Kiss Me, Kill Me Read online

  Almost everyone on the tour gave a sigh when we entered St. Peter’s Square. The sheer size of the place was the first thing you noticed. Photos and TV coverage don’t convey the correct scale of things.

  The square contained two fountains, and at its centre, a twenty-five-metre tall obelisk from Egypt dated back to thirteenth century B.C.

  The elliptical St. Peter’s square was outlined by a spectacular colonnade. Its two semicircular wings, topped by statues of saints, flanked the square. Lina told us the symbolism is that of two open arms welcoming the world to the church. And there it stood: St. Peter’s Basilica topped by the immense dome designed by Michelangelo.

  Our tour group probably would have loitered in the square for an hour, simply staring, if Lina hadn’t ordered us along.

  As we entered the basilica, Greg tested his information that vampires can enter a church with no adverse effects. I saw him hesitate before he stepped inside, and voila—not smote, struck by lightning or engulfed in flames. We breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief.

  I spent a long while admiring “The Pieta” by Michelangelo. It was the most haunting statue I’d ever seen. Whether you’re a religious person or not, the depiction of a distraught mother holding her son’s lifeless, tortured body is deeply moving.

  Another area I was drawn to was the bronze canopy by Bernini, with its four spiral columns above the main altar.

  Next on the tour itinerary were the Vatican museums. The opulence and wealth were staggering. It’s impossible to see everything in one day, so Lina showed us through only a selection of rooms.

  The entire surface of the ceilings and almost all the walls were covered with frescoes. It didn’t take long for my body to start giving me hell from all the upwards rubbernecking.

  After a while, most of our group seemed to be suffering from sensory overload. There was such an abundance of goggle-worthy stuff and not enough time to appreciate any one thing.

  I mentioned that it was a bit overwhelming, and Lina responded with, ‘It is said that if you spend sixty seconds viewing each item, it would take you twelve years to see everything. So, I don’t blame you for feeling that way.’

  I heard one of our tour members say, ‘Wow,’ and someone else said, ‘Holy shit, twelve years,’ to which someone shushed them. But if there ever was a place where the stuff was going to be holy—this was it.

  Our tour ended in the Sistine Chapel. We marvelled at the frescos covering the place. I’d read that Michelangelo had single-handedly painted the entire ceiling, but to actually see it really was something. Especially since there was over ten-thousand square feet of it!

  Lina pointed out each fresco and told us which story from the bible they referred to. I was about to make a comment to Greg that I’d seen “The Creation of Man” in ten-thousand memes and there it was in real life, when I noticed Greg wasn’t near me. I did a quick scan and spied him near the main altar, contemplating Michelangelo’s depiction of “The Last Judgement.” He looked serious and, I thought perhaps, a little concerned.

  I went over to him. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked, rubbing his arm.

  ‘Yeah. I’m just wondering where I fit in; right side or left side.’

  He was referring to the fact that on the right-hand side of Christ were the good rising to Heaven, while on his left, were the sinners who were being cast down into the abyss. There, waiting for them, were Charon (the ferryman who carries the deceased across the rivers separating the living from the dead) and Minos, the judge of the underworld.

  Greg’s mother is Spanish and Roman Catholic. His father, from the US, an atheist. My father is Roman Catholic, as my mother had been. Lydia is agnostic. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if she secretly worships Satan. Greg and I had both been baptised in the Catholic Church and had completed some of the sacraments: first confession, first communion—that kind of thing. We’d also grown up with adults who had differing viewpoints and opinions regarding religion and God. Neither of us attended church anymore, and at this point, both of us highly doubted the existence of one divine being.

  While observing the image, I realised the whole concept appealed to me. In so much as, if there were such a thing as Hell, that would mean Lydia would spend eternity burning her ass off in it. The very idea made me so warm and fuzzy.

  I surmised Greg’s question of where he belonged was a case of him pondering the hypotheticals. But in the event that this trip was causing him to re-evaluate his divine-being beliefs, I wanted to put his mind at ease. There were a few people nearby, viewing the same painting, so I pulled Greg down and whispered in his ear. ‘You have done nothing wrong. Remember, this is not your own doing; this was done to you by force. And you’re fighting hard against the urges you have. Other people don’t have to try as hard as you to be good, but you have to struggle and fight—every day. So as far as I can see, that should put you somewhere up there.’ I pointed towards the top left of the painting where the good guys were hanging out.

  ‘You really believe that?’

  ‘Yes, I really do.’ If this Heaven/Hell business was legit. ‘You’re the kindest, most loving and wonderful…bloodsucker…I’ve ever met.’ I stepped away quickly and flashed him a mischievous grin.

  It seemed to do the trick as Greg chuckled and reached out, presumably to pinch or swat my bottom for being so cheeky.

  My bottom only narrowly avoided being subjected to either of those treatments.

  Greg managed to stop brooding and I managed to stay out of his clutches by sticking close to Lina, sure she would take Greg to task if he behaved inappropriately. There was probably an inscription somewhere on the ceiling warning against the pinching or swatting of girlfriends’ bottoms in the Sistine Chapel. I couldn’t find it. Only because I don’t read Latin.

  On the bus back to the hotel, I sat next to Lina. I practiced speaking Italian with her. She helped me out with some words and phrases I couldn’t remember, and she also taught me a few brand-new ones. Whenever I turned back to spy on Greg, who was sitting across the aisle, a few seats down, his eyes promised retribution. His barely there smirk told me I’d be getting mine soon.

  The second I hopped off the bus, I walked briskly into the hotel foyer and called the elevator. Greg went over to speak to the concierge. As the elevator doors slid open, I jumped in and pressed the close button. Greg’s surprised face as the doors were closing was comical.

  I got my card out, ready to open the room door. When the elevator arrived at my floor, I hurried out along the corridor.

  If I’d thought Greg was surprised a minute ago, he had nothing on me when the stairwell door flew open and he came running out. I squealed, jammed the card into the card reader and flung the door open. I had no time to close it as Greg came in right behind me.

  I ran over and stood behind the wing-backed armchair.

  Greg chased me around it. He wasn’t trying to catch me. If he was trying, it would have all been over in a millisecond.

  Approximately half a minute later, he grabbed me, pulling me so my back was against his front. His arms wrapped around me, firm and unyielding.

  ‘No!’ I protested, struggling and trying to pry his arms off me. His grip on me loosened and I spun around, taking a few steps backwards.

  ‘No?’ he asked, raising his brows. This wasn’t adding up for him. When it came to the equation of Greg plus sex, my answer had never been no.

  ‘No,’ I repeated slowly and definitely. I followed that up with an imitation of his barely there smile and the presence of challenge in my eyes. I hoped that’s what I was conveying, instead of resembling Batman’s Joker. Or looking like I had a bad case of wind.

  ‘Huh,’ Greg murmured, comprehending what I was up to.

  Then he stalked me. There was no running and grabbing. Only slow and purposeful movements as he followed me around the room. It made me feel as if I were his prey. As opposed to his unhurried stalking, I scrambled frantically about the place. He let me go around the chairs and over the
bed a few times before he captured me again.

  ‘No!’ I struggled against him, my heart beating fast and loud in my ears as if this wasn’t merely a game. As if Greg truly was a predator.

  He let me push him away.

  Back behind the safety of the chair, I went. Greg’s eyes were lit with the fire of anticipation. He enjoyed chasing as much as I enjoyed being chased. I didn’t need extreme sports to experience an adrenaline rush; I just needed to be hunted by my vampire.

  Greg moved left and I did the same. He changed directions quickly. I let out a squeal and went right. We did the left-right dance around the chair for some time before I made another mad dash for the bed. My bid to scramble over it was foiled when Greg grabbed my ankles and yanked me back. I fell flat on my stomach.

  He leaned heavily on top of me, gripping my wrists and pinning me to the mattress.

  ‘Such a bad, bad girl,’ he growled in my ear. Although he made it sound as if he considered it to be the best, best thing.

  I didn’t respond, except to press my butt up against his crotch.

  ‘Hm,’ he grunted, the sound coming from deep in his chest. ‘You know I’m going to have to punish you now.’ His hips pushed me down and held me immobile.

  I squirmed under him as much as I could, which wasn’t much, but just enough to make the seam in the crotch of my jeans stimulate my clit and make me insane. More insane than Greg already made me feel. ‘No, don’t punish me.’

  ‘Yes. You deserve it. Your punishment will be long and arduous. And it will make you scream, Ana. It’ll make you scream so hard.’

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Greg’s hands went under my body and then the front of my shirt was pulled open. His breath was hot against the back of my neck. There was a tugging feeling and I discerned that he was using a fang to cut the fabric on the back of my shirt. He grabbed the neckline back there, and with a loud ripping sound, it was torn from top to bottom.

  I struggled while he used the two sections of fabric to tie me to the spindles on the headboard. He used his knees on either side of my torso and his weight above me to stop me from going anywhere.

  Not that I had the desire to go anywhere.

  His hands delved underneath me again, this time to unzip my jeans. He pulled them down, together with my panties. They stayed around my calves until my shoes and socks were removed and then they were pulled off the rest of the way.

  The mattress dipped beside me. Greg knelt there, fully clothed, while I wore only a bra, with the remnants of my shirt tied around my wrists.

  He palmed my ass, grabbing handfuls of my cheeks in his big hands. He squeezed and kneaded. He pulled the cheeks apart, exposing me. He stilled. Instead of embarrassment from knowing he was staring at me there, it made me feel needy, wanting him to do something.

  My pussy clenched. Greg gave a quiet grunt in response.

  His hands left my body and then one returned swiftly. Whack.

  The contact of his open palm on my ass made me cry out. Not because it hurt. No. It was exquisite, shaking me on the outside and reverberating on the inside.

  His hand came down again, smacking the opposite cheek with the same force. The heft of my butt jiggled after each strike, causing the internal quakes to be prolonged.

  Greg ensured that his hand made contact with the entire surface area of my buttocks as well as the tops of my thighs.

  My skin was hot and tingling as if an electrical current ran through me. I opened my legs wider and pushed against the mattress. The reverberations his strikes caused, had me feeling as if I was right on the verge of coming.

  Greg lifted my crotch away from the bed and held me with his arm around my belly.

  ‘You don’t get to come yet.’ His voice was a deep rumble, the tone commanding.

  ‘Please, Greg.’

  ‘No.’

  Still holding me in his iron grip, he gave me a long lick from the crease at the top of my thigh to the divot at the base of my spine. The wet stroke of warmth was like heaven against my sensitised skin. My nerves were live wires, all culminating in my core. I squirmed in Greg’s grip and arched towards him to receive more.

  He gave it to me. His tongue dragged across my skin. His lips mouthed me. He nibbled and sucked everywhere. Every inch of skin he had spanked was now treated to this sublime torture.

  Greg adjusted me so that I rested on my knees. He used both hands to open me again. And then he swiped his tongue from my clit to my perineum.

  I cried out with my face buried in the mattress. I widened my knees, opening myself farther for him. I tilted my pelvis to give him better access. I begged.

  He tongued me once more the same way. Then again, and again. My pussy began contracting, and I knew I was going to come.

  Greg knew it, too. He stopped what he’d been doing and left the flat of his tongue pressed lightly against my opening.

  ‘Aaaaaagh,’ I screamed and tried to push harder against him. He moved with me, so the pressure of his tongue remained unaltered. Too light. Not enough. Tears began trickling down my face. ‘Please, Greg,’ I groaned. ‘Please fuck me.’

  He moved up my body on all fours. When his head was beside mine, he grasped my chin and turned me to face him.

  His gaze drank me in. My messed-up hair, my crying eyes, the tears that ran freely down my face, my quivering mouth.

  ‘So beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘God, you’re so beautiful. And I love you like this.’ The last sentence was said vehemently before his mouth crashed against mine. His kiss was hot and ravenous and wild.

  I answered in kind, sucking and licking and groaning into his mouth.

  He tore his lips from mine. There was another ‘God’ uttered, and then he pushed his cock against my entrance and drove himself into me.

  A few powerful thrusts, and I did as Greg said I would—I screamed. I pressed my face into a pillow and screamed as I came, my body clamping down on Greg viciously.

  Greg’s body was pressed hard against my back. He gripped me by my shoulders and powered into me. His thrusts shook me and made me want to take more and more. The sensation of the drag of his cock against my inner walls was heightened by the fact that my body seemed to want to grab on to him and never let him go.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Ana,’ Greg ground out. ‘I love being inside you. There’s nothing like this. Nothing.’

  No, there’s nothing like this, Greg. I want you with me, like this—forever. I couldn’t voice those thoughts because I was crying and sobbing and coming again as Greg yelled out, then stilled and pulsed inside me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Greg and I spent the next two days wandering Rome at our own leisure. We visited museums, palaces and the Pantheon. We strolled in the picturesque piazzas and along the banks of the Tiber River. We saw innumerable churches; even those that could be described as simple in comparison with others in the city had a certain beauty and majesty about them.

  By the evening of our fourth day in Rome, I was beginning to envy Greg’s indefatigable vampire feet.

  I hobbled into the shower and strove to summon up some excitement about getting changed and heading out again.

  I’d told Greg we should wait until almost dark to visit the Trevi Fountain. On my last visit to Rome, I’d arrived at the fountain just as the lights were turned on, and it was breathtaking. I wanted Greg to experience it as I had.

  After I was dressed again, my feet said, ‘Sod off. You can do what you like. We’re staying here.’ I fell into a chair and put my talky feet up on a stool.

  Greg came over, lifted my legs, sat on the stool and rested my feet in his lap. ‘Sore?’ he asked as he started rubbing my left foot.

  ‘Yes.’ I winced as his thumb dug into my heel.

  ‘You should tell me, Ana, if you’re in pain. I don’t realise because I can walk indefinitely with no ill-effects.’ I received stern eyes. There was also furrowed brow.

  ‘Argh. Ow, ow, ow!’ I yelled as
his fingers probed the arch and ball of my foot.

  ‘Right, tomorrow we’re going to take it easy. Have a rest day.’

  ‘Nooo. It’s such a waste to come all the way to this amazing city and then just laze around,’ I protested.

  ‘We won’t just laze around. I believe you’re due for one of my deluxe massages and then we can do…other things that don’t involve you being on your feet at all.’

  ‘I don’t mind the sound of that itinerary.’

  ‘So, you’ll forgo one day of checking out statues, paintings, fountains and churches to be locked in here with me?’ Greg leaned closer as he spoke.

  ‘I’d forgo anything to spend a day locked in here with you,’ I whispered back.

  He stared at me for a moment before his lips curved into a satisfied smile. He leant farther forward and brushed those beautiful, curvy lips lingeringly over mine. I experienced the tingling sensation in every part of my body—including my mortal feet.

  ‘I can take the pain away if you’d like,’ offered Greg, stroking my foot. He watched me carefully, waiting for my reaction.

  ‘With your blood, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I laughed. ‘And your method of application—would that be the same as last time? Will you be rubbing your penis on my foot?’ When Greg had first become a vampire, he had trouble controlling himself. Since he’d been afraid that he would hurt me or drink my blood and kill me during sex, we’d abstained for a long time. When we did become intimate again, we’d had a lot of sex. His vampire libido was crazy, and my poor va-jay-jay had suffered as a consequence. Greg’s remedy had been to put his blood with its excellent healing properties onto his penis and place said penis where I was hurting. It had been utterly excruciating at the start, and there had been tears from me and apologies from Greg. Long story short, it worked in the end, and apparently, I could laugh about it now.

  ‘Ah, no. That’s not how I’d planned to fix your feet. Although, I have no objection to rubbing my penis on any part of your body, Ana.’