I wrap up in a towel and lay my clothes out on the radiator to dry. I put one of the shirts on, and judging by how it almost reaches my knees I’d say it definitely belongs to Ethan. Crawling back into bed, I switch off the lamp. As I’m tucking the duvet tightly around me the bedroom door opens, allowing a sliver of light to stream through.
I peek my head out over the blanket to find Ethan standing there.
“I could hear you moving around,” he says, no question, just a bare statement.
“Yeah. I fell asleep in my wet clothes, so I took them off and had a shower. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t. Well, goodnight then,” he says, looking a little lost before moving to close the door back over.
This is so strange. Gone is the Ethan I’d gotten to know over the last few weeks, the one who would snip at me at every turn. It’s like he’s completely run out of steam, and I’m not quite sure if I like it. There’s a perversity in me that kind of enjoys fighting with him.
“Can I ask you something?” I say quickly, before he has the chance to leave.
“Of course. Ask.”
“I thought I’d feel guilty after killing Eliza, but I don’t feel anything. When I think about her I just feel nothing – empty. Is that the proper reaction?”
“Everybody reacts differently to their first kill. It all depends on the person. Perhaps you feel nothing because you’re blocking the emotion. You grieve for the witch’s mother. There is no room for guilt, not yet.”
“So the fact that I feel nothing is a survival instinct?”
“It’s a definite possibility.”
“Oh.”
Ethan smiles. “Is there anything else you’d like to say?”
There isn’t, but I don’t want him to go yet. “Yeah, you need a haircut,” I tell him.
Grinning, he tilts his head and runs his hand through his too-long locks. “Are you criticising my appearance, girl who never wears anything but scruffy jeans and t-shirts with anti-vampire sentiments?”
I laugh. “Piss off, sometimes I dress up. And I only have one anti-vampire t-shirt.”
He stops smiling, and instead gives me a smouldering look. “You don’t need to dress up. Your scent alone is enough adornment.”
“Well you are the target audience for that,” I throw back.
“True,” he lets out a breath. “Unfortunately, there’s nothing that can be done about my hair. Human barbers don’t open at night and there are no vampires on this side of the city to do it for me.”
“There are vampire barbers? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“We all have our professions,” he answers with a shrug.
“I guess. I can cut your hair for you, if you’d like.”
He eyes me speculatively. “You cut hair?”
“Yep, I’ve got a knack for it. I used to cut my dad’s hair for him when I was in my teens.” Remembering how I did that gives me a pang of nostalgia.
“I don’t possess a scissors,” says Ethan.
“I’m sure Delilah has one,” I laugh, finding it funny how hesitant he’s being. “There’s no need to look so wary. Cutting hair is a real talent of mine. I promise I won’t give you a hack job. Besides, it will cement our new found friendship.”
“Very well then,” he replies, with just a sliver of apprehension now.
I hop out of bed, still in his shirt, but since it’s so large I don’t feel self-conscious. Several minutes later I’m standing over Ethan as he sits on a chair pushed up to the sink in the main bathroom so that I can wash his hair before I cut it.
I put my fingers under the running water to make sure it’s warm enough.
“You only need to give me a trim,” he tells me.
“God you are such a Vain Wayne, aren’t you? If I was your age I wouldn’t give a shit what my hair looked like anymore.”
“Ah, but you don’t have my hair,” he retorts with a teasing grin. “And you don’t need to be my age, you clearly already don’t give a shit.” He makes a show of eyeing my short, choppy hair.
“You cheeky bastard! I’ll have you know that the not-giving-a-shit look is very in right now.”
“Well, you do seem to pull it off,” he accedes, placing his hand affectionately on my hip for a moment.
I glance down and he moves it away. Friendship is definitely going to be a difficult task for us. I tell him to lean his head back into the sink, as I fill a jug with warm water. I pour it over his hair, before glancing down to see him with his eyes wide open, watching me. His hair feels like the purest silk beneath my fingers.
“Do you do that with all of your hairdressers?” I ask.
“Do what?”
“Stare them out of it like a creep.”
“No. But I’ve never had a hairdresser quite like you.”
“I am very talented,” I agree with a smirk.
“And pretty.”
For some reason, his flirtation irks me. On the one hand I want us to get along and be friends, but on the other I feel like he doesn’t deserve to just decide when and how he can treat me nicely. “And a whore only out for what she can gain,” I add cuttingly. I promised myself I’d never let him take back those words, and I won’t.
“I was angry when I said that to you. Sometimes you don’t even realise how much you’re infuriating me, and that just makes it even more infuriating.”
“I might be infuriating, but you’re confusing. You call me a whore, you call me a beautiful girl in such a pretty language. I don’t know what to think sometimes.”
All the while I’m saying this to him, I’m lathering some shampoo into his hair. We are so completely dysfunctionally functional.
He raises his hand to my arm. “I might not be human, but I am fallible. I should never have said that to you. I’m truly sorry for it. But let’s not talk of it. I don’t want to fight with you tonight.”
I don’t want to fight with him either, so I let the matter drop and continue washing his hair. Sometimes you’ve just got to pick your battles. Ethan and I are making headway in our quest to get along. Bringing up old arguments isn’t going to help.
I pour more water over his head to rinse out the shampoo. He’s still watching me, but I don’t comment on it. I take a clean towel off the rack and use it to dry his hair a little. He’s smiling as I do so.
“What? What are you smiling about?”
“You’ve got a caring side. Who would have thought it,” he grins at me.
“I’m not the cold-hearted bitch you’ve come to believe I am. I can be very caring when I want to be,” I say defensively.
I take a comb and begin brushing out the tangles in his golden locks.
“You’ll make a good mother some day,” he says, completely out of nowhere. Well, it wasn’t out of nowhere, the caring comment was leading into it. Still, it takes me very much off guard. It’s not so much the statement, but the way he says. The way he looks at me when he says it, like he’s imagining me pregnant or something.
“Not sure I can see myself ever having kids,” I reply, letting his long fringe drift through my fingers.
“Wait a few years and you might change your mind.”
Suddenly, I think of something I’ve never even thought of before, as I ask him, “Have you ever had kids?”
His dark eyes move to mine. “I have had four.”
“Really!?” I burst out in shock. Ethan’s old, but I just never pictured him with children. “Where are they now?”
“Three were dhamphirs. They all died as infants. The other was a vampire, but he was killed by slayers before he made his fiftieth birthday.”
“And the mothers?” I ask.
“Long gone. This all happened in my first hundred years. After that I grew weary of trying to create offspring. I have always preferred human women and the chances of the children I could have with them surviving were so little.”
His words make me sad. To lose a child is devastating, but to lose one when it’s only a bab
y is something no one should ever have to suffer. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, standing in front of him, my hands still sifting through his hair.
“Do you know, during the years that you were gone I used to wonder if we could create a dhamphir that would survive. Since you are power blooded, your genes would be stronger than most human females.”
“You’ve thought about having a child with me?” I ask with a small gasp.
I don’t know why he’s opening up to me right now, but I wish he wouldn’t. It makes me want to curl myself around him and kiss away the painful memories.
“I’ve thought about a lot of things pertaining to you, Tegan.” His hands moves up over my hip and around to rest low on my stomach. “I think you would look beautiful, swollen with my child inside of you.”
I stop fingering his hair, frozen in place. “You’re not allowed to say things like that to me,” I tell him softly.
“Why not? It’s the truth.” He leans in to whisper in my ear. “I still think about that night we spent together. Do you know how difficult it was not to drag you to my bed when you had that lust potion in you? I spent the night imagining all the ways I wanted to violate you, but also hating the fact that I had to keep you at a distance.”
Goose-pimples break out all over my skin.
“You didn’t have to. You could have just forgiven me.”
“I wasn’t ready to do that.”
“Are you ready now?”
“I think I just might be.”
Suddenly realising we’re a breath away from our mouths colliding, I pull back and try to cool off. He has this way of making me get all hot deep down in my belly.
“Well, that’s a good thing if our friendship is going to work out,” I say, my voice annoyingly breathy. I step away to get the scissors. He’s grinning again, but this time I ignore it.
I begin trimming the ends of his hair. Ethan tends to have this 30’s style, long on top, short at the sides do. I try my best to recreate the look with the scissors, but I can’t get it very close at the sides without an electric shaver. I’m used to cutting men’s hair, since I did it so often for my dad. I work through it quickly, the muscle memory coming back to me.
I get so lost in the cutting that it takes me a minute to feel something tugging at the shirt I’m wearing. When I look down I find that Ethan has pulled one of the buttons open to expose the upper part of my breast. He drags his knuckles across my skin and my breathing quickens.
“Stop that. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“You’re good with hair,” he says, dropping his hand but leaving the shirt button open.
“I told you I was.”
“You’re good at being under me, too.”
I drop the scissors and stare at him, open-mouthed. Instead of trying to tell him off, I pick up the towel I used to dry his hair and dust off the back of his neck and around his ears. Then I pull the towel that was around his shoulders away, keeping the bits of hair from going on his clothes.
“All done,” I say.
“Thank God,” he mutters, before grabbing my wrist and pulling me onto his lap. I’m suddenly aware that I have absolutely no underwear on beneath the shirt. Ethan drops his face to my neck and licks me right over the spot where I’ve got the bite marks from Eliza. I go limp in his arms.
“We can’t do this,” I protest, gasping when his hand slips inside the shirt and cups my breast.
“Yes we can,” he argues, pushing my thighs further apart. He’s so calm and collected and I’m a heaving, breathless mess.
He claims my mouth with his tongue, his hand travelling up to hold my neck. His thumb brushes back and forth over the bite marks and I feel it deep down in my centre. His other hand slips under the hem of the shirt and he groans when he touches me, realising I have no pants on. He slips his fingers right inside of me and I tremble against him.
“I take it you’re pleased with your haircut,” I manage to say, as his fingers move in and out.
“More than you can imagine,” he answers, thrusting so deep this time that I cry out.
I fumble with the waist of his jeans, trying to get them off him. In the back of my mind I know that what I’m doing is so very wrong, but I just need to lose myself in sensation right now, forget about all the bad things that have happened. As Ethan once told me, we can help each other to forget for a little while.
A few minutes of hungry kissing and groping later, I have his jeans undone. He removes his hand and in one smooth motion lifts me and moves himself inside me. I bury my face in his neck as I moan, moving up and down on him.
“You’re one of those women aren’t you,” I hear him say past all of our noises.
“What women?” I gasp as he fills me.
“The kind who never make eye contact during sex. The kind who you never know what’s going on inside their head. The kind who don’t want you to know,” the words tumble out of him. For a brief moment I see something beyond the controlled Ethan I’ve always known. For one second he seems completely lost in me.
“I make eye contact,” I protest.
“Never for long enough,” he counters, pulling my chin to him so that our gazes meet. I never knew how powerful that could be, just looking at him.
“You make me crazy,” he growls, using his fingers to rub me as he pumps into me.
“You make me crazier,” I whisper, burying my face in his neck again, unable to take the intimacy of looking at him. I orgasm against his hand and he reaches his own release, gripping my hips as he comes. I slump in a heap against him, unable to believe that I just had sex with Ethan on a chair in a bathroom.
We stay like that for a while, our bodies joined so intimately. I begin spreading little kisses across his neck and suddenly he lifts me up and carries me stark naked into his bedroom. Thank God Delilah and Lucas aren’t around to witness it.
Laying me in his bed, he enfolds me in his arms and holds me close. One of his hands cups my breast and the other rubs lightly at my stomach. His breath on the back of my neck is soothingly meditative, and after a while, with our hearts slowing down, we both drift to sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
Taking Back The Number Of The Beast
I don’t wake up until around eleven the next morning. Ethan’s scent is all over me and I can’t help the shivers that shoot through my body when I notice this. We’re still in the exact same position that we fell asleep in. I don’t want to leave. Outside this room the real world is waiting for me, and it holds absolutely no appeal.
I stay cuddled into Ethan for a long time, but I know I can’t stay here all day. Finn and Gabriel are probably wondering where I’d gotten to last night. Thoughts of Finn make my stomach twist with discomfort. We’re not together, have only shared one or two moments of intimacy, yet I feel guilty for what happened with Ethan. It’s like I’ve broken the bond we’ve been building and there’s no going back now.
Whoever said that having two men interested in you would be a dream come true was obviously a cold-hearted bitch. It’s not a pleasant situation to find yourself in at all. It actually makes me feel sick to my stomach.
I leave the bed slowly, making sure not to disturb Ethan, and go to find my clothes in the other room. I dress quickly and leave the house, making my way over to Finn’s place. Rita’s RV sits still and lonely in front of the house. I let my hand drift over its metal exterior, wishing I could click my fingers and she’d be the old Rita again.
“I take it you stayed with her last night,” Finn’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
“Huh?” I say with a start, glancing away from the RV to find him standing in the doorway with a cup of tea in his hand.
“Rita, I assumed you stayed with her for the night. You never came back to the house.”
I stare at him now, my heart filling with guilt. I could simply lie and say that yes, I did spend the night with Rita, but that wouldn’t be fair to either of us.
“No that’s not where I was. I went for a walk
yesterday and then Ethan came looking for me..” I trail off, not knowing how to finish the sentence.
I glance away from him, staring down at my boots like they’re the most fascinating thing in the world.
“Why are you acting so weird?” asks Finn, taking a step forward and studying me. Suddenly his face changes when understanding hits him. He shakes his head and tightens his jaw. “Ah for fuck’s sake, Tegan. You spent the night with him, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t plan it.” That one little sentence sounds so ridiculous.
“Nobody ever plans that shit. I thought you were stronger than this. I thought we had something. I was so bloody right to hold off.”
His voice is cutting, but he’s not as angered as I thought he’d be. It’s almost like he half expected me to let him down, and that makes me feel even more worthless.
My heart aches like it’s being torn in half. I’m not sure if I’m in love with Ethan or Finn, but they both have a place in my heart and it kills me to have to choose between them. All of a sudden I feel like not choosing either of them if this is how it’s going to make me feel, all horrible and guilty. Dirty, even.
“I’m a joke,” I tell him, my voice heavy with misery.
He gazes at me, shaking his head. “You’re not a joke. You’re just easily led sometimes.”
“I suppose I should go pack my things,” I say, making a move towards the house.
“Eh, why should you do that?”
I don’t know what to say, so I simply throw my hands out in front of me in the direction of Ethan’s house and sigh, “Just because.”
“Just because nothing. I’m not an egotistical psycho like he is. I can handle you choosing him over me. Shit happens. You’re staying put, so get those thoughts of leaving out of your head.”
“I haven’t chosen him. I’m not choosing either of you.”
Finn laughs and folds his arms. “Ah, feminism has taken its hold has it? You gonna sow your wild oats wherever your little madam takes you, are ya?”
“No!” I exclaim. “And leave my little madam out of this.”