“Dude your sister is hawt!” Dean said.
I smacked him on the arm. “Watch your mouth!”
He grinned. “Thirsty?”
“Yeah but I’ll get my own drink thank you!”
“I’ll go with you,” Sophie said.
I took her hand and we headed for the drink station. We were almost there when the music was abruptly cut off and a light came on at the “front” of the dance floor.
“Oh god,” I said. “What is Mark up to now?”
Mark was standing there with a microphone in his hand.
“Hello fellow students!”
The whole crowd cheered and he grinned bigger.
“The last time he had that smile he was about to tell me he wasn’t a virgin anymore. This isn’t good,” I murmured.
“Nope.” Sophie motioned for the guy at the drink station to give her two sealed drinks.
He handed her two waters and she handed me one.
“Now. As you all know my boy has come back to campus!” More cries of happiness. “Where are you, man? Get up here!”
“Why did I let my brother talk me into this?”
Sophie squeezed my hand. Aidan made his way to the stage. I had no idea where he’d been but when Mark spotted him he smiled.
“There he is! Ok. So…my man is newly single, ladies!” Basically the whole female population of our school cheered.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“It’ll be over soon.”
“And he’s looking for a dance partner,” Mark said.
Aidan just grinned and shook his head. “Dude, stop.”
“So if there are any takers out there, get your sculpted butts up here!”
“This is a nightmare. Can I go home now?”
All the girls rushed forward whether they had dates or not, all except Sophie and me. Mark motioned for the music to start again and the light to be cut off. I looked at Sophie, panic rising in my chest.
“Told you it’d be over quickly.”
“I think I’m…”
“No, no, no,” Sophie said. “You’re here to have fun. Not sulk. Let’s go back and get you a new dance partner! Sebastis made sure all of his friends knew to keep you dancing.”
“Great. So I’m one of those charity cases.”
Sophie towed me back to where we’d left my brother and his friends. A unanimous cry went up when we got back. Sophie laughed and I just blushed. I was getting claustrophobic with all these people. There was nothing more I could possibly want other then to bolt.
I felt a hand on my hip from behind me and I tensed.
“Dance with me?”
I turned around and found Gregori standing there. I couldn’t help the grin that slid over my face. I hadn’t even noticed the heat he usually brought. Maybe it was the fact that my skin already felt like it was on fire.
“What are you doing here?” I called.
“Technically I’m supposed to be shutting you guys down. But I figure what the hell.”
“Aren’t you a little old for this crowd?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Come on, Geo. Must you always bring up my age? Just once. And then I can do what I came here to do so I can get back to my Matrix marathon.”
“You’re such a geek!”
“Come on.” He took me by the hand and led me out on the dance floor.
The electric shocks that went up my arm were comforting. I found it easier to be around Gregori as I spent more time with him. I had to press up against his back to keep from being separated and it was a little weird. He was almost the same height as Michael. Oddly enough his height wasn’t off for the crowd we were in and I could see why the security office sent him to break up the party. He could blend in well, be mistaken for a student, and break up the party without too much hassle. After all, he was only twenty.
He turned back towards me when he found a small break in the crowd. I found it easier to get into a rhythm with him then I ever did with anyone else. The one song ended and flowed into the next one and we didn’t stop dancing. I was elated and I was happy and in that moment I didn’t care about anyone else. All that mattered was I had a good dance partner in front of me and I found that the sweating bodies of my fellow classmates just didn’t matter.
“You know the longer you dance with me the longer you put off shutting down the party,” I said.
He just shrugged. “It’ll end sooner or later.”
I rolled my eyes. “You are such a…”
“May I cut in?”
I froze where I was. I stared at Gregori, praying that I was hearing things. But then I felt a body pressed up against my back and breath across my ear.
“Dance with me, Ana. Please.”
Gregori raised an eyebrow, still looking at me and not Aidan. Aidan placed his hands on my hips and started moving to the music.
“Five minutes,” Gregori said quietly.
I knew what that meant. He was breaking up the party in five minutes so I could have an excuse to get away. After I nodded, he slowly melted into the crowd leaving me alone with the one person I didn’t want to be alone with. I felt betrayed by my own body as it conformed and reacted to Aidan’s, finding the movements all too familiar. My brain was screaming at me to run while my heart and body were telling me to stay right where I was.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked.
“You know why,” he whispered in my ear again.
I could’ve sworn I smelled alcohol on his breath but the puff was gone before I could really get a good whiff. The one time I needed Michael in my head, he was nowhere to be sensed. Aidan’s one arm wrapped around my waist while the other took my hand, interlacing my fingers with his.
“You know we fit well together.”
“You’re the one that broke it off. Not me.”
He kissed me just below my ear, right where he knew it would drive me crazy.
“What if I changed my mind?”
I closed my eyes and fought off the crop of emotions that raced forward at the sound of his voice and the words he spoke. I’d dreamed about this moment so many times. Where he’d come racing back, melt the ice wall I’d constructed and begged me to take him back. And I would say yes, fall into his arms, and do things I’d been dreaming about…
But I couldn’t. I was with Michael and I need to keep telling myself that when he was around. If it would keep me from feeling the way I was right now, then I needed to do it.
“Do you really think that’s what matters?” I asked. “You said some pretty…” I paused for a second, rethinking my approach. “I’m with someone else.”
He moved my hair back from my face with our conjoined hands, completely ignoring my statement.
“I didn’t mean it.”
I completely smelled the alcohol this time. I closed my eyes and moved my face away. I needed a deep breath of fresh air, air that wasn’t tainted with the smell of his breath or natural scent. I knew what this was. It was a drunken moment that we’d both regret later. Him because he wasn’t sober and lying. Me because I was with Michael and I had no business being where I was. I stopped moving, forcing him to do the same.
“You’re drunk,” I commented.
“Doesn’t matter. Everything I’m saying is the truth and it takes a lot for me to get drunk now.”
I turned around and looked at him. He looked down at me with hooded eyes.
“Nothing you say right now means anything.”
“Haven’t you heard the phrase drunk men tell no lies?”
He leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. That deep down tingle got worse and more intense. I was being betrayed by my own body. How fucked up was that? Tingles raced across my skin, setting every nerve in my body on fire. My eyes closed as he pressed his lips against mine. He pressed me closer to him, one hand firmly pressed against my lower back. The other hand found its way into my hair, cupping the back of my head. That feeling got worse and worse until I thought I was going to burst if I didn’t kiss him back.
This was wrong. I needed to take a step back, maybe step out of the room, far away from him. Kissing him was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
His tongue parted my lips and slipped into my mouth, caressing my tongue into responding. He tasted like rum and coke. When I finally started kissing him back he moaned into my mouth. It felt like it had always felt. Like he loved me, like he wanted me and no one else mattered. I got lost in that feeling until a burning in my arm slowly brought me back, floating just below the surface of clarity.
Then one of his fangs nicked my lip. I broke the surface, fully back to the present, the searing pain in my arm making everything that much clearer. Blood flowed into my mouth and he latched onto my bottom lip, sucking gently at the cut. I pushed him away from me and he stumbled back looking completely caught by surprise.
“Ana…”
“Alright!” Gregori yelled into the microphone.
Oh thank god. I turned in the direction of his voice, letting the gruff tones and the heat his nearness brought push me into moving. I was starting to thank every freaking deity ever created for bringing that man into my life. He was saving me from myself.
“I’m from the security office and I am now shutting this party down. Cut off the music. It’s over people. Go home.”
The lights came back on and as everyone stood frozen where they were, I pushed my way to the door.
“Ana! Wait!” Aidan called after me.
That just made me walk faster. When I broke through the barrier of bodies by the door I ran full speed down the hallway of the basement. I was chanting ’thank you’ over and over in my head for that moment of clarity and Gregori’s direction. I didn’t know what would’ve happened if it hadn’t come. I slowed down as I heard everyone starting to head in my direction and towards the door. I knew the press of bodies and the shear number of them in that tiny hallway would keep Aidan from getting to me.
I managed to get outside and halfway home before I heard him again.
“Ana!”
“Stay away from me.”
My feet began picking up their pace. I knew I couldn’t out run him but I hoped the fact that he had alcohol in his system would hamper his Vampire abilities. I made it to the tree and began to climb. He wrapped a hand around my ankle, stilling my progress.
“Let me go, Aidan,” I said, looking down at him.
“No. Never.”
“You’re drunk. You’ll regret this in the morning.”
“I don’t regret anything with you, Ana. Whether I’m drunk or not that will always be true.”
“It doesn’t matter, Aidan. None of this matters. Just let go. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”
“You kissed me back. I felt it. You still want me. You still love me.”
I tugged my leg up but he kept a firm grip on my ankle.
“It doesn’t matter!” I yelled.
“Ana. Come on. Talk to me.”
“I can’t talk to you. There’s nothing to say.”
He tugged on my ankle and my grip on the branch above me slipped.
“Aidan, stop! I’m going to fall.”
“I’ll catch you. I’ll always catch you.”
He tugged again and my grip relented. I fell the few feet and true to his word, he caught me. I scrambled out of his arms and glared at him.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shrieked, trying to put my dress back to rights.
“I want to talk to you.”
He took a step towards me and I took one back, slamming into the tree.
“I will talk to you.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“There’s plenty to say.”
He closed the distance between us so I was pressed in between him and the tree. Just like the first night we kissed. God, I needed to stop thinking about kissing him. My mind needed to get out of the gutter and back to the right side, the non lusty side.
“I know you feel it too,” he whispered. “You’re not meant to be without me.”
“I don’t know what you did to bypass the pact but you shouldn’t be here. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Now I know that’s not true.”
“Aidan, go home.”
“Not without a goodnight kiss.”
He leaned down to kiss me but I pushed him. “Stop. No more kisses, no more touching, no more anything. It’s over, Aidan. I’m with someone else.”
His eyes grew darker. “You don’t mean that.”
“You’re drunk. You don’t want me. You don’t want anything to do with me. You got what you wanted, Aidan. You said that. It’s over, remember?”
“I’m not drunk!”
“The fact that you picked up on that one thing out of that whole sentence tells me you are.”
I turned to go up the tree but he caught me and pressed me up against him. One arm wrapped around my waist and his other hand pulled my hair to the side.
“I’m not drunk, Ana. I am in full control of my actions and I am of sound mind.”
“Don’t do this to me, Aidan. Please.”
His one hand ran down my side and caught the hem of my dress, splaying his fingers against the skin of my thigh.
“I know you want it, Ana. As much as I do if not more. You haven’t been touched like this since New York and god knows I haven’t touched anyone like this since then either.”
“Doesn’t matter, Aidan. You said…”
“I lied,” he whispered against my ear. “I still want you, Ana.”
His hand pulled the hem of my dress higher and higher up my leg until he touched the stitched hem of my panties.
“Stop Aidan.”
“You want me, Ana. I know you do.” He slid his finger around the stitching, “If you didn’t you would’ve stopped me by now.”
He was right, god he was right. I was waging a war in my brain right then. The part that wanted him screamed to let him keep going while the other part screamed to make him stop.
“Stop, Aidan.”
“That was weak, Ana.”
His hand moved so it was splayed against the bare skin of my stomach, the hem of my dress bunched in between him and me. He started inching lower when my hand wrapped around his wrist, stilling his movements.
“No, Aidan. I mean it.”
“Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll stop.”
I swallowed the lump that had grown in my throat and opened my mouth to tell him to stop. Instead he kissed the spot just below my ear and the only thing that came out was a choked moan.
“I didn’t think so.”
His fingertips slipped under the elastic of my panties. And I felt my finer reasoning skills giving over to the part of me that wanted him to touch me. I pressed back against him and I felt him smile against my skin.
“Let go of my sister, Aidan.”
He jerked his hand away, letting my dress fall back down to its full length. He took a step back from me and I braced myself against the tree a foot away. I reigned in my emotions before I turned around.
“You should get back to your room,” Sebastis said to him. “There are guys out there making students take the blow test.”
Aidan was staring at me and by the look in his eyes he realized how close he’d come to convincing me he still wanted me. My brother stepped into his line of sight, cutting me completely out of view. Guilt started eating me up on the inside. For those few seconds I’d completely forgotten about Michael. I was a horrible person, a truly horrible person.
“Go before you get into trouble,” my brother said.
“We’re not done, Ana. I swear.”
I heard him walk away and my brother turned around and gathered me in his arms.
“Oh God,” I fumbled. “I’m a horrible person. I cheated…” The last part came out as a whisper.
“Let’s get you inside,” Sebastis said.
He ushered me around the building and when we got into the lobby he forced me to sit down on the stairs.
“Why is he doing this to me?” I asked.
My brother wrapped his arm around me. “He’s drunk, Gee. He didn’t mean any of it.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “I think he was serious.”
“No one is serious when they’re drunk.”
“I wish Michael was here,” I whimpered.
“Me too.”
My brother let me sleep in his room that night and he slept in mine.
~ * ~
Music Selection: Dirrty by Christina Aguilera, E.T. by Katy Perry (feat. Kanye West), Going Under by Evanescence