Chapter 13 – Valtu
Valtu
I walk silently beside Dahlia as we make it out of the conservatory and into Campo Santo Stefano.
Night has fallen like a blade, and the tables from the various cafes across the square are filled with patrons having their dinner, tourists who are braving the chill to sit alfresco.
The locals are wisely inside. No one is paying us any attention and I know that Professor Fratelli won’t even remember seeing us in the concert hall.
If things are to continue with Dahlia in one way or another, there will be more people I’ll have to compel to get them to look the other way.
“This way,” I say softly to Dahlia, wanting to reach out and guide her with my hand, but I’m not taking chances being so close to my work and having us being noticed without me realizing it.
We go over the Ponte dell’Accademia, the high wooden bridge crowded with people taking pictures of the bustling Grand Canal.
It would be a photogenic scene, the arms of fog stretching across, the dim lights of the city dancing on the dark waters of the canal which is constantly moving, busy with passing boats, gondolas and vaporettos, but I only have one thing on my mind at the moment and I can still taste her on my tongue.
She’s been on my mind ever since we parted ways last night.
I don’t even think I slept last night, instead I just jerked off through the darkened hours, thinking of all the things I wanted to do to her.
That kiss opened up something inside me last night, but it wasn’t just the kiss, wasn’t just knowing what her sweet lips finally tasted like.
It was how she opened up to me. How after these weeks of puzzling over her, I finally got a look at who she truly was.
It wasn’t just some glimpse I managed to spy through a crack, no.
She put her heart and soul on the table, served it up on a silver platter and I knew she’d never done that with anyone before.
She chose me. She trusted me. She knew that I would hold her secrets safe, that I wouldn’t judge, that I would understand.
And like Bitrus had warned, this has opened up a new obsession in me. It’s made her my obsession. It’s made me want to make her mine in every way possible, a feeling so deep and solid that it surprises me, but it’s true all the same.
There’s only one thing left to figure out.
Can I trust her?
Can I do the things I want to do, reveal the person I truly am without her getting scared and running away? The fear is normal when you deal with a vampire, but I need to know how malleable her fear is.
Can she embrace her fear, and in the end, embrace my darkness?
Once we’re deep on the other side of the city in Dorsoduro, heading north toward my house, I finally put my hand on the small of her back.
Her skin burns me through her dress, a heat that spreads up my arm and makes my head feel hot and muddled.
Forget her being afraid, the effect she has on me is terrifying.
“Where are we going?” she asks as we walk up a narrow street and she peers curiously at the bars and cafes we pass.
“You’re coming home with me,” I tell her, keeping my voice low.
She glances at me, her expression unreadable. Then her lips give way to a smile. “Okay,” she says quietly.
I suppose I could have asked her instead of told her but I didn’t want her answer to be no. I didn’t think it would be no, at any rate, not after she came all over my hands and mouth. She wants more of it, just as much as I do, and I will bring her so much more than she bargained for.
We don’t talk during the walk. It feels pointless when I want to use my tongue and mouth in other ways. It isn’t until we get to my house that she says, “Holy shit. This is where you live?”
I can’t help but feel a bit of pride as I look it over.
“It used to be a hotel, the Oltre il Giardino, until I bought it. Before then it belonged to a storied woman called Alma Mahler who lived in it at the turn of the century.” Of course I don’t mention that I not only knew Alma but was one of her lovers.
We walk through the small square leading to the front door, bushes of black roses surrounding us and cloaking us in their sweet scent, and step inside.
The hotel itself was white and bright to be welcoming to guests, but I painted the interior a dark grey, with lots of red and black accents and walnut floors.
It’s dark and moody, which makes it much easier on the eyes, and on the soul.
Dahlia’s attention immediately goes to the grand living area where I keep all my prized possessions that I’ve collected over the years.
“And this is all on a teacher’s salary?” she asks in a hush as she looks over all the rare paintings on the wall, the sculptures throughout the room, all the books placed artfully on the shelves, the collection of antique musical instruments by the fireplace.
For a moment I get slammed with déjà vu, as if I’ve seen this all before, seen Dahlia standing by the instruments in her burgundy dress, marveling over them, with her hair up just as it is.
Then before I can grasp the image, the sense of acute familiarity, it fades like sand through my fingers.
“I’m not just a teacher,” I admit, slowly walking toward her, trying to ignore how painfully hard I already am, my cock pressing against my jeans. I don’t even think I’ll make it to the bedroom. It’s fine. The rug in front of the fireplace will do.
And then I’m hit again with another image, this time I’m fucking her on the floor, taking her hard from behind, a violin bow beside me and for a moment I think I’m back in London.
With Lucy. But when I look at Dahlia, running her slender fingertips with the chipped black polish over the edge of my harp, I know it’s not Lucy.
They aren’t the same person. They don’t look a thing alike.
Besides, I gave up on ever seeing her again a long time ago.
“So…” Dahlia says, looking at me curiously.
“If you’re not just a teacher, what else do you do?
Raid museums?” She pauses by a stack of old music books beside the mantle and then gives me a bright smile, realization dawning on her face.
“Wait a minute. All those donations you get at the library. They aren’t from anonymous donors.
They’re all from you. You bring them in. ”
She’s got me there. I shrug lightly and come over to her, reaching for her hand and grasping it in mine.
“I want them to be someplace safe,” I admit.
“They’ll get the proper treatment at the school, and those who need to see them can see them.
No point in having such things if you can’t share them with the world.
Besides, I’m not the only one who donated. Richard Wagner donated his fair share.”
“Can I ask why you have all these rare artifacts and shit, or does that have something to do with you also not being just a teacher?” She pauses. “You’re not the real-life Indiana Jones, are you?”
How about the real-life Dracula?
I shake my head gently, giving her hand a squeeze. “I wish I were. No, I just happen to be a count.”
“A count?” she says measuredly. “Like, Count Chocula?”
Interesting that’s where her brain went. “Sure. Like Count Chocula.”
Honestly if she said Dracula, if she asked if I was a vampire, I don’t think I could lie to her. I think I would tell her the truth and she would believe it and the darkness in her veins would call to the darkness in mine.
What is it about this woman that I want to drag her down to hell with me?
“A count for what country?” she asks. “Where are you really from?”
“Perhaps that is an outdated word. I am a lord.”
Or perhaps that’s outdated too.
“So I can call you my lord?” she asks in an overly sweet voice, a heated look coming into her eyes.
Oh, this precious girl.
“I fucking insist that you do,” I tell her, grabbing her by the back of her neck and bringing her mouth to mine in a hard, bruising kiss.
Her lips feel like they’re made of the softest velvet, her tongue deceptively innocent of the havoc it’s causing in my body as she kisses me back, a beautiful whimper escaping from her throat.
I had warned her I could be rough but from the way she is grabbing my shoulders, my back, her nails digging in through the fabric of my shirt, I know rough is how she likes it.
I place my lips at her neck and she stiffens for a second, a pulse of adrenaline spiking the air, the scent spicy. It’s like she’s afraid I’ll bite her…
Then it fades, replaced by the heady scent of her arousal and her hands are all over me, reaching down for a hard squeeze at my cock, making my toes curl and my hips buck forward.
“Fuck,” I growl against her neck, nipping at her skin for a moment, relishing the taste of her before licking up toward her ear.
My hands roughly skirt down her sides and I want to tear off her dress.
I want to fuck her on the floor with her just this way, her legs wrapped around my waist, my hands gripping her hair.
I want to see her tits bounce as I pound into her, but then I don’t want to stop.
I want to fuck her until she can’t even walk.
Until I pass out from exhaustion and then I have to have her again.
She’s a drug and I’m an addict on his first hit and this strange chemical reaction between us is only beginning.
I kiss her again, deeper this time, my hands gathering up the hem of her dress, sliding over her bare hips and I pause.
“What is it?” she asks as she pulls back slightly, already breathless.
“I think we left your underwear on the floor of the concert hall,” I tell her.