Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes To Ashes

“Guilty as charged.”

He inhaled deeply. The air smelled of the city—hot cement and traffic exhaust—and carnival food, the scents of humanity only a vampire could truly appreciate. “Try all you want, I ain’t gonna bite. Nothing can ruin tonight for me. Nothing.”

With a parody of his contented sigh, I leaned my head on his shoulder. “If I don’t get a drink soon, I’m going to stake you.”

As promised, when we escaped the Ferris wheel of doom, we headed for our nightly circuit of bars and blues clubs. At a few we were becoming regulars. At the rest, Max had already established himself as one.

We’d thrown back enough alcohol to kill a small rhino by the time our final stop on the booze tour announced last call.

Squinting at his watch through heavy-lidded, redrimmed eyes, Max frowned in drunken confusion. “What? It can’t be last call yet.”

“It is,” I insisted with the knowing, superior tone of a complete inebriate. “And it sucks.”

“It does.” He looked around the bar, his mouth set in a grim line. “The band is going to leave.”

“Yeah.” I rested my forearms on the table and dropped my head onto them. I heard the scrape of his chair, and when I looked up he was swerving across the empty dance floor toward the musicians on the tiny stage. He spoke to them a minute, pointed at me, then returned with a confident, drunken swagger. The band started a slow blues ballad and he gestured for me to join him.

If I’d learned anything since coming to Chicago with Max, it was that he enjoyed any activity that required putting his hands on a woman. I stumbled toward him. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d danced drunkenly in a bar at closing time. And that struck me as just a tad pathetic.

Not so pathetic I wouldn’t do it again. I liked being close to Max, in a totally platonic way. He was the guy friend I’d never had. Actually, until I’d become a vampire, I’d never had any friends. It was nice being with someone who didn’t expect anything from me short of just hanging around.

Unlike Nathan. I was supposed to stay at his side, waiting for him like a faithful dog, should he ever need me. The unfortunate comparison put me in mind of Werewolves, and I had to blink back cold tears.

Max’s arms tightened around my waist and he leaned his head against mine as we shuffled clumsily to the music. “Can we just keep doing this forever?”

“Dancing?” I mumbled, toying with a lock of hair at the back of his neck.

I felt his chuckle deep in his chest. “No, stupid. Just doing this. Going out and having fun and not worrying about falling in love or being alone. Nothing ever has to change, we’d never have to worry about getting hurt. Wouldn’t that be great?”

If I hadn’t been drunk, it would have sounded as messed up as it really was. Instead, I looked up at Max as though he’d cured cancer and world hunger simultaneously. “That’s so smart.”

“I know.” He frowned. “I always get my best ideas when I’m drunk.”

The bartender called us a cab—rather ungraciously— and I’m sure Max overpaid the driver when we got out at his building.

“This place—” I interrupted myself with a dainty belch. “This place looks like Dracula’s castle.”

“I know. It’s depressing.” A fleeting look of sadness crossed his face. “That was Marcus for you.”

When we got into the elevator, Max stood a little closer than usual. When we got out, he took my hand for the short walk to the door. Instead of opening it, he pulled me flush against his body and kissed me, the scent of Bell’s Two-Hearted ale lingering on his mouth.

I had consumed a lot of alcohol myself, but not so much to silence the alarm bells going off in my head. I jerked back so fast our teeth clinked.

“Max, what the hell are you doing?”

Dazed, he squinted at me for a few seconds before he focused his eyes, then grinned. “Oh, come on, Carrie. You know you’re curious, too.”

I was. Max was like the star quarterback every girl wants to date. Still, he was an emotional wreck and not thinking clearly. “I know you’re upset about Bella—”

“This isn’t about Bella.” He laughed a little too loudly. “Jeez, you’re always talking about her. Are you sure you don’t want to fuck her?”

“No, but if we went to bed now, you wouldn’t be fucking me.” I jabbed my finger into his chest, not merely to make a point but because touching him just seemed good.

He grinned again. “Believe me, this isn’t about Bella.”

“It is.” I slid my hands across the front of his T-shirt— Max has great pecs—and gave him a shove.

Rolling his eyes, he held up his hands. “Okay, it’s about Bella. Peri…peri—you know, when you see out the corner of your eye?”

“Peripherally.” I nodded. “How so?”

He linked his arms around my waist and pulled me forward so I stepped on his toes and our feet tangled dangerously. “I like women. Everyone knows it. I don’t fall in love with women, though. So, how come I haven’t had casual sex since Bella?”

“Because that wasn’t casual sex. You really liked her.” I leaned against him, purely to regain my balance, I’m sure.

“You’re insane. You women all are. You think men have to be in love to stick their cock in somebody.” He inclined his head for another kiss, but halted. “You know that’s not true, right?”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Gee, we’re drunk, we both just got dumped—”

“You got dumped.”

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “Do I think you love me? No. I think you’re trying to get laid to prove to yourself you don’t care about Bella.”

“Is that so evil and wrong?” His lips were a millimeter from mine.

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

He kissed me again. Max is an insanely good kisser. But there was desperation in it, and sadness. I didn’t need a blood tie between us to feel it.

“Let’s do this, Carrie,” he whispered, sinking his fingers into my hair. “Let’s just have fun.”

It made an insane sort of sense. As we tumbled through the door to land on the Persian rug in the foyer, I convinced myself that this wasn’t terrible. People did this every day.

Max’s mouth never left mine as he rolled us both over so that I straddled him, still fully clothed. With a chuckle, Max sat up. I felt him, hard and eager, through his jeans, but he didn’t appear uncomfortable. In fact, he seemed more at ease and himself in this intimate situation than he ever did while doing mundane things. I wondered if I was with the real Max now, or just another character. Maybe that was part of his practiced magic. I pitied the women who didn’t see it for what it was, because they could fall in love with a man like Max, who made them feel they were the most important woman he’d ever touched.

Luckily for me, I couldn’t fall in love with him. I was already in love with a man who didn’t find me very important at all.

As if on cue, the phone rang.

Max glanced at me, half imploring. Then guilt crept into his expression, and I couldn’t look at him anymore.

I groaned and climbed to my feet, more wobbly than I had been when I’d been plastered. The realization that I had been about to have sex with Max forced the rest of the alcoholic haze from my system, leaving awkwardness it its wake.

“Hey, while you’re up, can you get that?” Max asked sheepishly.

“Fine. But if it’s one of your girlfriends, I’m not going to be very good cover.”

I was surprised anyone would hang on the line for as long as it took me to reach the telephone in the kitchen. Every ring seemed sure to be the last, until I picked up the phone and said tiredly, “Hello?”