smile. His black curls glowed in the light coming through her open balcony.
"Could you hear me well enough through that plant?" he asked.
She had been lying flat on her back, without moving, the entire night. Now she sat straight up.
"You mean... you knew?"
"Of course," he replied softly and the Voice was back. "Kitty has heard me before. The others didn't matter at all." His hand reached out and caressed her cheek and there was nothing, dammit, she seemed to be able to do about it. "No," he continued, "it was all for you."
And the blood roared through her and her breath raced as sharp hissing pants and when his hand pulled back she all but cried out, What is happening to me! when she felt disappointment at the loss of his touch. And his smile curled, wide and full around his face, melding with her eyes, and his right hand came toward her again, with the fingernails of forefinger and thumb snapping together like a small animal... click... click... click
And she knew where, through her sheer nightgown, the little creature would bite her. But she could not stop this, either. She could not even stop the wanting of this. And when, matching the heaving rhythm of her chest, the two fingernails clamped with gentle pain on her left nipple, she fainted once more - but not before an orgasm of more exquisite agony than she could ever have imagined.
Sitting there in that cheap lime-green motel room and telling the Team - telling him - about that first night... it was the worst moment. It was not the worst part of her story - there were many crimes to come. But, still, it was the worst.
For now they knew what Ross could do to her, what he was always able to do to her, anytime he wanted. The... humiliation. The sense of being so simple and cheap. Of being used goods. Easy used goods.
Because the sexiness was still there. Even now, thinking back on it and thanking Sweet Jesus it was over, she felt the trembling passion of it all. And the others around her felt it also, it steamed from all the men save Father Adam, whose pious visage seemed struck in granite. But even Annabelle was affected.
And she tried to explain it to them. Tried, because she wasn't sure she understood it herself. But it had to do with the darker edge of a half-lie. Half-lie implying also a half-truth, yes, she knew that. And that was the vampire's secret.
What the vampire told you was true. He lied when he told you it was everything.
The day after the party had been one of the great days of Davette's life. Later, when she looked back on it, she knew it was because she had spent the day hiding from an impending sense of darkness; But at the time it was sweet, accustomed, familiar silliness.
The first days of every school vacation for years and years Davette had spent the same way: shopping with Kitty. Usually they went with Aunt Victoria in the limo and that was always fun because Aunt Victoria's entrance at the front door of some place like Neiman-Marcus prompted some truly amazing scurrying around on the part of the sales staff.
Aunt Vicky was too tired to come with them that day, but that didn't prevent her from rousing the girls up early like her usual imperial self and getting them "dressed and pressed and made-up for the table, ladies!"
And Davette loved it, being rousted out of bed, rushing around trying to get ready, with Aunt Vicky's voice carrying over everything, laughing and giggling with Kitty as they used, the adjoining bathroom.
Davette loved it because she didn't have to think.
Think about last night.
Or him.
Or herself.
Or...
Or whether or not she should tell Kitty. After all, Ross was her boyfriend. Lord, what would Kitty think of her if she told her that...
That what? What really happened?
Did anything really happen?
Maybe... Maybe it was just a weird dream. I mean, nobody can just reach out like that and make you... Can they?
And a tiny little voice answered back: Ross Stewart can. Anytime he wants to.
But she ignored it and giggled some more and then they were out there in the sunshine, checkbooks and credit cards with safeties off. And it was just as much fun as it always was. Shopping, SHOPPING, SHOPPING!
They laughed so hard and they laughed so long and they spent so much money!