The First Taste

It had taken me weeks of dogged perseverance to get here. Dozens of conversations that could last for hours or only seconds but I’d stayed steady, even as he flashed a warning of bladed fangs when I’d gotten too close, like a cornered animal ready to strike. He’d edged closer. Little by little trusting me more…or maybe it was just familiarity. He’d gotten used to me as part of his scenery. A small brunette air horn disrupting the quiet order of his regimen and contesting his will, showing him his rule was not as absolute as he’d once thought. And as his trust grew, so did the ache in my heart when he stayed gone for weeks on end. I could tell myself that I was helping a friend and soothing a hurt soul but I was too far gone to believe the lie anymore. If I didn’t love him yet, it was damned close and the way my pulse raced when he looked at me…really looked at me betrayed whatever story I tried to tell myself.

I knew him. The angles of his face, the scent of his skin and the hint of laughter that glittered behind his icy eyes, ready to break free if he would just let me in. And I tried; with jokes and good-natured antagonism. Poking the irritable bear, so-to-speak until he couldn’t help but grin that crooked grin, his goatee hiding the lines that surrounded his mouth when he really smiled. If I could just make him see that I would never hurt him as others had but, he was beginning to let me in and that was a start. So close…

I lifted a hand to touch his face, wincing as he took a step back, my heart splintering at the blow. It stung in a way I couldn’t explain to be rejected by him but, I wasn’t giving up. I would never show my hurt though I would never stop chiseling at the seemingly unbreakable wall of stoic cynicism he’d surrounded himself with.  If he could just open his eyes to what was right in front of him…within arm’s reach…

And then he reached for me, spinning me to face away and gripping my shoulders I found myself pinned against a wall, fists gripping its thick pillars and leaning back into its hard surface, the spikes of pain at my throat tightening my hold as my legs quake, perilously close to spilling me onto the floor. The stroke of something warm and wet relieved the throbbing burn as the source of the pain disappeared with a rough murmur of thanks and the whisper of words in a language I didn’t understand…the wall…spoke? Blinking away my confusion, the loss of blood sending my head into a spin. Not a wall… a male. A warrior. Him.

Staggering as he backed away from me, my fingers uncurling from their iron-like grip on his thighs as the heat of his chest at my back is replaced with the chill of the night air, brow furrowing at the strange ache in my chest when he pulled away. I sighed heavily and turned to face him, warm chocolate eyes meeting his glowing diamonds, their brilliance tinted with a frustrated confusion as he licked over a bloodied fang. My feet moved of their own accord toward him, one hesitant step after the other. So close… we’d been so close. He’d tolerated my hands on him and even if I didn’t understand why my heart fluttered at the prospect. He’s been so…hidden. So locked up with his own demons that he didn’t realize that the wall that he’d built to keep others out was what had been keeping them in. Always at his back, their claws slashing and shredding until the feeling had been torn from him…but they’d missed something. Something that I’d seen struggling to reach the surface, a kindness in the hard lines of his face blocked by the shadow of a worn Red Sox cap. It was there, whether he knew it or not. And I would help him find it if he would only let me. And in an instant he’d disappeared and took part of me with him. No word, no warning. Just…gone.

The light left my face though I tried not to show it, keeping up the appearance of the Jodi everyone knew. But, I was haunted. I saw him in reflections and shadows. Felt the weight of his stare from bricked alleys dimly lit by the buzzing yellow of aged streetlights. Heard his voice in my sleep, the raspy bass whispers waking me from dreams of being in the warmth of his arms and forcing me cruelly back into the stark reality of his absence. Christ, he wasn’t coming back, was he?

I politely listened to the other male’s raucous laughter, vying for attention where none would be paid…not yet, not as long as I held on to his image and the hope that there’d been something below the surface of simple friendship, however strained it had been. Booming voices clamored for a kind word or a flash of skin and I’d done my best to be no more than friendly. It was all I had in me.

I sighed heavily, breath fogging the window pane that stood between me and the Caldwell winter, back turned away from the crowd of brothers and adoring females all looking to carve their name into the legends by warming a warrior’s bed. I shook my head and willed myself to accept that my feelings were just that…mine alone. He’d felt no more for me than for any of his pets. I’d had a ready vein when the need took him, that was all. I flattened my palm against the cold glass, a single tear slipping down my cheek and whispering his name as if saying it aloud would somehow erase the emptiness I felt. “Oh, Vishous…” I wiped at my face, startled as a low voice cut through the reverie surrounding me…

“Female?”

I turned to face him, praying under my breath that he’d come back and hiding my disappointment at seeing the flash of navy blue eyes instead of Vishous’s glimmering pale irises. The male rubbed his neck nervously, finally scrubbing a hand over his short cropped hair and relaxing some as I gave him a warm smile.

“Good evening, warrior.”

“It’s Tohrment..Tohr…”

Somewhere in the darkness that pressed against the window, the cherry of a hand-rolled Turkish dropped to the street and was crushed beneath a battered shitkicker as diamond eyes bored into the image in front of them and turned back into the night.