The Vampire Playboy - Blood and Lust

Chapter 3

Charlie's POV

Another town council meeting, another two hours of listening to Tom lecture the council about discretion, especially during the summer, about the importance of maintaining our good relationships with the human population of the town, especially the ones on the council who help protect our secret and the reminder to them that in return we make sure that the town refrains from being a hunting ground. No humans will be harmed by us or by any vampire passing through.

I'd listened to variations of this lecture twice a month for years now. So had Noah. I could see him rolling his eyes and looking bored, but neither of us dared to say anything. Tom was an elder, he was centuries older than Noah and me, which meant he was stronger than both of us, faster than both of us and had the temper to match. He also still fed on human blood, which gave him an edge. Granted, he tended to rely on donated blood like most around town, whereas I'd opted for several years to live off animal blood. It didn't nourish me in the same way that human blood did, but it was good enough and it didn't taste bad.

"Any other business?" Tom called, breaking my thoughts and bringing me back into the meeting.

"Yes", David called. David was a human, one of the few on here. He had an 18-year-old daughter, Sophie. I didn't know her well. David had warned all of us off and so we stayed a safe distance. David was a good guy, raised his daughter on his own and now was a director for a worldwide company that provides identification and cover stories and new lives for vampires when needed. He was a powerful dude and someone none of us wanted to piss off. But he mostly kept himself to himself.

"I have a friend of Sophie's moving in with us. She could be here months or could it be longer? To be clear, I will be treating her as a daughter. She's pretty fragile and coming here to recover, so I'd appreciate it if folks could keep an extra eye out for her and afford her the same treatment that you do, Sophie."

I looked at Noah, who had suddenly begun to pay attention, he had a grin on his face, tilting his head to the side he was listening with interest. Man, this was going to mean trouble. Noah was even worse than me for his love of girls. We both enjoyed their company but neither of us was a relationship type of guy. Don't get me wrong, we both had relationships in the past, both with our own kind and humans, but never anything long-term, especially with humans. We were more of the one-night of loving or friends-with-benefits type of guy. This town was never short of girls passing through who were more than eager to take us to bed and Noah loved shiny new playmates.

We had been friends for around a century or more now, both at similar ages when we were turned, our paths crossed and we had similar views and became firm friends. Neither of us liked to kill when we would feed, preferring to wipe our victims' memories. Back then, that made us stand out from most vampires. Both of us wanted to try to live in society and blend in with humans, moving on when people got suspicious that we weren't ageing or on the odd occasion we had gone too far and killed someone. We watched each other's backs and were more like brothers. We'd moved back to this town a few years ago, and this place was different from the others. For a start, there was the town council, and then there was the fact that most of the older residents knew what we were and didn't care, so long as we kept to the rules, so we had hope that maybe we would have somewhere to call home for many more years than usual. Both successful businessmen with our own companies that we were always vague about. It was partly true. It was always safer to stick close to the truth, we had integrated pretty well into the community and the females loved us.

"You ready bro?" Noah asked, "I'm starving. Let's get lunch at O'Malley's"

"You're always starving" I replied dryly.

"I've got to keep my strength up" he grinned and then laughed.

O'Malley's was a bar in town, the place to be at the weekend, a typical Irish-styled bar, but it had good food and had plenty of attractive females.

"Hey boys, what can I get you?" Carmella the waitress asked.

Noah pulled her onto his lap, Carmella laughed and ground against him. Noah had on a stupid grin and I rolled my eyes. I was over Carmella. She was nice enough but I'd made the mistake of going there a few times, she became attached and I had a hell of a time getting her unattached. Noah, on the other hand, liked that she was attached to him, that he could call her up when he was bored and she would come running. She was attractive, to be sure, with long black hair and a rocking figure, but I wasn't into cling-ons.

"Cheeseburger with cajun fries and a diet coke" I interrupted.

Noah picked Carmella up and out of his lap, causing her to pout.

"I'll have the same," Noah said, giving her a pat on the backside. Carmella moved off to the kitchen, swinging her hips dramatically. "What do you reckon this girl staying with David will be like?

"No idea, but you heard David, she's off limits." I stopped talking as Carmella returned with our drinks. "She must be decent enough if she's friends with Sophie. A bit random moving here though, I wonder what the story is there."

"I'm sure that's all true. But I was thinking more, is she a fine piece of ass," Noah replied, laughing.

"That's your problem sometimes, you think with your d**k and not your head. David isn't your biggest fan as it is, he'll have you up in front of the council if you so much as look at her funny."

"Little Noah needs some attention from a fresh source"

I rolled my eyes as Carmella put down the plates of food. I was starving. One of the downsides of having an incredible metabolism was the constant desire for food. The only thing that really satiated it was blood. I picked up my burger and took a bite. Noah had already shoved the majority of it into his mouth. I stopped as a new scent hit me. Another advantage afforded to us was the ability of hypersensitive smell. We could smell blood for miles, every human had a distinct scent, how their blood smelled, some aromas more appealing than others and often this changed depending on how they were feeling, particularly fear. We could smell fear above all else. New aromas weren't uncommon here, but there was something about this one, slightly sweet, smelling like cotton candy with a mix of peaches. I raised my gaze and looked at Noah. His look told me he could smell it too. It was different, strong, and alluring and made the back of my throat ache slightly.

Crap, that wasn't a sensation that I'd had for many years. Despite eating the burger, my stomach let out a low growl. I turned my head to where the scent was coming from to find Sophie and a short girl, with brown hair pulled up into a bun on top of her head, walking to a table. Noah was also watching. The pale blue dress that she wore was hiding most of her figure. I couldn't get a good look at her face as she sat with her back to me. Oddly, she hadn't noticed Noah or I. Normally, we were like a beacon for females. Good-looking guys with attractive features and a body to match, as though created in the image of Adonis himself. We had been created to be the most appealing and attractive, to draw people to us, making us the apex predator. Every fibre in my body was willing her to turn around so I could look at her. It was the most peculiar feeling.

"Are you going to eat that?" Noah asked, breaking whatever spell this girl had me under.

"Nah, I've gone off it," I replied.

"She smells delicious," Noah said with a wicked smile.

"My throat is burning"

Noah's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"You know you can't."

"I know I've got no intention, I'm not that stupid."

The girl turned around and my eyes met hers. I held my breath as I took in her face. She was very much the girl next door type, she was beautiful but so different to my normal type. That was interesting. I heard Noah snigger and then saw her face flush pink. She was embarrassed that we had seen her looking at us. That was cute, she was cute when she flushed like that. She quickly turned around, but I couldn't take my eyes off the back of her head, it was like I was taking in every detail of her.

"She asked Carmella for a job here," Noah said.

"Huh. I didn't pick that up."

"No, you were too busy drooling" he laughed, "Don't worry, I totally would give her one too. I can just imagine her plump red lips around my..."

"I get the picture"

Noah threw his head back chucking again.

The mystery girl turned around and again met my eyes. Yes, she was different from my normal type, but her beauty struck me.

"I think I might give her one," Noah whispered.

I felt my face frown and looked at the table instead of responding to him or going over and talking to her, which is what I really wanted to do.

I fisted a handful of notes from my wallet and put them on the table, harder than I'd meant to, causing Noah to raise his eyebrows at me. If I didn't get out of here soon I couldn't trust myself not to go speak to this mysterious girl. I was drawn to her, it was like her blood called to me. I got up from the table and was out the door quicker than I should have been. Noah followed me out moments later.

"Better hope nobody noticed how fast you were there. Is this because of the girl?"

"What? No, her blood bothers me a bit, but that's it."

"If you want her, I can stay away"

I laughed. I didn't date humans. s*x yes, date no, and I didn't think David would be happy with that.

"Nah I'm good"

"Well, stop acting so damn weird dude!"

I punched him in the arm as I turned to get into my car. In turn, he gave me the middle finger.

Why had she gotten under my skin? I could deny it to Noah, but not to myself. I wanted to get to know her.

Hours later, I found myself in the large oak tree outside David's house which gave a view into her window. She was asleep but didn't sleep soundly. I watched her toss and thrash and wake up several times in the space of an hour. What the hell was I doing? I'd never done this before, not since I gave up human blood. This was the type of behaviour I displayed when I was hunting them as prey. I shook my head and used my speed to get home before I became tempted to get into her bedroom and be closer to her.