and moaned above me.
He pushed me away gently. “I want to be inside of you.” He pulled me down to the floor, and I forced him onto his back.
His mouth was open as he watched me mount him. When I allowed the tip of his cock to enter me, he cried out in that strange language again. I was so wet I allowed him to enter me too quickly, my muscles stretched painfully to accommodate his girth. I was ecstatic to feel the human pain of a hard cock stretching my soft, wet pussy.
Despite my discomfort, I rode him fast, relishing the pain and basking in the building passion. I closed my eyes and rolled my hips, driving him repeatedly deeper into me. I opened my eyes so that I could look at his beautiful face.
Even though his eyelids were closed, I could see his eyes rolling back and forth. It excited me to see his naked hips rise from the floor with each sharp thrust. I groaned feeling the shudder begin deep in my core and extend outward. I was coming so fast! But once the spark ignited, I went up in an inferno that captured Alexis and carried him with me. His face contorted in ecstasy, and his fingers dug into my sides as he quickened his pace and exhaled a ragged cry.
Sensing that he was nearing the end, I began bouncing my ass hard and fast on top of him. In an explosion of sensation, we both reached orgasm together, each crying out--me in English and Alexis voicing that strange unknown language.
When I could breathe again, I moved to climb off of him, but his hands gripped me and held me in place, his cock still hard inside me.
”What was that move you did at the end?” he asked.
”The booty bounce? They call that twerking.”
”Twerking … booty bounce,” he whispered.
I guess he had never been to a strip club. I would have to have him watch The Players Club sometime.
”Mostly black women do it because they got some junk in the trunk.”
”Junk in the trunk?”
I held back a laugh. ”A big butt.”
He smiled at me.
”What were you saying at the end when you were coming?”
”Oh.” He blushed, and it was adorable. “I don’t remember.”
He was a terrible liar. ”Next time, say it in English,
okay?”
”Okay,” he said. He rotated his hips beneath him. “It’s next time.”
”Alexis!” I started laughing.
“Keep laughing,” he said. “You’re making me harder.”
The tensing and un-tensing of my muscles from laughing must have made him hard again. “I’m afraid to laugh!”
“Oh yes, my love,” he gasped. “Do the booty bounce! Do the booty bounce!”
Amid joyous laughter and a whole lot of twerking, Alexis came again. This time I was too tired to stay on top and rolled off of him.
He cradled me in his arms.
”Booty bounce.” He smiled. “I love the booty bounce.”
”In twelve hundred years no woman has ever done a booty bounce on you?”
He shook his head and sighed. “I haven’t been inside of a woman in close to four hundred years.”
I sat up on my elbows. “Four hundred years? Why?”
He stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Am I insane?” He peeked at me and smiled.
I rested my chin on his shoulder. I loved Alexis when he was like this.
My heart thumped.
Loved?
”Why four hundred years?” I asked.
”Oh, Kim. It is not a story I would tell you now when we are still warm from loving each other. Later, my love.” He stood and helped me stand. “We need a shower.”
Alexis followed me into the shower where we washed each other.
Of course that led to more lovemaking … which ended in the four-poster bed.
”Alexis, do we ...”
”What?” He twirled a strand of my hair over his fingertip.
”Uh, our teeth didn’t …”
He stared at me. “We’re not Nera-Vampires here. If we were going to drop teeth and do all the things Vampires do, there would be no need for this place.”
”Okay, because I’m hungry.”
He smiled. “I am, too.” He sat up. “I’m going to make us something to eat.”
”You are? Do you know how to cook?”
He opened a closet containing another pair of white linen pants then tossed me an outfit that mirrored what I had been wearing before.
”Of course I know how to cook,” he said. “You might not like it.”