Chapter 14
Wednesday. Three o’clock a.m.
Nervous butterflies fluttered in Ji-Su’s stomach.
It was time for his first scheduled appointment to let Raul drink from him.
All night, he’d been so excited for Raul’s bite that he couldn’t concentrate on the game he was playing.
He’d died several times attempting what should have been easy tasks before he’d given up and tossed his controller aside.
At two-thirty, he’d taken a hot shower, both to relax himself and to make sure he was clean and fresh when Raul bit him.
Now, after dressing in a T-shirt, shorts, and a hoodie, he went down to the kitchen.
Raul was already there waiting for him, sitting at the banquette in the corner.
He was in another plaid shirt—this one cream and a dark brown that nearly matched his eyes—and dark jeans.
Raul must have changed after work since he normally wore dress shirts and pants when he was going into the casinos.
There was no one else in the large, brightly lit room.
“Hi,” Ji-Su shyly said when he walked in.
“Hello.” Raul stood up politely. He stepped to the side, indicating Ji-Su should slide into the booth. He sat and Raul sat next to him.
Once settled, Ji-Su started to take off his hoodie, belatedly realizing he should have worn something that made it easier for Raul to get to his neck. But Raul stopped him before he got the hoodie off.
“You can leave that on. Push up your sleeve for me.”
Raul was going to take from the wrist? That surprised him but he did as asked.
He pushed his sleeve up and extended his arm.
Raul reached out, lightly cradling Ji-Su’s arm in his huge hands.
Ji-Su smiled at their size difference. He liked that Raul was so much bigger than him.
He wanted to crawl into the big man’s lap and curl up against his broad chest while he let Raul drink from him.
Rather than bring Ji-Su’s arm all the way up to his mouth, Raul bent slightly, lowering his head over Ji-Su’s wrist. When he opened his mouth, warm breath brushed over Ji-Su’s skin in a whisper of a caress.
Then, there were two sharp pin pricks of pain as Raul’s fangs punctured his skin, followed by the gentle press of lips on his arm.
Raul began to drink and Ji-Su held his breath, anticipating the start of the wonderful tingly arousal he’d felt when Raul bit him the first time.
But it didn’t happen. The entire time Raul pulled from his vein, he didn’t feel anything but a slight ache.
His brows drew together in confusion. Had he only imagined that feeling last time?
Or maybe the arousal only happened if he was bit on the neck.
It wasn’t long before Raul released his bite. He was motionless for a moment, head low, before he dragged his tongue over Ji-Su’s wrist, sealing the bite marks closed. That elicited a shiver that ran down Ji-Su’s spine, but the feeling was brief—nothing like what he’d experienced before.
Raul raised his head and met Ji-Su’s gaze. His dark eyes were warm and slumberous as he brushed his thumb over the spot where he’d bitten.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
His low, rough voice made something lightly swoop behind Ji-Su’s navel.
“I’m fine.” He was fine. Confused but fine.
“Good. Stay right there.” Raul got up and went over to the fridge. He brought back apple slices and a glass of ice water.
“Here you go,” he said as he passed the snack and drink to Ji-Su.
As Ji-Su accepted them, he noted that the roughness was completely gone from his voice and the expression in his eyes was now cool and shuttered.
“Are you on iron supplements?” Raul asked.
“Yes. I started them as soon as I was contracted with Cedric and I continued them after I arrived here.”
Raul nodded but didn’t say anything else. He sat there silently as Ji-Su ate the apple and drank the water. Then, he stood up almost immediately after Ji-Su finished his last bite.
“I’ve got some work to finish up. Thank you, Ji-Su.”
He smiled, but it was politely impersonal. After that, he left the kitchen, not once looking back at Ji-Su still sitting in the booth.
Completely thrown at the difference between tonight’s feeding and the previous one in the office, Ji-Su silently watched him go.
RAUL RETREATED TO HIS office after Ji-Su recovered from his bite.
Once again, he found himself in a prolonged fuzzy haze of blood satiation and arousal.
But at least this time he knew which way to go.
Closing the office door behind him, he crossed the room to his desk.
Dropping down into his chair, he leaned his head back with a groan.
Ji-Su’s taste was exquisite. It bloomed in his mouth, making him light-headed with pleasure.
And each pull of his blood spread heat and power throughout his body in a way he’d never experienced before.
And even biting Ji-Su on the wrist, which wasn’t as personal as the throat had him turned on.
It didn’t matter where he bit Ji-Su because everything about the lovely human excited him.
It had been a battle of self-control to keep from releasing his pleasure venom into the bite. He’d restrained out of the utmost necessity. If he’d had Ji-Su moaning in his arms again as he had the first time he’d bitten him, he would have picked him up and fucked him right there in the kitchen.
He imagined Ji-Su naked, laid out on the table, thighs spread wide so he could slide in between them, and take him deep and hard.
He liked that. Liked it so much his erection, only just beginning to fade, came roaring back to life.
The very beat of his pulse throbbed in his cock as he pictured himself pounding into Ji-Su so hard that the kitchen table shook and splintered from the force.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Raul raked both hands through his hair. Clenching his jaw tight, he willed his erection to go down. But his cock stayed hard, throbbing mercilessly. It was a mistake to bite Ji-Su when he couldn’t currently take things any further with him. Resisting his little human was torture.
“You wanted this,” Raul reminded himself. He groaned again and closed his eyes.
It took several minutes to calm both his body and mind.
Once he was relaxed, he knew he would stay the course he’d set.
He would continue to feed from Ji-Su so that he felt as though he were serving his purpose as a blood pet and repay his debt.
The entire process only took about thirty minutes once a week.
How hard could it be to make it through thirty minutes?
He was over two-hundred years old, not a new vampire with his first taste of human blood in his mouth.
Handling a weekly feeding wouldn’t be a problem.
A FEW HOURS LATER, Ji-Su lay in bed a few minutes before sunrise, once again unable to sleep.
He stared up at the bed’s canopy, wondering if he’d imagined that amazing feeling of arousal that had swept through his body when Raul drank from him that first time.
Maybe a vampire’s bite causing arousal really was an urban legend and he’d simply been so glad to feed Raul instead of Cedric that his body had reacted that way on its own.
With a tired sigh, he realized he wasn’t going to sleep until he satisfied his curiosity. Throwing back the covers, he got up to get his laptop, then slid back beneath the covers after he opened it up and turned it on. Once the internet was up, he went straight to Google and put in his question.
Can a vampire’s bite arouse humans?
He was on the third page of results before he found a site that looked legit enough to give a real answer. There were testimonials from people who’d served as blood pets. As he scrolled down the page, he saw a forum for blood bunnies.
“What the heck are blood bunnies?” he whispered curiously as he clicked.
The answer came pretty quickly. Blood bunnies were people who chased after vampires, hoping to be bit and get a shot of their pleasure venom.
There were lots of comments from these blood bunnies, from bragging to hopeful to disappointed.
I met up with this hot vampire the other night. I was feeling it but their bite was as dull as dishwater.
I followed a vampire into a Burger King bathroom the other night. His pleasure venom had me so turned on I went home and flicked the bean for an hour.
After seeing other mentions of a pleasure venom, Ji-Su clicked back to the main page, hoping to find an explanation. He found it on a FAQs page.
A vampire is able to release one of two venoms along with their bite.
Each venom serves a different purpose. The pain venom causes both intense burning pain in the subject and temporarily paralyzes the general area of the bite.
The pleasure venom enhances arousal but only if the human feels attraction to the vampire delivering the bite.
The vampire can also withhold these venoms and deliver a bite that has no accompanying side effects.
According to this site, he hadn’t imagined it.
He had been turned on by Raul’s bite. But only because Raul had released his pleasure venom.
For whatever reason, he hadn’t done so tonight.
Ji-Su wondered why. Was the first time a mistake?
Had he released it by accident because he’d gone too long without feeding?
Or maybe out of habit because he was used to biting someone else.
Ji-Su realized he didn’t even know if Raul had a lover. For the first time, he recalled the man and woman Raul had been at the dinner theater with. Here he was lusting after the tall, handsome vampire, when for all he knew, Raul had someone or several someones he was involved with.
He would have to ask. He wouldn’t bring up the pleasure venom—that was too embarrassing—but he had to know if Raul was involved with someone.
Although his attempts at flirting had been barely noticeable blips, he’d stop them altogether if the vampire had a lover.
He might be insanely attracted to Raul, but he respected other people’s relationships.
Ji-Su shut down the laptop and closed it with a quiet snap. He had his answer. Too bad it had brought up more questions.