she might though, she couldn't erase how it had felt to be touched. God, it had been so long. She'd forgotten what it could feel like, how exhilarating it was to feel arousal and have that same feeling reciprocated.
But it wasn't. No more than it had been the first time.
Miserable, she left the bathroom and found that he'd laid out a new set of clothes as well as a pajama shorts set. She checked the sizes and was mortified to see that he had them exactly right. There was no pretending that she was something she wasn't. She hated the idea that he knew she was a size eighteen—hated that he'd seen her naked when she'd been so careful all of her life not to allow it.
She dropped her towel and changed into the pajama set. Miserable, and not knowing what else to do, she climbed into bed and was asleep only a few moments later.
The nausea woke her. She broke out in a cold sweat as her gut clenched. Hoping the feeling would pass, she lay perfectly still until she knew that it wouldn't. Unable to fight it any longer, she threw herself out of bed and rushed to the bathroom before it was too late.
She barely made it to the toilet in time. The elegant dinner she'd enjoyed went straight into the toilet, scouring her throat and mouth with fire. Tears streamed down her face, making her eyes blur. Her stomach convulsed again and again until she had nothing left inside her, and even then the disgust continued to make her dry heave.
Finally, she was able to stop and flushed the toilet, crawling to the tub and running water to rinse her mouth out and wash her face.
She heard the door open and knew he'd come in.
If things weren't bad enough, they always got worse. Maggie kept her back to him, bathing her face in cold water.
He touched her shoulder gently, pulling her hair back from her face.
Maggie shrugged him off, going stiff all over. If it wasn't bad enough that he'd rejected her, to have him see her this way should have killed her dead on the spot from mortification. Someone up above liked to torture her for fun too much. “Stay the fuck away from me, you bastard!'
He dropped his hand, but she could still feel him right behind her, watching.
Maggie tried to ignore him. The pain helped. Her head felt like it was going to split open. Even her teeth hurt, ached as though someone had tried to pry them apart. Pain gnawed at her belly now that it was empty, but she'd be damned if she'd experience that again for something to fill it and take the ache away.
'You have to feed. I thought having some food in your stomach would slow the process, but I see it hasn't.'
Pain lanced her gums. She tasted blood and knew they'd split. She gulped a mouthful of water and spit it out, seeing small threads of blood run down the drain.
'Your fangs have come fully in. It's the overabundance of venom that sickens you and drives the hunger,” he said softly, as if he knew what she was experiencing.
She half wondered hysterically if a dentist could pull them and fix her little problem. She cried into the tub, pressing her palm into it to keep from falling inside as she spat more blood out. Bile rose in her throat. She'd always had a problem looking at blood, much less tasting it. The coppery taste repulsed her. How could she ever stand drinking it willingly?
'What's wrong with me?” she whispered, sobbing against her arm.
'You need blood. If you don't hunt tonight, you'll die.'
Chapter Five
He helped her stand, steadying her as she wavered against him. He closed his arms around her, comforting her in a way she hadn't been since before her mom died. He rubbed his hands on her back in soothing circles.
'Do I have to kill someone?” she asked, horrified by the implication of feeding off of another human being. She was in so much pain though, she thought that maybe she could off a bad guy if this went on long enough. Prolonged torture could make a person do anything to make it stop. She had a horrible aversion to pain and suffering.
'We're forbidden to kill humans. But that's not what we will hunt tonight. I dare not take you into the city, regardless. There is wildlife nearby, and it will be easier for you for your first time.'
So far, there was nothing remotely romantic about being a vampire. Someone, somewhere had screwed up on the glamorous parts.
Not speaking further, he led her into the room and she saw he'd brought her another outfit. She appreciated him shopping for her—even if she didn't know when he could have done it—but his taste just didn't fit her body style. Spread on the bed was a fire engine red, leather bustier; black lambskin pants, boot cut; twenty eye, Doc Marten boots with red flames stitched on the sides; and a leather duster. If she was about forty pounds lighter, she'd love his taste in clothing. As it was, she didn't need any help looking bigger.
Despite her pain, there were some things she couldn't let rest without saying something. “Haven't you heard leather makes fat people look fatter?'
He sighed and ran a hand through his long hair in irritation. “It's easier to clean the blood off of leather and vinyl. I'll wait for you downstairs.'
She was just delaying and she knew it. Killing something and drinking its blood was inevitable.
Swallowing hard, she changed from her soaked pajamas into the leather clothing. Unfortunately, the lining clung to her damp skin and made getting into it extremely difficult. She felt like a fatty piece of meat shimmying into a sausage skin. When she was dressed, panting from exertion, she took a quick trip into the bathroom to check herself out. The mirror wasn't full length, but it gave her a good idea of what she looked like.
She actually didn't look that bad, considering. The leather, tight as it was, held her stomach in, shaped and lifted her butt, and the bustier made her breasts look huge. The man was seriously kinky with this whole leather fetish.
A wave of dizziness made her close her eyes, and Maggie knew she'd delayed long enough. The sleep she'd gotten only seemed to have made her groggy rather than rested, and she wasn't sure how many of the symptoms she was feeling could be attributed to this ‘thirst for blood'.
She dragged herself downstairs where he waited in the foyer, lounging against the banister, dressed in unrelieved black like it was some vampire uniform. The glass and blood streaking the floor from earlier had been cleaned up.
Maggie felt her breath catch as he looked up at her. He really was beautiful, in a completely male sort of way. She couldn't remember ever seeing another man that affected her the way he did. Her desire for other men seemed pathetic now, as weak as dishwater compared to the blinding force of his sexual attraction.
Potently masculine, he oozed carnality. Just looking at his face sent her thoughts whirling away from her own hurts to imagine sensual aches that would hurt so good in all the right places. She craved it with a hunger equal to that to ease her pain. If she could think about sex while feeling like she'd expire at any moment, she felt her chances were pretty good that she'd live.
She wasn't sure how long she could stand to be around him, knowing that he'd found something repulsive about her. She preferred not knowing exactly what it was and just picking at it with her brain rather than know that it was something she'd
He held his arm out expectantly, and she wrapped her hand around it, surprised when he led her away from the front door down the hall that went beneath the stairs. In the back, past the kitchen and other rooms sealed off from her view, there stood the back door. It was boarded up from the inside, but as he unlocked the knob, she found it was only an illusion. That, or he'd come in here while she was upstairs and pried all the nails loose.
She was surprised to see the moon high in the sky. It was later than she'd thought it was.
Here at the back of the house, parked under an oak tree sat a car covered with a tarp. She couldn't make out the model, but whatever it was, by the curves, she could see it was sporty.
Instead of leading her to it, he took her into the woods. Close to the house, the land seemed to have only recently been taken over by nature. Scrub cluttered the ground chest high, and fresh saplings grew with trunks no
