Author Note: I should stop making sweeping declarations about finishing things and anything in context of "according to schedule." This is most def not the final chapter of TIB.

15

In the instant she gasped, he stilled the hand that had just started to trace the twitching artery on her neck. It was initially the thing that woke her up.

"What are you doing?" she demanded to know, still curled up on her side of the couch where she'd fallen asleep. In fatigue, she limited her reaction to lifting her heavy head to gape and glare at him.

His features came into focus and they appeared guilty. Even guiltier was the vein of thirst wriggling back under his skin to hide.

"I was gonna try the Dracula thing," he admitted outright.

"What Dracula thing?" she snapped, feeling her heart beat in budding fury.

"Feed on you in your sleep so you wouldn't know."

"Why?!"

"You fell asleep and I was still hungry but I didn't wanna wake you…"

"Next time wake me!" she snarled a little more viciously than she meant.

"Will do," he agreed. "Hey, now that you're up…"

Bonnie groaned and squeezed her eyes shut.

"I'm so hungry," he pleaded. "Thirsty, I mean."

"Fine," she muttered, savoring every last bit of sleep left in her body. Even with her eyes closed, Kai's overbearing grin of relief was irritating.

"You don't even have to move," he promised.

"Good," she said, relaxing back into the couch.

"You can even go back to sleep if you want."

"As if."

She heard him rest his weight on the arm of the couch above her head. His hand returned to that spot on her neck it had been casing before she woke up. She opened one eye to peek at him and he was leaning over her, the veins of thirst already splitting back down from his darkening eyes. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and it took much effort on her part not to bunch her shoulder up and butt him out. Now she wasn't sure how she was going to keep herself down for this. Every feed before, their bodies were both upright and she was free to squirm as much as he would tolerate. Lying down, she was stuck.

His tongue again, like the readying wipe before a needle in her skin, brushed his spot of choice. Instantly, her blood rushed to it, and to her cheeks, and to her cunt. To push the blood back up to her brain, she pulled her knees into a tighter curl in her chest. He couldn't get to her if she made herself into a knot. As she moved, a light wind swathed her thighs and she remembered with blushing shock that she was still wearing only a towel around her legs. She fidgeted around to make sure no part of her was betrayed by the towel until Kai whispered, "You're fine." And she let it go.

She realized when his fangs tore in that she was excruciatingly sober. She was going to feel everything. No twist of pain or touch of pleasure would escape her awareness. A small whine slipped from her mouth in longing for the gin he kept in the kitchen. The noise caused goosebumps she could see coming up on his arm. Don't make a sound. He likes that.

The weakening exit of blood began and she couldn't tell really when or how it happened but Kai, in blood fever, wasn't on his feet anymore. He was slowly working his way onto the couch with her, his knees carefully treading the cushion so as not to roll her. The heat growing in his belly warmed her hip as his body hovered over hers.

Bonnie thought back to what she wanted while she was in the shower, and then to the first fantasy she had of him when she was at home, in the dark like this, feeling heavy like this, imagining him above her like this. She thought back to the very real kiss they had that morning. With the right shift of hip, she could make it happen again. The rest would follow. It would be so easy. The only question was whether she really wanted it.

Don't.

Her thoughts darted back to 1994, and that time he chased her through the hospital, when she had to hobble away from him with an arrow wound in her belly, using wit more than speed to get away from him. It couldn't be forgotten that the first time he embraced her was when he jumped into the car with her and held her tight against her will, shushing her, getting close, saying things she didn't like, using his strength against her and wouldn't let her go. She'd felt his breath in her ear, his eyes on her skin, his forceful manner crushing her spirit like a flower in a child's palm. She really hated him then, and knew it for certain. This particular moment was the wedge driven core-deep between them and she believed right then that nothing would ever change that. Nothing he could do would ever make that panic leave her. Even still, however quickly it entered and left, every time she saw his face a shot of fright ran through her heart. Who knew in as little time as a year they would go from that traumatic exchange to this. This warm, comfortably close and closely sexual circumstance.

Don't.

It was possible that Kai wasn't even interested in that at the moment. She knew it was some kind of instinct for him to get close when he fed. He couldn't help it, couldn't control it. Everything about feeding that struck her as sexual he claimed was normal, or involuntary. But the way he held himself over her scrunched body made her want to un-scrunch. It made her want to stretch her legs, bend them up again, spread them.

Don't.

"Kai," she bleated. She could almost hear her own voice. She was getting used to the strain of speaking with holes in her neck. Somehow, this time, he paid attention. The fangs drew out and she sat up, forcing him to back off. She was surprised he was able to stop himself feeding, but the calmness in his features utterly impressed her.

"What?" he asked dazed, her blood shining on his lips. His voice lacked the empathetic tone she wanted to hear, needed to hear to vindicate the way she was feeling about him.

"I just need a second to wake up," she said, and she hugged herself. The heat coming down over her face made her feel like rushing outside to stand under the last of the rain and let it cool her. She needed to catch her breath, calm her mind.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, starting to sound a bit agitated. His eyes were narrowed and his top lip curving up. It was the hunger, she gathered. Still, his tone made her defensive. For her own pride she had to ruin this as much as she could before he ruined her.

"You," she answered. "You're wrong with me."

"So go home," he dared, officially calling her bluff. The thought of just getting up and leaving entered Bonnie's mind as an option that she forgot she had. But she didn't want to leave him. It was like the fibers in her soul were becoming stitched to him. She didn't like it, and she didn't think it had anything to do with love, or respect, or admiration, or any of those unfortunate ideas she wasn't ready to wrap her head around when it came to Kai… It was a simple attachment, but an attachment nonetheless.

She settled on standing her ground. "Don't be mean," she said.

"Ditto."

"Fine."

Glancing at the nonexistent watch on his wrist, he said, "It's been a second."

She rolled her eyes. "Just hurry up and take your fill. I'm tired."

"Bonnie, you would die if I took my fill," he said matter-of-factly and she made an irritated sound. Then, smirking like he had a new bad idea, he asked, "D'you wanna watch?" She shot him an uncertain scowl.

With his mouth open in anticipation, he picked up her hand in both of his and brought it to his mouth. She let him, not really knowing why, and watched in disgust as he brushed her palm across his cheek. He pressed his lips to her wrist, pleading the pulse to the ends of her veins. He flicked his dark eyes up to hers before biting in, to watch her eyelids flutter while she hissed. She hated seeing him do this to her and at the same time she couldn't look away. She grimaced through the first throbs of pain until it dulled, when she found that she had to suppress a moan from nowhere.

No.

How could she like this?

So soon, he unlatched from her wrist. She breathed out in relief until he let his lips drag a trail of blood from her wrist to her inner forearm and bit in again. Bonnie watched intently this time how he nearly shivered the second her blood hit his tongue. She watched his shoulders move up and down with impatient breaths and realized she was beginning to match his breathing pattern. Whatever was happening to her was his intention, some sick form of seduction that probably worked much better when both participants were vampires. And still…it was disturbingly arousing. Again Kai loosened his jaw and moved on to the next spot… How many wounds would she have by the end of this? He set his sights on her shoulder and she noticed he was getting her back down again as she lowered in retreat with each inch he advanced.

Simultaneous impulses to fight against being laid down and to kiss him warred in her burning chest. Clenching her stomach muscles to still her body in refusal, she aimed to stop his encroaching mouth with her own but his hunger dominated hers. In their coinciding leans toward each other, he forwent his bite-by-bite seduction and nabbed at her neck again, sliding his fangs into the same holes he already created. It warranted an inadvertent yell from Bonnie. Fantastic pain radiated through her neck with his reentry. His response to her yell was a tight descent deeper into the flesh, to which she squealed. It felt too damaging, firstly, and secondly she didn't think she'd ever been bitten harder. He really was trying to kill her.

They breathed together that way for a moment, through their noses. The boy with his mouth full of blood and the girl with her mouth clamped shut in difficult patience, they inhaled and exhaled in unrealized unison, separately suffering unique miseries, and together one swelling and deflating mass.

It's okay.

This is okay.

Wait it out.

The next second, Kai's ravenous feed had him slamming her backward into the couch. Forget self-restraint, forget polite clenching of stomach muscles in attempt to take things slow; woman down. And in his zeal he seemed to find no use in holding himself respectfully above her. He lowered his body without any indecision to rest heavily upon hers.

Despite her agony and the fearsome speed with which things advanced, Bonnie let them take their course. It was partly a self-challenge to widen her own pain threshold, to increase her tolerance because if she could admit anything to herself it was that pain was always coming. Another factor helping her get through this was his desperation, and the desire to look past the immediacy of her problems and his problems and their intertwined problems to see a complicated creature in basic need. He needed her. It was obvious by his hand weaving into her hair and clenching fistfuls of strands at their roots to the rhythm of her pulse, of his own sucking, in absent mind. Bonnie recognized the purity of this nature and felt inclined to honor it. So caring, she even laid her hand on his back and caressed comforting zig-zags, staring through watering eyes at the ceiling above, looking for patterns to distract and lessen her sense of self.

Who am I now?

Finally, he withdrew. Instantly her body fell slack with relief and she noticed how stiff she'd been. Kai bit next into his own wrist. Eagerly, she didn't wait for him to lower the wound to her lips. She grabbed his arm and pulled. She needed his blood too terribly and actually savored the taste when it flooded her mouth.

He moaned when she started sucking. The sound of it sent a pang to the spot between her legs and she sucked more fervently, wanting him to do that again, make that sound. She knew how disgusting it was and she knew she might hate herself later for it, but for the second time and with complete purpose, she tongued the veins in his wrist, spreading them like cords and running the tip of her tongue sensually between them. The need to squeeze her eyes shut in shame was defeated by the desire to watch Kai's roll back into his head. Tingles of accomplishment jazzed her as his jaws cranked open for the throaty moan that fell out.

His eyes returned and set, half lidded, upon her. The juicing wrist in her mouth was removed and he replaced it aggressively with his lips.

Bonnie could feel her own cooled blood on his lips, being passed warm from his tongue to hers, and she didn't care. Her old self, she knew, would be outraged. Something in that made her kiss him even more violently. To defy even her own standards felt so good. Relishing the defiance, she used her tongue to scrape all the blood she could reach from his mouth until she coated the inside of hers and their respective blood became one substance. And she needed more, to be closer, to feel him, to put something against the part of her that ached to be touched.

Her legs, caught up in the tied-off towel, struggled to stretch outward from their bend underneath his weight. Frustrated, she reached down and loosened the knot at her hip. Seconds later he jammed her legs apart with his knee. In agreement, she slipped one leg down along his side and pulled her other leg up into a point at his hip. She could feel that galling erection wanting her, feel his encumbered bulk waiting impatiently behind the thin layer of his sweatpants. It still wasn't enough. Without thought, Bonnie lifted her hips a trifle up from the couch. All she wanted was to be closer to that hardness, regardless of the consequences. Months of unintended abstinence fired up behind her and her body wanted, needed, retribution.

In the kiss, she licked the sharp tips of his still descended fangs and received a punishing slit. New blood leaked into their mouths and Bonnie winced, but the pain was quickly forgotten when he rolled his hips to push his taunting hardness into her. A few more of these thrusts occurred at random before their bodies were moving in accidental rhythm. Her cunt positively ached for the attention to get better, and for him to get closer, but his pants and the last remaining flap of towel between them prevented relief.

She didn't care anymore about the horrible things he'd done to her; he'd been forgiven, and with the lust pounding in her head, she was forgetting. The simple acceptance that Kai will be Kai was enough of a blackhearted amendment to even propel the teeth-grinding desire possessing her body to writhe against him. And oh, how good it felt to lie in the erratic good graces of a bad fucking man. How good it felt to be the object of his desire, the exception to his wrath, and to open her thighs in the light of his terribly temporary affection. Bad fucking man. Did it make her a bad girl? Would he like that?

She didn't even check in with herself before her hand was fumbling for the towel and clawing that cock-blocking nuisance away to let her free, bare cunt feel the fabric of his pants.

As if he had been waiting for this admittance, Kai plunged his hand between them to thumb down the band of his sweatpants. Against her labia, she felt his tip begin its immediate search. She stuck her hand into the hollow of their sexes and gripped him, sliding her palm along the veins throbbing so humanly as she guided him down the center of her blooming cunt. She was wet enough to gasp at herself and it was easy for his tip to glide in.

They moaned into each other's mouths at the first entrance.

Wasting no time, Kai withdrew only to ram his entire length deep in and Bonnie broke free from kissing him to cry out. It didn't hurt as much as it relieved her to feel something reach that far for the first time in forever.

He pulled out again and rippled back down for a second deep thrust and already Bonnie was beginning to feel the heat of an oncoming orgasm. Like her body was building up for this before she ever thought it would happen. Her ribcage shuddered and her breasts tossed as she arched her spine, nipples peaking through the loose T-shirt she wore. Gaping down at her, Kai tore the shirt upward to reveal her chest and marvel at her breasts. Apparently overcome, he bowed his head down between them to decorate her diaphragm with a vicious little nip while pumping her with a third, thorough thrust. In the fourth thrust, she felt him, heavy inside her, twitch, and over the course of their fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth breathy thrusts they reached the pinnacle of pleasure. Their bodies, still mostly clothed, shivered against each other and they panted and she howled hers and he groaned his and she could feel hot fluid glazing her inside. The warmth traveled up as her vagina ushered it in lingering contractions. Her body so wanted a seed to sow.

"Fuck," Bonnie whimpered, remembering that condoms were a thing and a recommended one.

"Hell yeah we did," he panted in her ear.

"Without protection."

"Vamp-cum is sterile," he reminded in a sigh, kissing the top of her throat, "No Gemini twins for you. Sorry."

"Darn it," she joked dreamily, noting inwardly how soft her tone had turned. So fucking him made her docile. She could see how that might annoy her tomorrow, but in the moment she felt so satisfied with him that she wanted to give him a blowjob. However, he was spent. Not bothering to detach himself from her, he used her right breast like a pillow, breathed, and after a few moments passed out.

For a short time, Bonnie couldn't sleep.

She just had sex with a sociopath. Unplanned, unprotected, fifteen-second and somehow good sex, with Kai Parker. A fucking quickie, with Kai Parker.

What in the worlds.