He puffs a laugh from his nose, but he doesn’t smile. “Maybe. Absolutely.”
“I like you,” I finally admit aloud, then kiss his cheek. Even now he smells delicious to me. Intoxicating and sweet. I could bite him again—this human-vampire hybrid. “I would like to continue seeing you, if you still want to see me?”
He finally shifts his head to look directly at me, his expression softened. “Yeah, of course, just—please stop accusing me of misleading you. Because I’m not.”
I lean in to kiss him and he automatically parts his lips. I love that. Like walking up a pathway to someone’s house and they open the door before I’m even there. A warm welcome. I indulge in his spiced, peachy mouth for a moment before I pull away. “Haruka is in Hong Kong until Thursday. I want to talk to him about this—about you—since he tends to be all-knowing with these things. Is that alright with you? We’ll make a plan to see each other next Saturday evening for another sleepover and I can report back to you?”
He nods. “Yeah, okay.” He surprises me when he falls out of my grasp and back onto the couch. Just plops down and rubs his palms to his face. “Christ.”
I stand up and shift his legs onto the couch. When I sit, I make him straddle me with one leg straightened behind me and the other in my lap. I smile. “I didn’t mean to cause you stress. I apologize.”
“Bloody hell.” He takes a breath, still rubbing his palms against his face.
“You must really like me?” I ask, grinning.
He lifts his head and looks up at me, frowning. “Are you taking the mick? Is this amusing to you?”
“No,” I say, literally holding in laughter. “I find you captivating. And delicious. Whoever told you that you tasted bad was an idiot.”
“Thanks…” He sighs and drops his head back, adjusting his spine as I lazily stroke his thigh in my lap. There’s a moment of comfortable pause before he says, “So… am I to always be the bottom when we have sex? Can we talk about this?”
Now, I laugh. “You don’t always have to do anything, Jae.” There’s an awkward pause before Jae lifts his head again.
“Tosser. That sounds like, ‘You can go and sleep with someone else and be on top if you like.’”
We both laugh now. Confession: I’ve had sex in a vast multitude of ways and with many, many people, but I’ve never been the bottom when sleeping with a male. I didn’t think I had a complex about it, but maybe I do. Asao would say it’s because I have serious trust issues… He might be right.
I caress my hand higher up his thigh until I’m sliding my palm against his cock. He moans, breathy, and spreads his thighs a little wider. I love how comfortable he is right now—relaxed and speaking his mind. It’s like all the walls are down and I’m finally getting to the core of him. “Do you think I’m treating you like a keyhole?”
“No. But it would be nice to use my key sometimes. Since I’ve got one.”
I laugh again. This creature. “I’ll think about it,” I say, squeezing him.
Jae groans, but in a kind of chuckle. He’s smiling and writhing underneath my palm. “He’ll think about it. The function and use of my cock are up for deliberation. The jury is out.”
I keep laughing, and all the tension from earlier has melted. I adjust my seating position to face him directly so that I can reach up with my free hand and caress my fingertips against his jawline. “Feisty, delicious man…”
He surprises me when he snaps his head to the side and catches my two fingers in his mouth. He scrunches his nose at me, defiant as he reaches up and holds my wrist so he can suck and lick my fingers.
God, he makes me nervous.
Twenty-One
Junichi
Monday evening, I’m sitting in the formal tearoom of the Miyoshi Clan estate in Hiroshima. I’m on an elaborate cushion with my legs folded underneath me and I’m alone. I feel like a sacrificial offering. I check my watch. 7:15 p.m. He’s made me wait fifteen minutes like this.
The harpy is challenging me. Daring me to leave.
I could. After feeding from Jae yesterday, I still feel energized and satiated. But I’m also nervous. He tastes like a ranked vampire but doesn’t drink blood and swears he isn’t one. I feel like a test subject for a new energy drink that seems fine at first, but three days later I might burst into flames. That’s why I’m staying. To get some proven, surefire purebred blood in my godforsaken system in case Jae’s blood has some unknown ill effects.
Ren Miyoshi as my source is my father’s doing. Even after his death, my father is still ruining my life.
Ren is purebred. He’s the unofficial realm leader of Hiroshima prefecture. Haruka is the official realm leader of all Chūgoku. But it’s a huge region, and he has Kansai. Being how he is (unbothered, procrastinating and selectively lazy), he lets the Miyoshi Clan manage Hiroshima and Shimane prefectures, while Haruka primarily handles Okayama and Tottori.
My father formally offered me to Ren’s family as his source when both he and I were still kids. Technically, as part of the arrangement, we should be bonded by now. When we turned twenty-one, we were supposed to seal the deal. We tried for years, but it didn’t work. Probably because I genuinely dislike him.
I’ve been feeding from Ren off and on since we were both sixteen. When I first saw him, I thought he was gorgeous. His eyes are like butterscotch, which is rare for a vampire of Japanese descent, and he has these long dark eyelashes that practically sweep against his cheeks when he closes his eyes. He wears his jet-black hair down to his waist, like we’re in the damn feudal era. He did when we were young, too. He’s always had an affinity for flowing robes with elaborate patterns, and they suit him perfectly.
The first time I fed from him, my eyes burned like fire in my head from the taste of him. I thought he was delicious. When he pulled back and saw me though, he smacked the shit out of me and told me I was being “unchaste.” Called me a heathen or some other old-fashioned term. Savage? I can’t remember. My eyes haven’t alighted since. They’re broken.
I don’t want to feed from him, but my body is conditioned to him. I can feed from another first-gen or maybe a second-gen, but it isn’t the same. Not nearly as satisfying. That’s Ren’s power over me—that my first feeding source was purebred. For years and during the pivotal, developmental phase of my vampiric biology, I was conditioned to this rich, clean vampiric blood. It’s what my body is accustomed to. Even when I desperately want to stay away from him—and believe me, I’ve tried—eventually I come back. I always will and he knows it.
Purebred vampires don’t just easily offer up their blood. They might feed from others freely, but they rarely ever give of themselves, because they’re considered the lifeblood of our race. A purebred vampire might offer themselves twice in their entire lifetime. Max. So it’s not as if I can just find another purebred to feed from. If I do, it means there’s an arrangement to bond with them. Which I don’t want to do either.
So I’m stuck with the harpy.
“Hello, Violet.”
I’m staring straight ahead. I can see him leaning on the doorframe from the corner of my eye, wearing some silken deep purple and flowy robe that’s gaped open at his chest. He knows I don’t like it when he calls me that. I ignore him because if you reward children with your attention, they’ll keep repeating the undesired behavior.
He strides across the tatami until he’s standing directly in front of me. Over me. Then he flops down onto his knees in front of me so I have to look at him. His hair is perfectly glossy, swept and flowing over his left shoulder. His vivid eyes are full of mischief. He smirks. “Sorry for making you wait.”
I scoff. “You are not.”
“I’m not.” He smiles, sweet malice, lifting his eyebrow. “You make me wait, so why shouldn’t I make you?”
He reaches up with his fingertips to touch my lips, but I draw my head back before he makes contact. I frown. “I’m not making you do anything. Can we please get this over with?”
He sighs, then dramatically falls over in front of me. He twists onto his back and his robe fans out. He’s naked underneath, so now he’s indecent as he stares up at me, his ridiculous hair splayed against the tatami. He looks like a half-naked cat wanting its belly rubbed… or some ukiyo-e, erotic shunga painting.
“You’re so cold to me,” he whines, staring up at me with butterscotch eyes as he runs his hand across his flat belly and down toward his exposed groin, drawing one knee up. “We haven’t tried in decades. Not since your mean old father died. Make love to me.”
“Nope.”
He sits up with lightning speed and grips my chin in his fingertips, hard. No more playing nice. He leans into me so that our faces are inches apart, and his eyes are cold despite their warm, pretty color. “I should cut you off. Never let you fucking feed from me again. Then what will you do?” He leans in and drags his tongue up the side of my face. I let him. This is what we do.
I’m silent, so when he’s done, he stares at me again. “Well?”
“You always say this. You never do it.” I almost wish he would. That he would stop waiting around for me, thinking that we’re going to magically fall in love and be together. It’s not happening. He should cut the cord, for both our sakes. Let go of whatever childhood fantasy he has of us in his mind and force me to suffer through the withdrawal.
His long fingers move down to the top buttons of my shirt. He’s playing with them, but he doesn’t try to unfasten them. He breathes a laugh, haughty. “I never will, will I? How could I cut off Junichi Takayama? Exquisite, internationally celebrated first-gen designer. I feed him. I’m his source and I keep him going—keep him designing and charming the world over. And he feeds me. Why would I ever let go of that distinction?”
“You’re realm leader—”
“Acting,” he says, turning his nose up. Ren has so many insecurities toward Haruka, it’s painful. What’s funny to me is that they could be related—if Haruka had an evil, ostentatious older brother. Ren is jealous of Haruka’s status in the aristocracy (locally and internationally), his older bloodline, his gender-ambiguous appearance and the fact that Haruka is younger in age. His “luxury, foreign-imported mate” (direct quote).
He’s even more triggered when Haruka grows his hair out. That’s his thing, Ren will complain. Apparently, no other vampire can have long hair. He doesn’t like that I spend more time with Haruka than him, either. I’ve learned to avoid bringing him up in Ren’s presence altogether.
