Chapter 7:

Michael's POV:

Long after Eve leaves the kitchen, I remain, simply staring into the distance. Claire's taken him back again. Shane's been a prick to her again, yet she has taken him back as if he has only decided to go to the park and have a little picnic with the dolphins of the universe without inviting her!

My hand clenches without my realising until it is so tight that my nails are almost bursting my skin: I apparently can burst my own vampire skin with my vampire nails, which is always a good thing to know. Now I know that there is another way to attempt to commit suicide: continually slash your wrists until you don't have enough blood in you to survive. Hey, at least I'd be following the family tradition of dying that way.

"Michael, are you ok?" the suddenness of hearing Claire's voice behind me startles me so much that I jump into the air and fall onto the floor. I… I thought she was still upstairs with Shane that way – she's taken him back and it seemed as if that was where they were heading the last time I can remember listening.

I look over at the clock on the other side of the room and realise, with a jolt, that I've been sitting here thinking of Claire for over two hours. No wonder she's back down… urgh, I don't even want to think of that.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine," I manage to arrange my features into the closest approximation to a smile that I can muster at this stage. "Where's Shane?" I ask in the most relaxed voice as I can manage, internally hoping she's about to say that she doesn't know because she dumped him or say that a vampire snuck in and killed him without my realising.

She steps towards me and reaches a hand down to me to help me up. I take it without consciously thinking about it, the rush of heat from her hand spreading through my body. The proximity of her, it makes me want to reach out with vampire speed and pull her into me, to lean down and press my lips to hers and feel her pressed against me. I love her so much, I just want to be able to do what I feel is right, to kiss her without it being wrong – I want us to be together and happy.

"He went to work," she explains as she helps me to my feet, dropping my hand and moving away with a frightening speed – does she sense something and she wants to stay away from me so that she doesn't have to tell me that she doesn't love me back? I don't know, but I have a feeling that I'm just overreacting to the situation and reading too much into it.

"Ahh, right," I say in response, not knowing what else to say. "So, you and him are ok again?" I find myself asking her this, not sure why but just wanting her to turn her face back to me again.

She turns back to me, as I desired, and she shrugs, a slightly melancholy appearance on her face. "I took him back, if that's what you mean," she says without an infliction of emotion in her voice or change in her stance.

"Why?" I hear the question escaping my lips as if it were from a different person, rather than me asking it. "Why did you do that, Claire? You know he can't make you happy."

Her eyebrows seem to rise on their own, disbelief evident on her face that I would actually say this to her. Then the disbelief is clouded over by both anger and a sort of agreement with what I have said, something which she evidently is trying to fight… but she knows is the truth deep down.

"What did you say?" she asks, her voice carefully neutral as she takes a step towards me. The anger seems to be overthrowing the disbelief at the current moment in time, so much so that I half expect her to pick up the rolling pin, sharpen it with her eyes, and stab me with it.

As she takes another step towards me, I take one back, feeling the worktop press into my back. I'm cornered… not that it's impossible for me to run out of the room right now, but why would I do that when I'm close to Claire for the first time in God knows how long?

"I said that he doesn't deserve you," I say weakly, not knowing what else to say. I don't want to make my feelings for her obvious, but I don't want to stand by and tell her that her and Shane make a great couple… because that isn't the truth and would just hurt me more than anything. It's a catch 22 and I hate this situation more than anything else… well, perhaps Claire and Shane getting married would be worse.

"Why would you say that?" she questions me, her eyes narrowing slightly as she tries to read my face. I don't know what I'm showing her, but I bet that it's the same thing that Eve could read and something I definitely don't want to be showing Claire.

"I… I don't want you to get hurt, Claire!" I try to play the protective big brother card I had at the beginning of my time knowing her, but I know that it is a lost cause. She has to realise something is up, if she is as bright as I know she is.

"Bullshit," she comments back, the anger decreasing from her face as she looks at me. Once again, she nears me by another thirty centimetres, and it's all I can do not to reach out and pull her into my arms, kissing her with every ounce of passion possible. I just manage to resist.

Just.

"What makes you think it's bullshit?" I ask her slowly, averting my eyes from her face in an attempt to stop my brain's irrational thoughts of pulling her into me.

"Try the fact I can read your face and I know there's something more that you're not telling me!" she shoots back: damn, I am too obvious then!

I wriggle out of the small gap between us without touching her skin: if I did, I wouldn't be able to control myself, I know that much. But as I walk away, trying desperately to make my body walk out of the kitchen and away from the allure of Claire, I feel her hand on my back and stop short. I can't leave. Her hand renders me unable to leave, the heat from her hand instantly spreading through my body and warming my immobile heart. It's so different to when Eve touches me; this makes me feel… this makes me feel as if I'm human again. I want to be with her so much, to tell her that I love her with all my heart – the heart that feels as if it is beating once again – that I cannot even move a finger. She's captivated me so much that I feel as if I'm a statue, if that makes sense.

"Don't walk away from me," her voice is low and cold and I get the sense that my sudden departure hurt her in a way which she cannot even identify herself. "Don't you dare say anything like that and then presume you have the right to leave when… when…" she trails off, evidently not wanting to continue her thought. Whether it is because she has realised her feelings for me that I know are there, I don't know, or if it's just because she is so angry, it is beyond me.

I take a deep breath as I feel her hand remove itself from my back, this being the only thing that allows me to escape the paralysis her touch brought to me. Then, slower than I thought I could ever possibly move, I turn around and lower my gaze down to her perfect brown eyes, being captivated once again.

Somehow, I end up pushing her back to have her leaning against the worktop, there being even less space between us than before. The friction seems to be building and I hear her heartbeat increasing as she looks back at me. She has to feel this, this electricity racing between us, the thing that has every single hair standing on end as I wait for her to speak, to hear her chimes that she makes us believe are words… when, in fact, they are the melody that a siren uses to draw in her prey.

"I… what is this?" she finally whispers, her voice so quiet that I cannot be sure that I heard her.

"What?" I respond, my own voice low and scratchy as my mind whirls to try and understand what she means. There are so many reasons why she could have said what she did: I cannot leap to the obvious conclusion.

Her finger moves slightly as she signifies the space between us, almost interrupting the static energy between us as she moves. Her brow furrows but I can still read the thing I have wanted to read for so long in her eyes: the fact that she most certainly has some sort of reciprocated feelings for me.

"I don't know what this is between us, Michael, and it's scaring me," her lower lip trembles and I want to pull her into my arms. But I can't: she doesn't know what she wants. I can see that much in her face. "I mean, I don't want to be unfaithful to Shane but… but it's like everything that has been annoying me about him that I used to find so endearing is because… because I'm in love with someone else," her words cause the hope in me to rise higher, but almost levels off as I try to make sure that I don't get too hopeful just to get bashed down once again.

"Do you want to know what I feel?" I ask her gently, keeping my eyes trained on her. Every fibre of my being wants to reach out and just touch her, nothing more, just to feel her soft skin beneath my fingers…

"Uhuh," she says, raising her gaze to meet mine once again. I shiver slightly as our eyes connect, the rush of something between us so great that I cannot stop myself. My hand reaches down and takes one of hers, entwining her fingers with my own as I marvel at the perfection of her skin. I don't know how something could be so perfect, but it is: she is more than I have ever dared to allow myself to dream, which is saying something.

"I love you," I whisper, finally being able to say these special words, say the eight letters that can change a life forever.

"Michael," she murmurs my name almost sorrowfully, some sort of conscience kicking in. "We're already in relationships! I know I feel something for you but… but it's wrong!"

"He isn't right for you," I remind her gently, trying to remove the sting from the words. "And Eve and I are already over… it's official now, as well. I've loved you for so long and I have been dying to tell you that!"

I take a step closer to her, chancing that she won't tell me to move away – and I'm right. We're merely an inch or so apart and I can reach down to kiss her at any moment, or her up to me. The moment is so magically perfect – and so much more than I had imagined.

"Michael… I..." I don't know what she's going to say, but her head seems to be moving closer to my own, the adamancy that this is wrong fading from her eyes…

It's replaced by lust.

She wants me as much as I want her: I don't know if it's a snap decision in her mind to realise that I'm the one for her, or whether she has been denying it for months, but it's there and I know she feels the same way.

But then an ice cold voice from the corner of the room startles me into absolute stillness, each word clipped with such precision she has probably carved it from diamond.

"Well, well," she says, "What have we here?"

Uhoh.

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Vicky xx