vampsexxual

It had been a good night. A proper one.

Not fancy. Not peaceful. Nothing that could ever be called normal with this lot involved. But good all the same.

The fire had sunk low, all red belly and spit, breathing smoke up through the trees in lazy drifts. The speaker had finally given up after hours of being bullied into playing everything from trance to ABBA to some dreadful nineties club track Cardi swore was a classic. Now the woods had gone soft round the edges. Damp leaves. Crickets. The occasional pop from the fire as wet wood gave in and split.

Vinnie’s fairy lights, half of them nicked from somebody’s garden party about three summers ago, drooped between the trees like they were hanging on out of spite. Empty cans and bottles glittered in the leaf litter. Somebody’s trainer had ended up by the cake table. Nobody knew whose. Nobody wanted to claim it.

And for once, no one was bleeding.

Which, with this gang, felt less like luck and more like a trap.

Under the tarp, Vinnie’s birthday cake sat on a folding table looking like it had survived a small bombing. One side had caved in. The icing had started to sweat. A deep trench ran straight through the middle of the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY VINNIE.

Tommo had done that.

Earlier, he’d wandered over to it half-cut and deeply offended on principle, stared at the top like it had insulted his mother, then said, “Nah. That’s all wrong, that.”

JJ had looked up from opening another beer. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The middle.”

“The middle of what?”

“The cake.”

“It’s a cake, Tommo. It’s not structural.”

Tommo had frowned harder, as though JJ had revealed himself to be simple. Then, before anybody could stop him, he stuck one finger straight into the icing and dragged it through the writing.

“There,” he’d said, sucking the icing off his knuckle. “Saved it.”

“You have just fingered Vinnie’s birthday cake,” Erin had said, flat as anything.

“It needed intervention.”

“It needed you nowhere near it,” Carol had muttered.

Tommo had looked genuinely wounded by the criticism.

Vinnie had laughed.

That was the bit that had stuck with you.

Not the cake. Not Tommo committing some sort of frosting-based sex crime. Vinnie laughing.

Real laughing. Quick and low, head ducked as if he’d not meant it to get out. Like it had slipped past him before he could shut it down.

He’d been like that most of the night. Still Vinnie, still wired with that restless energy that made it seem like half of him was always ready to bolt, still all quick hands and quicker glances and that odd little tension he carried round even when he was happy. But easier. Looser. Letting himself get fussed over without acting like he wanted to gnaw his own arm off to escape it.

It suited him far too much.

You were sat off a little from the fire with the girls, chairs dragged together in a wonky little crescent. Erin had Tyler tucked into her side, fast asleep in a child’s sleeping bag with his hat sliding over one eyebrow and one sock missing. Every now and then she’d reach down and fix the blanket round him without even breaking conversation. Sugar had a can balanced on her knee and that sharp little glint in her eye that meant she’d clocked something and was having a lovely time sitting on it. Carol, naturally, had nicked the best chair and sat in it like she paid council tax on the woods.

You had a warm can in your hand and a very stupid problem.

Vinnie was over by the fire on an upturned crate, lighter turning between his fingers, half listening to JJ and half keeping one eye on Cardi, who had got very passionate about sausages and was now arguing with Dylan while using a burnt one like a conductor’s baton. Ash had disappeared almost completely into a sleeping bag and now only contributed from inside it like a grumpy caterpillar.

Tommo, meanwhile, had staggered off for a piss still zipped halfway into his tartan sleeping bag like some sort of Victorian patient trying to escape an institution.

You glanced over.

Vinnie looked up at the exact same moment.

Your eyes met.

He looked away so quickly it would have been funny if it didn’t make your stomach turn over. He rubbed the side of his nose, reached for the lighter, flicked it once, then again, like setting fire to nothing at all had suddenly become urgent.

Sugar made a small sound into her drink.

“There.”

You looked at her. “There what?”

“That.”

“That’s not a sentence.”

“It’s enough of one.”

Carol took a drag on her cigarette and gave you a look. “Tis if you’re not thick.”

You snorted. “I’m sat here minding my own business.”

“No, you’re not,” Erin said at once.

“Y’are sat there lookin’ at Vinnie like you’d let him bend you over the nearest flat surface,” Carol added.

You turned to her, scandalised. “Jesus Christ, Carol.”

“She’s not wrong, though,” Sugar said, grinning into her can.

“I’m surrounded by awful women.”

“You’ve been surrounded by awful women since school,” Erin said.

That was the problem with Erin. She knew you too well to let you get away with anything. You’d known each other since you were kids. Not in that vague, once-sat-near-each-other-in-maths sort of way. Properly. Shared chips, school detentions, bus fares, cigs behind the sports hall, bad decisions, worse mascara, and one truly shambolic attempt at nicking eyeliner when you were fourteen and panicked so hard you nearly handed it back with an apology.

She knew every version of your face.

And the one you had on now.

The lying one.

The fuming one.

The trying-not-to-care one.

She tipped her head at you. “So. How bad is it?”

You looked at her. “Why d’you say it like it’s a rash?”

Sugar laughed. Carol smirked. Erin just waited.

You looked back down at the can in your hands. “I dunno.”

That was a lie, really.

You did know.

You knew you liked him. That part had been obvious for a while now, no matter how much you’d tried to play it off as nothing. The trouble was it had stopped being one of them stupid little crushes that vanish after a week and become something slower. Worse. Built out of tiny things that kept stacking up until there was nowhere left to put them.

The way he noticed when you’d gone quiet.

The way he listened, even when he was pretending not to.

The way he’d nudged your chair closer to the fire earlier with the side of his boot without making a thing of it.

The way he was with Tyler.

That one always got you.

Your eyes dropped to the little lump of Tyler in his sleeping bag. Erin saw it immediately.

“Oh, don’t do that,” she said.

You frowned. “Do what?”

“That face.”

“What face?”

“The guilty one.”

“It’s not guilt.”

“It’s in the same family.”

You rubbed a thumb over the beer label. “I just don’t want it being weird.”

“For me?” Erin asked.

You didn’t answer. Which answered it.

She let out a dry little laugh. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

“You and him have got history.”

“History,” she repeated. “Makes it sound glamorous. Me and Vinnie have got Tyler. That’s our history. One lovely accident and years of learning not to murder each other at soft play.”

Carol barked a laugh. Sugar nearly choked on her drink.

Erin ignored both of them. “Whatever me and Vinnie were, it’s done. Been done. If I thought there were any weirdness in it, you’d know.”

“With violence,” Sugar added.

“With enthusiasm,” Erin corrected.

That pulled a laugh out of you, but only a small one.

Because that only took one worry away, and the bigger one was still sat there.

Hope.

That was the nasty part.

If Vinnie didn’t feel the same, fine. Embarrassing, horrible, survivable.

If he did, then it stopped being a private little disaster and turned into a real thing. Something with consequences. Something that could go wrong. Something that might matter.

Carol, who had the emotional sensitivity of a hand grenade, nodded toward the fire. “He notices you an’ all.”

You gave a snort. “No, he doesn’t.”

All three of them looked at you in pity.

“Oh, don’t be daft,” Carol said.

“He does,” Erin said.

Sugar just raised her brows.

You shook your head and, against your better judgement, looked over again.

Vinnie was already looking.

The second he realised you’d caught him at it, he looked away, rubbed the back of his neck, and bent to pick up a bit of bark off the floor with all the intensity of a man diffusing a bomb.

Sugar made a delighted little noise. “Aw, look at him.”

You put a hand over your face. “He’s just awkward.”

That was when Tommo came back.

None of you noticed him at first. He must’ve been lurking in the trees just long enough to catch bits of the conversation and, being Tommo, had stitched them together into something completely demented.

He staggered into the edge of the firelight still half-zipped into the tartan sleeping bag, hair feral, expression solemn in the way only Tommo could manage when he was about to say the stupidest thing ever heard by man.

He stopped.

Looked at the four of you.

Then looked directly at you.

Put one hand to his chest.

And said, with heartfelt sincerity, “I’m flattered.”

There was a beat.

You blinked at him. “What?”

Tommo nodded slowly, generous already. “Nah. I heard enough.”

Sugar folded in half.

Erin turned away at once, shoulders shaking, so she didn’t laugh straight into Tyler’s sleeping head.

Carol gave Tommo a long look. “Christ. It’s evolved.”

Tommo ignored her. “I’m in the bushes, yeah, mindin’ me own business, havin’ a slash like a gentleman, and all I can hear is, ‘he notices you,’ ‘he does,’ ‘don’t be daft’.”

JJ sat bolt upright. “Oh no, what's going on?"

From inside the sleeping bag, Ash said, deadpan, “This is gonna be awful.”

You stared at Tommo. “You think that was about you?”

He pointed lightly at himself, not smug exactly, but not far off. “Well. I’ve got eyes. I know when there’s a vibe.”

Carol let out a laugh that was almost a cough. “What you’ve got is brain damage.”

Tommo shuffled a bit closer, the tartan bunching round his ankles. “And I’m not bein' funny, but I do have a pull. There’s a certain energy.”

“You’ve got blow on your sleeve,” Carol observed.

He brushed at it once, offended. “That’s not the point.”

“It’s a very strong point.”

Tommo carried on regardless. “Look, I’m just sayin', there’s no shame in it. I’m a handsome bloke. I’m charismatic. I’ve got stamina.”

“You fell over putting your own shoes on earlier,” Dylan said from under his blanket.

“Slippery ground.”

“You were on gravel.”

Tommo pressed a hand to his chest like he was rising above pettiness. Then, with a solemnity that made it a hundred times worse, he dropped to one knee in front of you.

Or attempted to.

Because the sleeping bag caught under him, he lurched sideways, nearly headbutted your chair, corrected himself, and then ended up in a weird sort of kneeling crouch.

He looked up at you.

“I’m just sayin',” he said, lowering his voice to something he probably thought was seductive, “if that’s where your head’s at, I’m available.”

Cardi wheezed so hard he had to slap his own leg.

“No, say it again,” he said. “‘I’m available.’ Fucking hell.”

You stared down at Tommo in horror. “My head’s where?”

Tommo winked. “On me. Clearly.”

Across the fire, Vinnie had gone perfectly still.

The lighter stopped in his hand. His whole face went blank in that particular way that meant his brain had simply refused to process what it was seeing. His gaze flicked from Tommo, to you, then back again, as though maybe he’d misheard and if he looked hard enough the scene might rearrange itself into something less insane.

Carol clocked him straight away.

“Ooh, look at him,” she shouted. “You all right there, Vincent?”

Vinnie blinked. “What’s he doing?”

“Misreading the room on a spiritual level,” Ash said from inside the sleeping bag.

Tommo frowned without getting up. “I’m in the middle of summat.”

“No, you’re not,” Carol snapped. “We’re talking about Vinnie, you absolute turnip.”

Silence.

Real silence.

Even the fire seemed to stop crackling for a second.

Tommo stayed exactly where he was, still on one knee, still looking up at you, as the words worked their way across his face with painful slowness.

“…Vinnie?” he said.

“Yes, Vinnie,” Erin managed, tears in her eyes now from laughing.

Tommo turned to look across the fire.

At Vinnie.

At you.

At the girls.

At Vinnie again.

The whole thing clicked into place behind his eyes with the grim finality of a trap snapping shut.

To his credit, he didn’t even try to save it.

He just nodded once, face falling into that dazed, soul-left-body look he got when life humbled him in public, and said, very quietly, “Oh.”

That was it.

Not a speech. Not a comeback. Not even a half-arsed attempt at swagger.

Just one tiny, devastated oh.

Then he looked back at you, winced like a man receiving bad news from his solicitor, and muttered, “Right. My mistake.”

He pushed himself back upright in stages, snagged the sleeping bag on your chair again, fought it for a moment, lost, then lurched away toward the fire with all the dignity of a drunk badger.

The silence he left behind was somehow worse.

Because now everybody knew.

Cardi was the first to break.

He looked from Tommo to you, then to Vinnie, and his face lit up like Christmas. “Well, this is-"

“Don’t,” you cut in at once.

“I’m not doing nowt.”

JJ, grinning like a lunatic, jabbed a finger at Vinnie. “Mate, look at your face.”

“For fuck’s sake, JJ, it’s the fire,” Vinnie said too quickly.

“No it isn’t,” Carol laughed.

“It is.”

“It absolutely is not,” Dylan smirked. “You look like a blushing bride.”

That finished Cardi completely. He fell over laughing. JJ slapped both hands against the ground. Even Erin had to cover her mouth because Tyler stirred and grumbled in his sleep.

Vinnie looked like he wanted the earth to open up and take him.

He was red right up through the ears, one hand trapped uselessly round the lighter, the other scrubbing at the back of his neck in short, agitated passes. He kept looking anywhere but at you. At the fire. At the cake. At the trees. At Tommo, who’d now wrapped himself back into the tartan with the solemn expression of a man who had been publicly shamed.

Cardi leaned forward, delighted. “Did you really not know?”

Vinnie opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

“Well, I mean…” He dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s not exactly obvious, is it? Nobody’s said anything. I’m not just gonna assume somthin' like that, am I?” He cut himself off, muttered, “Oh, fuck off,” and folded his arms. “All of you. Just fuck off.”

“He’s fumbling,” Cardi said happily.

“He’s gone,” JJ agreed.

Dylan took a sip of beer. “Painful, this.”

“Very,” Carol agreed.

Vinnie stared hard into the fire. “Can everybody just be normal for once?”

“That ship sailed years ago,” JJ said.

“It were never docked,” Cardi added.

Your whole body had gone hot.

Not just your face. Everything. Hands. Ears. Stomach. Knees. You could feel every inch of yourself, and worse, you could feel every eye on you.

And the worst part was Vinnie wasn’t brushing it off.

If he’d laughed, or rolled his eyes, or called Tommo a knobhead and moved on, fine. Horrible, yes. Humiliating, definitely. But clean.

This wasn’t clean.

Because when he finally did glance at you, just for a second, there was something so awkward and soft and unprepared in his face that it turned your whole stomach over.

You stood up so fast your chair scraped through the mud.

Everyone looked at you.

“I’m going.”

“Where?” Cardi asked at once.

“To die, probably.”

“That feels dramatic,” Dylan said.

“Feels right though,” you muttered.

Erin’s smile fell first. “Hey.”

But you were already shaking your head, eyes on the trees because there was no dignified way to say I need to stop existing in front of you all for five minutes.

“I’m fine. I just need some air.”

No one pointed out that you were already in the middle of a forest.

You walked anyway.

Leaves cracked under your boots. The air got colder the further you went from the fire. Behind you the noise of the camp blurred into something softer. Laughter, muttering, the low drone of people settling themselves again.

One voice was missing.

You kept going until the fire was only an orange blur through the branches, then stopped beside a tree and let out a breath.

Brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant.

You heard footsteps behind you.

“If that’s Tommo,” you said without turning, “I’m strangling him.”

“It’s not Tommo.”

Of course it wasn’t.

You shut your eyes for a second, then turned.

Vinnie stood a few feet away with both hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. Without the fire on him he looked different. Softer somehow. Not calmer, exactly. Just less lit up. More tired. Like he’d followed you on instinct and only now realised he had no clue what he was meant to say once he got here.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then he said, quiet, “You all right?”

You let out a short laugh through your nose. “Not especially, no.”

He nodded once, like that was fair. “Yeah.”

From back at the camp came the faint sound of Cardi laughing, then JJ shouting something too muffled to make out. A second later Tommo’s voice carried through the trees, loud and offended.

“I said I misread the situation, not that I’m ashamed of being desirable.”

You shut your eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

That got the ghost of a smile out of Vinnie, but it vanished quick enough.

“They’ll shut up in a minute,” he said.

“They won’t.”

“No.” He glanced back toward the fire. “No, they probably won’t.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, not exactly. Just full of too much.

You folded your arms, more from nerves than cold. “You didn’t have to follow me.”

He frowned. “Course I did.”

“Why?”

That caught him.

You watched it happen. He looked down at the leaves, scuffed the toe of his trainer through the dirt, then shrugged one shoulder like maybe that would get him out of answering.

“Because,” he started, then stopped.

You said nothing.

He rubbed once at his jaw, eyes still on the ground. “Because you looked upset.”

That took some of the air out of you.

You looked away first. “I’m just embarrassed.”

“Yeah.”

“That was awful.”

“It was a bit awful, yeah.”

“A bit?”

“All right, deeply awful.”

You huffed a laugh despite yourself, and some of the knot in your chest loosened.

Then the cold hit you properly. The kind that creeps in mean once you’re away from the fire. You tried not to shiver.

Vinnie noticed straight off.

Without saying anything, he tugged off his jacket.

You shook your head. “No.”

“You’re freezing.”

“I’m not.”

He gave you a look.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re shiverin’.”

“I’m not shiverin’.”

“You are.”

Before you could argue again, he stepped in and draped the jacket round your shoulders. Warm from him. Heavy. Smelling faintly of smoke and outside and him.

“There,” he said, tugging it closed a bit at the front. “Stop acting like Billy Big Bollocks.”

You looked down at the sleeves swallowing your hands. “Thanks.”

He stepped back again, but only just. Still close enough that you could feel the heat of him in the cold.

Back at the camp, Ash shouted, “Will somebody shut Tommo up before he starts singin’?”

“I’ll sing if I want,” Tommo shouted back.

Vinnie let out a breath that was nearly a laugh, then dragged a hand over his face.

“I’m shit at this,” he muttered.

“I know.”

“Nice one.”

“I meant it kindly.”

“That’s worse, that.”

You smiled properly then, small and helpless, and his mouth twitched in answer. It should’ve eased things. It didn’t, not really.

You could see him folding back in on himself already.

His shoulders tightened. His jaw worked. He looked off into the trees like he wanted something out there to rescue him from having to keep going.

“It’s not…” He stopped, scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, then let it fall. “It’s not just tonight.”

You stayed quiet.

He swallowed. “I know what I’m like.”

“Vinnie.”

“No, but I do.” He gave a quick, humourless laugh and shook his head. “I do. One minute I’m all right, then I’m not. Then I’m in me own head and everything’s too loud or too fast or I can’t switch off, and then I say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, disappear, come back, make a show of meself. You know.”

His voice had gone flatter now. Not cold. Just stripped down.

He looked away from you when he said the next bit.

“I make a mess of stuff.”

You opened your mouth, but he barrelled on, like if he stopped he wouldn’t get it out again.

“And I know everyone acts like, y’know, it’s fine, it’s just me, it’s just Vinnie, whatever, but it’s not always fine, is it?” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Sometimes I’m a fucking nightmare.”

“You’re not.”

He laughed once under his breath. “I am, though.”

The wind shifted through the trees. Somewhere back at the camp somebody cracked another can open. You could still hear them, but dim now, like they belonged to another world for a minute.

Vinnie’s eyes stayed on the ground.

“I don’t want you walking into something thinking it’s one thing, then finding out it’s… this.”

“This?” you repeated quietly.

He finally looked at you then, and there was something almost angry in it, but only at himself.

“Me,” he said. “Me head. All of it.”

Your chest tightened.

He shrugged, awkward and miserable. “I’m not good for people. Not for long.”

“That’s not true.”

He gave a tiny shake of his head. “Maybe not on purpose. Still happens.”

Then, softer, rougher, like it cost him more to say than everything else put together, “Especially not you.”

That hurt, not because it was cruel, but because he meant it so completely.

You stepped closer.

He didn’t move. Didn’t pull back. Just watched you, tense all through him.

“That’s not yours to decide by yourself,” you said.

He let out a breath through his nose. “Yeah, well. Somebody’s got to be sensible.”

“You?”

“No,” he admitted. “Definitely not me.”

That got a tiny laugh from both of you, but it faded quick.

He looked wrecked suddenly. Properly wrecked. Like getting those few sentences out had cost him more than he’d wanted you to see.

“I just…” He stopped, jaw tight. Tried again. “I don’t want to ruin somethin' before it’s even had a chance.”

There it was.

Not neat. Not rehearsed. Just there.

“Vinnie.”

He looked at you, wary.

“I know what you’re like.”

His face changed a little at that. Not much. Just enough.

“And I’m still here,” you said.

He looked down at you for a second, saying nothing.

Then he gave a short, broken sort of laugh and turned his head away, dragging the heel of his hand across one eye like he was just tired, like that was all it was.

“Brilliant,” he muttered. “Nice one.”

“Hey.”

“I’m all right.”

He wasn’t.

He scrubbed at his face again, harder this time, annoyed with himself for it. That was worse somehow than if he’d just cried outright. The effort of not doing it.

“Don’t,” he said quietly. “Don’t make it a thing.”

You didn’t answer him with words.

You just stepped in and put a hand on his arm.

He went completely still.

Not flinching. Not moving away. Just still.

You could feel the tension in him under your hand, the way he held it all in like he thought if he let one bit slip the whole lot would go.

“I’m not asking for perfect,” you said softly. “I’m not asking for easy. I’m just here.”

For a second you thought he might laugh it off. Make a joke. Step back. Do anything except let that land.

Instead he shut his eyes.

Only for a second.

Then he let out one shaky breath.

You opened your arms a little. “Come here.”

He hesitated.

Just long enough for you to see him think about refusing.

Then he stepped into you.

At first it was awkward, because of course it was. One arm, then the other, like he wasn’t used to not having to joke his way out of something like this. Then suddenly he was holding you properly. Tight. One hand across your back, the other gripping at the jacket round your shoulders as if he needed to be sure you were actually there.

His chin dipped slightly, just brushing the top of your head, and you felt him breathe in hard through his nose.

You folded into him without thinking, cheek against his chest.

Not dramatic. Not some sweeping big moment.

Just relief.

Just him holding on.

Back at camp, Cardi’s voice rang out through the trees.

“If you two are having a moment, just know Tommo’s written a speech.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Vinnie muttered into your hair.

That made you laugh against his chest, and you felt his arms tighten for a second.

After a while, quieter now, he said, “Sorry.”

You tipped your head back enough to look at him. “For what?”

He gave the smallest shrug. “This. Me being… like this.”

“Don’t apologise for that.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Yeah. It is.”

That pulled the faintest smile out of him.

You looked at him for a second, really looked, at the red round his eyes and the embarrassment and the softness he clearly hated being caught in.

Then you said, “For the record, Tommo getting on one knee was far more upsetting than any of this.”

He let out a laugh. Proper one this time, brief and helpless. “Yeah?”

“Deeply upsetting.”

“Fair.”

You stayed like that another moment before he finally pulled back a little, just enough to look at you properly.

“We should go back,” he said. “Before they come looking.”

“Tommo’ll make it worse.”

“He’ll make it loads worse.”

He took hold of the front of the jacket where it hung round you and pulled it closed a bit tighter against the cold, his hand lingering for half a second before he let go.

Then the two of you started back toward the fire together.

As you got close enough for the noise to sharpen again, you heard JJ say, “I’m telling you now, if they come back holding hands, I’m making sick.”

Tommo, deeply wounded, said, “No one’s said a word about how brave I’ve been tonight.”

“Because you haven’t,” Carol said.

Vinnie glanced at you, and for the first time since following you into the trees, he looked a little less like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No,” you said.

Jesse had been wrong all evening.

Not in the usual way, where he was stubborn and self-righteous and halfway to trouble before anybody else had even caught the scent of it. This was different. Quieter. Meaner. He moved through the church like a man listening for something only he could hear, coffee gone cold in his hand, sermon notes abandoned on the altar rail, jaw set so hard it looked painful.

You knew that look.

It meant he had already decided to do something foolish and was now beyond argument.

Cassidy had clocked it too. Of course he had. Cassidy noticed everything that mattered, then pretended he hadn’t.

He noticed Jesse.

He noticed you.

That second thing had become a problem.

It had started small. A look held one beat too long. His hand at your waist in the corridor when there’d been no real need for it. A grin from the back pew that turned hotter the moment Jesse looked away. Nothing you could call him on without sounding mad. Nothing you could point to and say, There. That. That’s where this became dangerous.

Then there’d been the church steps three nights ago. Moonlight, whiskey, and Cassidy beside you, shoulder to shoulder, saying in that low, rough murmur of his, You keep lookin’ at me like that, darlin’, I’m liable to do somethin’ stupid.

You hadn’t forgotten it.

Judging by the way he kept looking at you tonight, neither had he.

Jesse drained the last of his coffee and set the mug down with a little too much force. “I’m headin’ out.”

You looked up from the stack of hymnals in your arms. “At this hour?”

From the back pew, Cassidy tipped his head against the wood and sighed like a put-upon husband. “Tell me you’re not off to chase those two weird little corporate eejits again.”

Jesse cut him a look. “I ain’t askin’ permission.”

“No,” Cassidy said. “That’d imply manners.”

“You got somethin’ useful to say?”

“Aye. Men in matching suits popping up wherever you go is rarely the start of a lovely evening.”

“That seems obvious,” Jesse said.

“And yet,” Cassidy replied, spreading one hand, “you continue to behave like a fella who’d follow a lit match into a dynamite shed.”

You set the hymnals down. “Jesse.”

He looked at you, and there it was again. That mule-stubborn certainty. “I’m going.”

“You don’t even know what they want.”

“That’s why I’m going.”

“That is an awful reason.”

“It’s the one I’ve got.”

You folded your arms. “And what exactly am I supposed to do while you go wandering around Annville after dark chasing mystery men?”

“Lock up.”

You stared. “That’s your whole plan?”

“Seems sufficient.”

Cassidy let out a short laugh. “Christ, you’re romantic.”

Jesse ignored him, grabbed his keys, and headed for the side door. At the threshold he paused and looked back once, taking in the dim sanctuary, the stained-glass windows gone dark, the two of you standing too close to one another without yet being close at all.

“Don’t wait up.”

Then he was gone.

The silence he left behind spread quickly.

Somewhere out in the sanctuary the church gave one of its old familiar creaks, the kind that always sounded after dark like someone shifting in the pews when no one was there. You bent to gather the rest of the hymnals, because standing still seemed like the worst possible idea.

“You should go too,” you said.

Cassidy didn’t answer.

When you glanced up, he was watching the door Jesse had gone through with an expression you couldn’t quite read.

“Cassidy?”

He blinked and looked at you. “What?”

“I said you should go.”

A faint smile touched his mouth, but it didn’t soften his eyes. “You trying to get rid of me, love?”

“Maybe.”

“That stings.”

“You’ll live.”

He pushed himself up from the pew. “Debatable.”

You snorted despite yourself and carried the hymnals into the side room. The storeroom smelled like dust, old paper, candle wax, and floor polish. It also smelled like him the second he stepped into the doorway behind you. Whiskey. Night air. Smoke still caught in his clothes. Something darker under all of it that had nothing to do with cigarettes and everything to do with Cassidy being Cassidy.

You set the hymnals on the shelf and tried very hard not to notice that your pulse had gone stupid.

“You’re quiet,” you said.

He leaned a shoulder against the frame. “Thought I was unbearable.”

“You are.”

“Mm.” His gaze didn’t leave your face. “Funny you keep me around, then.”

You reached up for a box of candles and missed it on the first try, because you could feel him watching you. When you got it down properly, Cassidy crossed the room, took it from your hands, and set it aside without looking away.

The space between you wasn’t large to begin with. Now it felt charged. Drawn tight.

“What’s wrong?” you asked.

A flicker moved through his expression. “Why d’you think somethin’s wrong?”

“Because you’ve made half the usual number of jokes.”

“That serious, is it?”

“Yes.”

His smile tilted crooked. “You keep count?”

Heat brushed your face. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Too late.”

You should have rolled your eyes. Instead you found yourself studying him. He looked the same as ever at first glance. Loose-limbed. Easy. Mouth made for trouble. But the ease wasn’t quite reaching the rest of him tonight. There was strain under it. Something taut. Something hungry.

“You’re worried about Jesse,” you said.

Cassidy looked down once, then back up. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“There you are.”

“That’s not all.”

He let out a breath through his nose. “No.”

The answer hung between you.

From Jesse’s office came the faint tick of the clock. Outside, leaves scratched softly at the window. Your heartbeat had become an embarrassment.

Cassidy took one step closer.

“Truth is,” he said, voice low and roughening, “I’ve been trying to keep away from you.”

Your throat tightened. “I noticed.”

“Didn’t do me much good.”

“Why?”

At that, he laughed once, but there was nothing bright in it. “Because you’re Jesse’s sister.”

“That never stopped you flirting.”

“Flirting’s one thing.” His eyes stayed on yours. “This isn’t that.”

Something deep in your chest tipped over.

You went for steady and almost managed it. “Then what is it?”

He came close enough that the front of his shirt nearly brushed your dress. “A terrible idea.”

You should have stepped back.

Instead your eyes dropped to his mouth.

When you looked up again, he’d seen it.

“Darlin’,” he said softly, “you’ve got to stop lookin’ at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re deciding whether to kiss me or slap me.”

You huffed a laugh. “Maybe I haven’t decided.”

“That so?”

He lifted a hand slowly, giving you plenty of time to stop him. His knuckles brushed a strand of hair back from your face. The backs of his tattooed fingers skimmed your cheek so lightly it was almost nothing.

That gentleness did more damage than anything else could have.

“Tell me to get out of here,” he murmured. “And I’m gone.”

You searched his face.

No grin. No wink. No swaggering filth to hide behind. Just Cassidy standing very still, like the effort of holding himself there was costing him.

You touched the front of his shirt.

He inhaled.

“I don’t want you to go.”

The restraint in him snapped.

He was on you before either of you could think better of it.

The first press of him was fierce and overdue, all the patience he’d been faking for weeks finally giving out. His mouth slanted over yours with bruising intent, warm from whiskey, edged with smoke. Your hands landed on his shoulders automatically. His found your waist and dragged you in until there was no space left to pretend with.

One of his palms struck the shelf beside your head, caging you in, while the other stayed firm at your waist. Then he angled his head and took more, drawing you into something slower and dirtier than that first desperate clash. He knew exactly how to do it too, how to work your mouth open until your breathing went shallow, how to drag the kiss out until it turned warm and wet and almost dizzying.

You made a small sound into him.

Cassidy gave a crooked little hum like he approved.

“Jesus,” he breathed. “You taste good.”

Your fingers tightened over the fabric of his shirt.

He smiled against your mouth, not kind, not cruel, just pleased in a way that made your knees feel unsteady.

Your hip struck the shelf behind you. Something rattled overhead.

Neither of you paid it the slightest bit of mind.

He only crowded closer, his chest hard against yours, his breath coming warmer each time he broke away for the barest second before going back in. There was nothing hesitant in him anymore. No teasing distance. No room for one more almost. He kissed like he’d finally run out of reasons not to, and every pass of his mouth seemed meant to leave you softer than the last.

When you gasped, he caught it, swallowed it, then dragged his mouth along the corner of yours and down to your jaw.

“That’s it, darlin’,” he murmured there.

You dipped your head toward him without thinking, chasing his mouth again, and that earned you a breathless laugh.

“Shut up,” you whispered, though it came out weaker than you meant it to.

He went back to your lips at once, but there was a grin in it now, a flash of that idiot, impossible Cassidy still alive somewhere inside all this heat. His chin grazed your skin as he shifted, the warmth of his mouth and the low sounds he kept making every time you kissed him back properly had your pulse tripping all over itself.

Then he broke from your mouth just enough to look at you.

His eyes dropped to your swollen lips, then lifted again, fixed.

“You’ve been thinkin’ about this,” he said softly.

It wasn’t really a question.

You tried for something clever and got nowhere.

Cassidy’s expression shifted into something hungrier, more satisfied.

“Yeah,” he said, almost to himself. “Thought so.”

His hand spread over your waist, thumb dragging once over your side before beginning a slow descent.

He took his time with it.

Down from your waist to your hip. From your hip to the outside of your thigh. His touch stayed broad at first, almost casual if not for the way his breathing had changed. Then his fingers curved more deliberately, sliding beneath the hem of your dress inch by inch, as though he meant for you to feel every second of it.

Your breath caught.

His hand moved higher.

Not rushing. Not fumbling. Just a slow, certain glide up the inside of your thigh until he reached the damp heat gathered there and stopped.

The pause was maddening.

He finally lifted his head then, murky green eyes meeting your own, fingers resting over the dampness between your legs through the thin barrier of your underwear.

“Tell me,” he said, voice gone rough. “Tell me I can.”

His hand stayed exactly where it was, warm and heavy over the wet fabric, resting just enough to make you clench without giving you what you wanted. The restraint of it was almost worse than if he’d simply done it.

“Darlin’,” he said softly, thumb dragging once over the thin material, enough to make you jolt. “Need you to say it. Don’t want to guess with you.”

You swallowed. “Yes.”

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “That’s not what I asked.”

Heat rushed straight to your face. “Cass—”

He leaned in, mouth brushing the corner of yours, voice dropping lower. “Tell me I can put me hand on you proper, and I will. Tell me no, and I’ll behave meself.” A beat. “Well. I’ll try.”

That nearly pulled a laugh out of you, but it died the second his thumb pressed a little more firmly and your hips betrayed you by shifting toward him.

“Ah,” he murmured. “That’s it.”

You gripped his shoulders. “Touch me.”

“Yeah?”

“Please.”

He let out a rough little breath, forehead dropping briefly to yours as though he needed the contact to steady himself. Then his hand moved, slow and deliberate, slipping beneath your underwear at last and finding you already warm and wanting for him.

“Christ,” he muttered, voice catching ever so slightly. “You’re soaked.”

The words should have embarrassed you. Instead they only made the heat in your body surge harder.

He stepped in closer without withdrawing his hand from your slick mound, lifting one of your legs over his free arm as he pressed your back against the wall. The angle left you open to him, your thighs spread wide, pinned exactly where he wanted you, and the sheer confidence of it made your stomach coil.

“There now,” he murmured, voice low with satisfaction.

His touch moved with slow, deliberate confidence as he slid two long fingers into your tight heat, curling just right to stroke that sensitive spot inside. The sudden intimacy of it stole the breath from your lungs, and a helpless moan slipped out before you could stop it as your walls clenched around his invading digits. Cassidy’s gaze lifted at once.

There was hunger there, plain and unmistakable, but something gentler too, a kind of startled awe, like he still couldn’t quite believe this was happening. More than either of those, though, there was focus. He watched you closely, reading every breath, every flinch, every shift of your body as carefully as if your reactions were the only thing in the room that mattered - the flush creeping up your neck, the quiver in your raised thigh.

When you didn’t pull away, his mouth twitched into a faint, knowing smile.

He eased his hand back just enough to make you feel the loss of his fingers, then settled into a steady rhythm, thrusting them in and out with precise, unhurried strokes. Each measured movement dragged another broken sound from you, your body clenching helplessly around the skilled curl of his fingers as they grazed your g-spot, building that aching pressure deep in your core.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, his breath hot against your ear.

The word hit low.

Cassidy's lips had fallen apart around his breathing, chest rising faster now. The lean, tattooed muscle of his forearm tightened with every movement of his hand, veins standing out as he pumped his fingers into your soaking entrance, his control showing only in how carefully he held himself together while he watched you come apart beneath his hand - your hips bucking involuntarily, your juices coating his knuckles, your gasps turning to whimpers as the tension coiled tighter.

He pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, then another to your jaw, his fingers never losing their rhythm as they plunged steadily into you.

“Easy, love,” he said, though he sounded anything but, his voice ragged. “I’ve got you.”

The words should have steadied you. Instead they only made the tension inside you pull tighter, your clit pulsing under the pressure of his palm. Your breath kept catching on the way out, and every time it did, Cassidy’s mouth lingered a little lower, his kisses drifting to the side of your throat, lips parting to suck gently at the sensitive skin.

At first it was only warmth. The brush of his lips. The scrape of stubble against your neck. Then his mouth settled over the frantic flutter of your pulse, and the whole room seemed to sharpen around that one point of contact.

Any sensible person would have stopped him there.

Any sensible person would have remembered what he was.

Not just Cassidy with his wicked mouth, mismatched tattoos, and ruined grin, but Cassidy the vampire, Cassidy with his face buried in the softest, most vulnerable part of you. A man at your throat was already dangerous. Cassidy at your throat ought to have sent every survival instinct you had into a panic.

Instead your head tipped back against the shelf and gave him more room, your body arching to press your throat closer to his hungry mouth.

He felt it.

His hand slowed for the first time since slipping beneath your underwear, not stopping, only easing, as though the moment had caught him off guard.

“Christ,” he murmured, almost to himself.

When he looked up to meet you gaze, his eyes had grown darker. Not cruel. Not wild. Just terribly intent, like he was looking at you and trying very hard to remember how not to want too much, his pupils blown wide with the effort of not devouring you whole.

His thumb stroked once, absently, over your swollen clit, and your hips betrayed you by shifting toward his hand, grinding down to take his fingers deeper into your clenching heat.

That did not help.

“Darlin’,” he said softly, and there was something strained in it now, something thinner and rougher than before. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

You swallowed. “That depends.”

A faint, breathless smile touched his mouth, gone almost as soon as it appeared. His gaze flicked to your throat, then back to your face, lingering on the way your chest heaved with each pant.

“Are you gonna make me beg?” he asked, voice gone low as sin, his fingers twisting inside you ever so slightly to hit that spot that made your knees buckle.

You should have come back with something clever. Something sharp. Instead all that came out was his name, thin and unsteady, a plea that made your walls flutter.

Cassidy shut his eyes for the briefest second before he caught himself. When he looked at you again, the crooked humor had thinned into something rougher, his jaw clenched tight.

“Ah, don’t do that,” he murmured. “Not when I’m already barely holdin’ it together.”

His mouth hovered near your throat, close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath at your pulse, the faint prickle of his fangs.

“I want a taste,” he said, quieter now. “Just a little. I’ll mind meself. Promise.”

There was no swagger in him now, no grin to soften the edge of what he was asking. Just hunger, honesty, and that strange, impossible care he kept showing you at the worst moments.

You nodded once.

Cassidy did not move.

“Use your words, pet.”

“Yes,” you whispered shakily. “But please, be careful.”

The sound that left him was low and abrupt, startling in the tight little storeroom. It came from deep in his chest, rougher than a groan and far darker, like the warning rumble of an animal trying not to lunge. It made the fine hairs at the back of your neck rise.

Then he slid his hand out from under your dress and brought it to your jaw, grasping it with firm intent, the slick warmth he’d pulled from you cooling quickly against your cheek as he smeared your own juices along your skin. His other arm stayed hooked beneath your knee, holding you open, holding you exactly where he wanted you. The hand at your face was gentler than it had any right to be, thumb catching lightly at your chin as he tipped your head back and bared more of your throat to him.

His fangs glinted faintly in the dim light. Another of those low, throttled noises rolled out of him, softer this time but no less feral, like a starving thing pacing at the end of its chain. It should have frightened you. Instead it sent heat through you so fast it left your knees weak, your hips twitching involuntarily against the arm propping you up.

“Easy, love,” he growled.

His words did not match the sound of him. Neither did the care. He held your face as though it might shatter under his touch, even while that rough, animal hunger kept slipping loose in his throat, vibrating through his chest. His mouth brushed the line of your neck once, twice, warm and open, not yet biting, only testing, breathing you in deeply, his tongue darting out to lap at the salt of your sweat.

Then he latched on.

You inhaled sharply, and Cassidy answered with a broken, guttural sound against your throat, low and possessive and nearly impossible to mistake for anything civilized. Even then, he kept control of himself. One hand held your face steady while the other kept you lifted and open against the wall as he pressed the hard length of himself, still trapped beneath his jeans, against the soaked fabric of your underwear. Each swallow was edged with those rough, involuntary rumbles that made it impossible to forget what he was.

“Still with me, darlin’?” he asked, voice ground down to gravel.

“Y-yes,” you managed.

That was all the answer he needed.

He hooked your other leg up with a sudden, effortless strength that pulled a startled squeal from you, and your legs locked around his waist on instinct.

For one split second the feral edge in him slipped, and Cassidy, gloriously, maddeningly, became Cassidy again.

“Right,” he said, fumbling between your bodies for his belt buckle. “Hang on. This bit’s less sexy than I’d hoped.”

Metal clicked. Leather caught. He swore under his breath and dropped his forehead briefly to your shoulder.

“Oh, you’ve got to be joking.”

A helpless giggle broke from you.

His head snapped up. “Don’t. Don’t you start.”

That only made it worse.

You laughed again, still breathless, and his mouth twitched despite everything, that crooked flash of idiot charm breaking through the heat. For half a heartbeat he was just the swaggering disaster from the church pews again, caught mid-seduction by his own belt.

Then the buckle gave.

Cassidy didn't waste another second. His fingers dug into the soft swell of your ass, yanking you flush against him with a grunt, his length springing free and slapping heavy against your thigh. The blunt head nudged insistently at the drenched fabric covering your arousal. All traces of amusement vanished from his features, swallowed by that blazing, predatory gaze - raw and craving mixed with a fierce, adoring intensity - as he hooked his fingers into the edge of your underwear and pushed it aside, he notched his swollen tip at your entrance.

“Christ,” he breathed, staring at you. “Look at you.”

The initial thrust of his thick cock stretching your slick folds stole the breath from your chest in a sharp gasp.

Your fingers clawed into the taut muscles at the nape of his neck without thinking, and Cassidy responded with a breathless moan as he buried his face into your heaving chest. He kept you pinned, one strong arm hooked beneath your knee to spread you wide, the other splayed across your spine for support, savoring the pause just enough to etch the reality into your bones. Not the teasing banter. Not the building ache. This raw truth: Cassidy buried at your core, lips smeared with your blood.

“You good, sweetheart?” he rasped, his voice cracking with barely leashed strain.

You jerked your head in a quick nod.

“Good girl.”

The words sank into you like heat, pooling low in your belly.

Each deliberate slide of his thick length into you shoved you back against the wall, the aged plaster thudding rhythmically behind your shoulders. An item overhead wobbled, tipped, and crashed down nearby, but neither of you spared it a thought.

Cassidy raised his gaze. “Look at me,” he gasped.

You obeyed, meeting his stare, and the blatant desperation in your parted lips, the sharp inhale through your teeth, clenched his jaw. His fingers clamped deeper into the flesh of your thigh.

“Just like that,” he groaned, picking up to a firmer, more insistent pace. “Just like that, darlin’. Fuck.”

What started measured began to unravel bit by bit. The hold he kept didn’t shatter in one go. It eroded in the crush of his hands as he lifted you even higher. In the harsh, uneven pants fanning your neck. In the way every plunge of his hips slammed you solidly against the wall.

He adjusted his stance, grinding deeper, and the shift ripped a broken moan from your throat.

Cassidy let out a matching noise, a deep rumble from the beast inside him surging forward. He buried it in a kiss, sloppy and urgent, the metallic taste of your blood lingering on both your tongues.

From there, the last of his restraint snapped clean.

His pace shifted to brutal, savage, unyielding. The wall creaked under the impact. Another crate toppled free and shattered on the ground. Cassidy ignored it completely. He gripped you firmer and pounded on, slamming his length into your dripping pussy with wild, untamed hunger that turned the act into something sacred and profane all at once.

His lips returned to your neck, not sinking fangs this time, just pressing wet sucks and laps over the puncture wounds, rough and absentminded while his breaths came scorching against your flesh. Every so often, one of those broken noises escaped him, part snarl, part moan, as if he couldn't choose between tending the mark or unraveling completely because of it.

"So pretty," he rasped.

Your hands knotted tighter in his hair and yanked sharp enough to draw a sharp inhale from him.

Cassidy chuckled once against your skin, winded and feral. He was utterly disheveled by now. Shirt gaping open. Torso gleaming with perspiration. Belt dangling slack around his waist. Strands of hair sticking up in every direction. Each snap of his hips rammed you back harder, old beams creaking in protest.

"You're right there, yeah? So tight. Fuck, love…" He crushed his mouth to yours, devouring the whimper you let out, then trailed back to your neck, huffing there.

“That’s it,” he muttered. “That’s it, come apart for me. Let me feel it.”

The command, the scrape of his tongue over the bite, the relentless drive of his cock burying deep inside you - it all crashed together.

You shattered, crying out his name, quaking in his arms.

Cassidy responded with a raw, inhuman rumble as your walls throttled his length. He didn't pause. He fucked you straight through the peak, prolonging every spasm, keeping you trapped against the wall as your entire frame shuddered around his pistoning member.

Beyond that, the shreds of his composure frayed to nothing. His strokes grew erratic, fiercer, every plunge like he aimed to fuse himself inside you, lost in the chaotic frenzy of it all. His brow pressed to yours. His hands clamped vise-like on your thighs.

“Gonna finish in you,” he said, voice gone to gravel. “God help me, love, I’m gonna-"

When the release hit him, it wrecked him. Cassidy loosed a shattered, beastly groan against your lips and shoved in to the hilt, locking there as his body seized and jerked. His cock throbbed deep inside you, pulsing with each spurt of hot desire that flooded you. The sensation was overwhelming - your walls clenched around him, milking out every last drop. He remained glued to you, breaths heaving, lips brushing your neck, your chin, any skin he could claim, unwilling to separate just yet.

And that's when the storeroom door swung open.

Jesse stopped dead on the threshold.

For one impossible beat, nobody moved.

You were still in Cassidy’s arms, dress rumpled, throat marked, blood drying in a dark trail over your skin. Cassidy was still pressed close, breathing hard against your neck, one hand at your back and the other hooked beneath your thigh.

Jesse took in all of it.

His face went blank in the most dangerous possible way.

“No,” he said.

Nobody answered.

“No.”

Cassidy lifted his head very slowly.

Then Jesse saw the bite properly.

Saw the blood.

Everything in him sharpened.

Cassidy barely had time to straighten himself before Jesse caught him by the collar and slammed him back into the shelf hard enough to make the candle boxes jump.

“What did you do?”

“Jesse,” you snapped, dropping your legs and dragging your dress back into place.

Cassidy, astonishingly, did not shove him off. He caught the shelf, steadied himself, and said, voice still rough, “She said yes.”

Jesse rounded on you. “You’re bleeding.”

“I know.”

“You let him do that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

That question sat in the room like live wire.

You fixed your dress with shaking hands, still breathless, too exhausted to lie. “Because I wanted him to.”

Jesse stared at you as if the sentence had physically offended him.

Behind him, Cassidy stayed silent for once. There was still heat in his face, still blood at the corner of his mouth, but now there was something else too. Wariness. Concern. He knew exactly how bad this looked, and exactly how dangerous Jesse could be.

Jesse shoved him once more before letting go. “This is insane.”

“A bit,” Cassidy said.

Jesse wheeled on him. “Do not speak.”

Cassidy shut his mouth.

You might have laughed if the whole room hadn’t been one wrong word away from violence.

Jesse looked from the bite to the blood on your chest, then to Cassidy’s undone belt and wrecked hair, then back to your face. Fury and fear warred openly in him.

“He didn’t take too much?”

“No.”

The answer came from both of you at once.

Jesse hated that instantly.

He pointed at the door. “You. Out.”

Cassidy hesitated only because he was looking at you.

You saw the question there. Are you alright? Do you want me gone? Am I making this worse?

You gave the smallest nod.

That settled it.

He pushed off the shelf, straightened the worst of his clothes, and headed for the door. At the threshold he paused just long enough to mutter, “This is going to go very badly for me, isn’t it, Padre?”

Jesse looked ready to put him through a wall. “Yes.”

Cassidy glanced back at you, and despite the blood, the shouting, and the complete catastrophe of the moment, the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Worth it.”

“Cassidy,” Jesse barked.

He vanished into the hall before Jesse could get his hands on him again.

The silence he left behind was somehow worse.

Jesse turned to you slowly. “Sit down.”

That surprised you enough to obey.

He grabbed a clean cloth, ran it under the tap in the little sink, and came back looking like a man whose night had taken a turn for the biblical. When he touched the cloth to your throat, the gentleness of it caught you off guard.

He was still furious.

He was also scared.

Neither cancelled out the other.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

“A little.”

He shot you a look that said now was not the time. You wisely said nothing else.

He cleaned the worst of the blood away, then stopped to inspect the bite. Fresh anger flared across his face, then faded into something more tired.

“You like him.”

It wasn’t a question.

You looked toward the open doorway where Cassidy had disappeared.

“Yes.”

Jesse closed his eyes for one beat. When he opened them again, the fury hadn’t gone, but it had changed shape. Less murder. More resignation.

“Of course you do.”

Outside, thunder rolled low over Annville.

And out in the hall, just beyond the reach of the light, Cassidy had stopped dead the second he heard your answer.

He stood there very still, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, eyes shut.