Three nights later
Monroe was disgusted with herself for letting this happen again.
The rain tacking hot and greasy against the glass distorted her view of the oily, meandering Red Rock River, its obsequious trail through Lowtown and out into the sea a rush that mirrored the thrumming vitality that thundered through her veins...a warmth not even the rich, substance-heavy blood of Ashland's mortal residents could provide. Whether taken through guile, diplomacy or merely as the spoils of a fight, it was her secondary obsession (or so she'd tell herself), an unsophisticated and brutish thirst that was merely a fact of her unlife.
Her first (as she told herself) was the Cause, for it transcended both life and death in that it decided the nature of their lives and unlives...and what was more important than the rights of her fellow Kindred?
Certainly not this...tawdry affair. This forbidden, utterly perilous dalliance that would spell disaster if it were to get out to any of the sides in the barely-restrained conflict that defined unlife in The City. Her eyes resolved his reflection in the tinted glass...the cocky, overconfident bastard.
"I know that look," he purred at her in that low, thrumming baritone that seemed to run from her lower belly up to her diaphragm. "You're either getting all pissed at yourself, or ready for round two."
Both, really she thought, frustration and desire clashing like their opposing natures
should
have. Even flushed as she was with his bestial essence - his crimson blood pumping through her heart and his white seed trickling down her inner thigh - she wanted more. Usually after an encounter like this she was satisfied, filled and ready to assert the rights of
Los Siervos
to the Overseer Committee, and those thoughts filled her head with urgency but they were overshadowed by the impression of the things they'd just done.
The way his teeth had dragged down her hip skillfully, tongue sliding along the seam of her crotch until he began to work at her node of pleasure, holding her open as he licked and sucked, and ohhh how she'd writhed and groaned at his touch...
"Neither," she lied in a sharp voice meant to pop his confidence. Throwing her gold-clasped, long braids over her shoulder, Monroe looked at him with cold disdain.
That was a mistake, of course...looking at him head-on brought the source of her most recent addiction into clear view, and it was an effort to turn her head away from him as she strode for the cheap motel room bathroom. The object of her desire - little more than an animal, a ravening predator in the night who just howled pretty - reclined comfortably on the loveseat they'd stained and defiled, fingers folded behind his head. He knew he was pretty and it was in his nature to show off with his dark, come-hither eyes, the sculpted magnificence of his body - seriously, who'd taken a hammer and chisel to his torso like that? Her gaze was pulled infuriatingly down his lower stomach, like gravity toward his loins; further taunting her were those stupid Apollo's Belt lines, or...what did Samara call them? - right, 'cum gutters'. At once disgusting and utterly hot.
Mercifully, a dark blue bedsheet was thrown over his hips, draped over to keep him 'modest' but even then she could see the impression of his shaft slung across his thigh, the shiny material outlining the shape of his crown and...that extra bit, the piercing that, in part, made sex with him such a wild sensory experience.
Making sure he saw that every step was cold and powerful, not sexy or beckoning, she left. "I'm getting out of here, and
we're never doing this again
, Mizrah."
Monroe flicked the bathroom light on and closed the door loudly, palms on the countertop as she breathed unnecessarily...her body hadn't required oxygen for almost a decade, but here she felt light-headed like she hadn't in so long. The ritual imitation of life was a zen ritual that pulled her focus from the overload of her senses, and she stared herself down in the mirror, like she was trying to scare a pesky neonate.
She didn't put her energy into looking sexy like so many of the others did...it wasn't part of her hunt, although she certainly considered herself worth looking upon. Strong, like the leader of a revolution should be, even if she could afford a couple inches of height. Monroe's hair hung around her head in braided, many colored, gold-ringed disarray that any of her kind would immediately recognize as bed head. The defined, powerful muscles in her arms moved like steel cables beneath her teak-dark skin as she worked her hair into a braid. She stopped what she was doing, looking at herself with her hands raised up.
Monroe's body was sleek and muscular, covered in scars she'd accumulated during her living years. Her breasts were firm, each the size of a large orange, and to her irritation her small, round dark nipples were still hard. Her waist cinched inward waspishly, glittering diamond in her navel and a mess of street tattoos running up her right flank...names of friends and family lost, symbols of home known generations ago.
Currently nailmarks were fading on her hips where he'd held her in their embrace; a short thatch of dark, curly hair on her mons still gleamed wet with the shared mess of their intercourse, and she couldn't help but find her golden eyes drawn to a hot pearl of the stuff dripping downward. The prominence of her clitoris, a pink, round bead that still poked proud and hard between her thighs, tingled at its warmth and with a sheepish glance at the door, she slid her fingers down over it, over the swell of her lips and pulled them away. She gazed at the tendrils of gooey, thick white sticking between them, and Monroe's thoughts were drawn back, involuntarily, to what they'd done...especially the way his warm, crimson life had flowed down her throat.
She'd chosen to feed at the moment of his climax, when she thought he'd be most vulnerable but the experience had been overwhelming for the both of them. Monroe's large, serious eyes closed as she slid her hands back up her hips, her mind slipping back easily into fantasy as the moorings of reality flowed tantalizingly away. It would be terribly easy, utterly irresponsible to just go out there, smile his way wordlessly, and lie back to show him the mess they'd made together; like a bull drawn to the flutter of pink, wet silk she'd have him. It'd worked before...but instead her hand twisted the valves on the shower, letting the water flow as hot as it could before stepping in.
Generic brand hotel shampoo and soap greeted her, and her nails scrubbed at her skin fiercely to try and remove any trace remains of his scent but it wouldn't be that easy. Like when a car light passed her by, its trail leaving a green and purple band in her vision, her dalliance with the man in the other room left a similar impression across her thoughts. Certain of the Syndicate's members could read such things, like inky messages in the eddies of her subconscious.
She could hear him rising from the loveseat, overtuned hearing and feeling catching every footfall as she washed away the outward evidence of their coupling, doing her best to ignore him. "I don't get why you're so angry every time we do this," his voice called to her playfully from beyond the bathroom door. "It's not like I'm twisting your arm to get you into bed."
"Nuh-uh, mmm-mmm. Nope, don't even start that shit," she warned him beyond the shower curtain and the door that she'd 'forgotten' to lock. "You're clear on exactly what you're doing, and the risk you're taking with your own damn sorry skin. That's what I don't get," Monroe barked, and she knew it sounded lame.
"Same risk as you're taking." The door was opening, and soon he was in there with her, leaning against the frame as he closed it behind him. "Monroe Carter, leader of the rebellion, thought you'd be used to living dangerous...you losing your edge?" His arms were crossed over his chest, confident as he could be. Didn't he understand the danger they were in, spending time with each other like this? Surely, he wasn't so messed up in the head as to find some sort of thrill in such risk-taking like she was; was it arrogance or self-loathing to presume nobody was as out-of-their-minds as she was?
