My Beautiful Sin Read online

  Every now and then she caught my moan in her mouth, and I caught hers. It seemed the more I moaned, and the louder I got, the more powerful her grinding became.

  As she took me, pressed herself against my sex, bringing me closer and closer to the end, I knew then that my body belonged to her, and it always had. She'd just now, at long last, come to claim it. The way she made love to me, her will, her passion – in her eyes and strokes – was like someone who had full dominion over my body. And I let her take me, take me the way no one ever had, and ever could. Our love-making was perfect; our bodies were so in tune with each other. They fit together like jigsaw pieces. We were made for each other in a way far beyond the physical. I felt like I was home.

  I reached climax before she did, and wasn't quiet about it. The jolts ripped through my body, every inch of me tingled and became sensitive. And when she expired moments later, it was almost as though I climaxed all over again.

  She hadn't been looking at me when she peaked. She'd looked away pretty much as soon as I reached mine. I found that weird. Throughout the whole act we'd kept eye contact, so I didn't understand why, as it came to a head, she chose that moment to look away.

  I wanted her to kiss me, so I lifted her head from the side to look at me. What I saw in her eyes startled me. Hatred, or something akin to it.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she shook her head violently. She looked like she was about to throw up. Then she tore herself away from me.

  “Jean, what's wrong?” I asked, perplexed by this unexpected change in her. She was now several feet away from me, covering her breasts with her hands, as though hiding them from me. She looked like a wounded animal.

  “This wasn't supposed to happen. It's disgusting!”

  “How could you say that? It was beautiful. It felt right,” I pleaded, trying to console her. Nothing about what we did was disgusting. I felt reborn.

  “Why did you have to push me? I never should have come here.”

  “Jean, I wanted you, and you wanted me. There's nothing wrong with that.” I tried to reach out to her.

  “Stay away from me!” she snapped, turning to me and baring her fangs.

  I let out a cry and edged back.

  But when I did that, all the anger and pain vanished immediately from her face. Her eyes were wide, shocked, as though she had startled herself.

  “Oh, baby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” Her tears came thick and fast, watery-red. She crawled back to me.

  I was hesitant to let her near me, but knew in my heart she wouldn't harm me.

  She took me in her arms, held me to her chest, kissing my head. “Please don't be afraid of me. I would never hurt you. I would turn the platinum dagger on myself long before I let that happen.”

  I believed her. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did. Why would she have protected me all this time if only to kill me later?

  I let her hold me and kiss me over and over. She kept whispering that she was sorry. Sorry for everything. I got the feeling she was apologizing for more than just baring her fangs.

  It felt good to be in her arms, and we lay together on the paint-spattered sheet, which would forever hold sentimental value as the place on which we first made love. I lay with my face on her stomach as she stroked my head.

  “I'm in love with you,” I said, after we'd been silent for awhile. Never before had I been so frank with another person, not even with myself. But I needed her to know, and it felt like the perfect time to say it. “I think I've been in love with you since the first day I saw you.” I sat up to look at her. “And do you know what else I think? I think you love me, too.”

  “More than you will ever know.”

  That wasn't the answer I was expecting.

  “I've loved you for a long time, Lissa Rowan. Up until recently it was a different kind of love...” Her eyes took on a melancholy glow. “I want you to know I never planned any of this, and that the way I love you now wasn't the way I loved you back then. I'm not some kind of pervert.”

  I couldn't help but laugh and kiss her. “I know. I know.”

  “I just wanted to protect you. To keep you safe, take care of you. I will just have to learn to do that as your lover.”

  “You don't need to do that.” Her cheek was cold again when I held her face in my hand. “I need to learn to take care of myself now. And I want, finally, for my lover to be my equal. So no more playing guardian angel.”

  “I don't think I can stop. I don't think I want to.” She kissed me, and the kiss lasted so long I thought it would never end; I didn't want it to end. But she drew her lips away eventually. “I'm taking you home with me, whether you like it or not.”

  I wasn't about to argue with her. My options were a cold, lonely studio, or a warm mansion. There wasn't much of a choice.

  We lay together a little while longer, not really talking about anything, just enjoying each other's company. I asked her how she was able to get into the studio without being invited, and she told me that she only had to be invited in to places of abode, not commercial buildings. What I didn't ask her were any of the pertinent questions. There were things she was keeping from me, I knew that. And I also knew that when she finally did spill, everything would change. I just wanted to enjoy this piece of happiness for as long as I could before that happened.

  SIXTEEN

  “Evening, Ms. Posey.” Her maid sprung on her the moment we walked through the door, each of us carrying a black bag of my stuff.

  “Good evening, Sandra. Lissa will be staying here with us from now on, so I'd like you to make her feel at home. Anything she wants, she gets.”

  Sandra's smile was genuine, I was surprised to see. It was aimed more at Jean than at me, and there was something knowing in it, as though they shared a secret.

  “My pleasure.” She sounded as though she meant that, too. “I'll make up one of the guest rooms.”

  “That won't be necessary. If you could just take these bags up to my room, and then put on some new sheets, that would be great. She'll be staying in there with me.” Jean turned to me. “Unless you want your own room?”

  I shook my head quickly. No siree. I wanted to be with her all the time, now that I finally had her. “Your room's fine.”

  Sandra took the bags from us and disappeared upstairs. Jean took my hand and led me down the hall to the kitchen. There was no trace of the party the night before, as far as I could see.

  The kitchen was huge and every corner sparkled as though brand-spanking new. Not much of a surprise, considering its owner survived on blood and water alone.

  “Are you hungry?” She pulled open the large family-sized refrigerator. Every shelf was chock-full of food. “There's plenty left over from the party. Or I could make you something. An omelet, perhaps?”

  “You cook?” I asked, astonished.

  She didn't seem at all insulted by my skepticism, because she laughed. “I'll have you know I was an excellent cook once. Growing up I used to watch our cook while she worked. I wanted to be a chef when I was young... Then I grew up and learned that The Poseys didn't do such 'lowly' things as become chefs. We got other people to do our cooking...” A brief look of sadness swept across her face. There was so much about her that I didn't know. So much that I wanted to learn. Those big, brown eyes – so expressive and reflective – held secrets about her, about her past.

  “Wow, and I thought Hilarie was stuck up.”

  “That's the English aristocracy for you.” She shrugged. “My family disowning me was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Why did they do that?”

  She sat down in front of me on a stool by the counter. We held hands again.

  “Because they're narrow-minded and only concerned with image. Homophobic, racist, classist, you name it. I hit all three of their biases when I brought home my first serious partner at eighteen – a black girl from a working class background. I thought my father was going to have a heart attack!”

  “Y
ou don't paint a very good picture of your family,” I said, feeling sad for her, and sad for myself in the process. We may have been from completely different backgrounds, and on paper may not have had much in common, but we'd ended up in the same place: alone.

  “That's the only picture there is. The real disowning came when... when I turned. Can you believe they claimed I'd 'gone too far' when I told them what had happened to me? That was how they spoke, as though being gay was a choice, or being attacked and turned was something I chose.”

  “You were attacked?” It had never occurred to me how her condition had come about. The thought that someone had attacked her and given her this curse made my heart heavy.

  She didn't want to answer; she'd said too much. She nodded quickly and looked away. It seemed that every time her condition came up, any reminder that she was no longer human, it embarrassed her. Didn't she know that none of it mattered now? That I loved all of her, and even more so because of her condition?

  “My father was also attacked by vampires. Sometimes I wonder if I would have preferred him turned than dead.”

  Only since meeting Jean had I pondered over it, however. Before her I thought all vampires were the same, and wouldn't have wished that life on my father. We would have been taken from him anyway; no authority would ever have allowed young kids to be raised by a vampire. So the course of my life wouldn't have changed much.

  She brought my hand up to her mouth and kissed the back of it, letting her lips linger there. Then she said, “Let's not talk about anything sad tonight, okay?”

  Once I'd had a bite to eat, she led me up to her room. My third visit; who would have guessed that I would have ended up moving in there? I still couldn't believe it, even as I opened the closet door to find that Sandra had already put away all of my clothes. My minimal rags hung beside Jean's fancy, expensive outfits, looking like a before and after picture of a lottery winner's closet.

  “Maybe I should keep my things in the black bags,” I said miserably.

  “I won't hear of it.” She was already sitting on the bed. “Come here.” I did as I was told. She sat me on her lap. “This is your home now. This is your room. This is your bed. And that is your closet.”

  “But everything I have looks like homeless person scraps!” I whined. “My junk doesn't belong in there.”

  “Your clothes are just fine.” She kissed me gently on the lips. “And if you don't like them, we can get you some more. Anything you want. As much as you want.”

  “Jean,” I whined. “I'm trying to be independent. I don't need you spoiling me.”

  “I want to spoil you. I have so much and I want to share it with you.”

  That was how it always began. They had more than me, they pitied me, they took me in and took care of me, I let them. Looking for parents in all of my girlfriends. No wonder why none of my past relationships had worked out. I had to break the cycle. Jean was rich, far richer than any of the others, but I was determined to take less from her; I was determined to take nothing from her, apart from that which could never be bought or sold.

  “I don't want anything but you,” I said. “That's all I'm here for.”

  “You have me. You've always had me.”

  She laid me on the bed before climbing on top of me. We kissed and kissed and kissed, but never went further than that. It was more than enough.

  “I want to give you everything because you've given me everything. You loving me is the most precious thing in my life,” she continued, combing her fingers through my hair. “This is the kind of happiness I never dreamed possible after turning.”

  Her eyes were filled with love, all of it for me. I never wanted to blink and miss even a second of it.

  We kissed again, and then we held each other for a long time, feeling no need to speak. The sound of her steady breathing, the feel of her chest rising and falling, it was enough.

  And then the spell had to break, as all spells do in the end.

  “It will be sunrise soon. I have to go.”

  I sat up, looking at her questioningly. “What? Go where?”

  “Downstairs. My chamber. That's where I sleep.”

  “Why can't you stay here with me and just keep the curtains drawn?”

  She smiled sadly. “That's not how it works, honey. The chamber's designed especially for sleeping. Drawing the curtain wouldn't be sufficient to keep the sunlight out.”

  “Then I want to come with you,” I said, my voice rising in my desperation.

  “You can't. You would suffocate. Besides, I wouldn't want you to see me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Dead.” Her expression darkened; she cast her gaze elsewhere. “From sunrise to sunset that's what happens to me, I die. I can't be woken. My heart stops beating, I stop breathing. That's the reality of the condition.” When she looked at me again, it was as though she was asking me if I was sure I knew what I was getting myself into by being with her.

  “It doesn't scare me away. I just hate that I won't ever get to wake up beside you in the morning, but I'll get used to it.”

  We kissed each other goodnight, a bittersweet parting kiss that I would have to hold on to for many hours before I saw her again in the evening.

  I would have carried on sleeping late into the day had voices in the hall not woken me up. Barefoot I traipsed across the room, opened the curtains to a bright new day, then went outside to see what was going on. I peered over the balcony. A long way down, Robyn was in the entrance hall talking with Sandra.

  “What do you mean I can't go up to the room?” she demanded tetchily, looking like she was ready to fight. “I can go wherever I want in this house.”

  “You're still free to visit the other parts of the house, but Ms. Posey's bedroom is now off limits.”

  “What the hell is this about? Get out of my way, you stupid bitch.”

  “The bedroom is off limits because I'm staying in there now,” I shouted down from the balcony. Quite frankly, her treatment of Sandra, who had been nice to me from the start, was vile. I felt it my civic duty to step in and rub her nose in it.

  Her eyes were filled with fire when she cast them up at me. “You!”

  She shoved Sandra aside and came powering up the stairs. This time I was going to be ready for her, I thought, trying not to tremble too much.

  “You're a lying piece of crap! Jean would never let anyone stay in her room. Not for more than one night,” she hissed, pointing a long, slender finger in my face. I hated her fingers, knowing how they had pleasured Jean. And her mouth. And her neck. And everything, because they'd enjoyed Jean long before I had. We were both envious of each other – for being Jean's past, and for being her future.

  “I'm the exception to the rule,” I said with a smug smile.

  “What you are is an underprivileged little girl that she feels sorry for.”

  “I'm a woman, and she makes love to me like one.”

  That got to her. I could see the hatred flare in her pupils, saw her thin lips purse.

  “You know, I knew when you came back to the house that you would try to get your claws into Jean. I could smell the ambition on you. Gold-diggers always have the same scent.”

  “I don't care about her money. But you seem to care a lot about it. Who's the real gold-digger here, huh?”

  She went to raise her hand.

  “Uh-uh, remember what Jean said. You touch me and she'll have something to say about it.”

  She changed her mind, put her hand back down.

  “Right now you're the shiny new thing. And we all know what happens to shiny new things. They stop being shiny, they stop being new, and then they get replaced. It's only a matter of time before she realizes that you have nothing to offer her but nutrition, which she has plenty of others to provide for her.”

  My face must have reflected my agitation, because a satisfied expression settled on her face. Then she turned and walked away, back down the stairs and out of the house.


  I wanted to shout after her that she was wrong about Jean, that our love-making was bite-free. I wanted to ask her how many others Jean had professed her love to. But her words stung and frightened me. Even though Jean's actions towards me up to this point were the complete opposite of someone looking only for temporary fun, Robyn's words still worried me. Why would I be any different? There was nothing special about me that would compel Jean to keep me around. I wasn't particularly interesting.

  Those thoughts hounded me all through my shower, and all through brunch. I just wanted Jean to wake up so she could put my fears to rest.

  My phone was ringing when I returned to my bedroom.

  “I half didn't expect you to answer. Thank God!” Petr said with an exaggerated sigh. “I really thought something had happened to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I just got back, and I'm standing in the middle of our studio, and there's some torn underwear lying on the floor, curled up in a sheet...”

  I chuckled loudly. “Oh, that.”

  “Are they yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  His voice took on an even more suspicious tone, though I could hear the amusement in it. “I didn't know Hilarie had it in her.”

  “She doesn't. She wasn't responsible for that.”

  I could almost see his comical outrage through the phone.

  “You dirty, dirty girl! This has vampire sex written all over it. Tell me you got some hot vampire loving.”

  “No comment.”

  “Ha! I knew it. Where are you? At home? I'm coming over.”

  “I'm at my new home... at Jean's house.”

  He let out a cackle that vibrated through the phone, and I had to pull it from my ear. “You get more scandalous every time we speak.”

  He sat with his feet curled up on the bed, his socks mismatched. Sandra slipped in with drinks for us, then slipped back out, leaving us alone to gossip. I hoped she wasn't listening outside the door.