Rain Falls Ch. 02

He looked stricken. "Did I really? I'm sorry, Rain. I didn't mean it. I won't do it again."

He looked so upset, hurt. I'd never seen him like that before and it pulled at something inside me. "Come here, Eric."

He climbed across the bed, still half dressed. I opened my arms and he slid into them. "I'm not bothered by it. It's a word. Don't worry about it, Ok? I don't want you thinking about what's coming out of your mouth when you're having sex with me. I don't want you thinking at all. I just want you feeling. Alright?"

"Yeah. Ok." He nuzzled my neck and then kissed me before wrangling off the rest of his clothes and manhandling my body into a sleeping position that he was comfortable with. Which turned out to be, strangely enough, spooning at an angle across the bed, corner to corner.

It took me a few seconds to realize why we were at an angle. "How tall are you, anyway?" I asked.

"Six-eight." He yawned and nuzzled the back of my neck.

"I guessed six-six," I told him.

"Humph," he mumbled against my skin. He sucked the skin under his lips into his mouth and I tried not to tense up, wondering if he was going to bite me again. He didn't. He just sucked lightly for a second and then let go. It wasn't even hard enough to leave a hickey. He pulled me tighter to his chest and I listened to his breathing deepen as he drifted off. I was awake for a long time, just feeling him breathing into my hair, before I finally fell asleep.

I jolted awake with the nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. I had no idea how long I had slept. It could have been five minutes for all I knew but I didn't think so because I was hot. Like I was inside a furnace type of hot. Technically, that's what I was. We were in exactly the same position and the furnace in question was Eric. He was still asleep but he had me, possessively, tucked into his body with one arm draped around my midsection and his knees bent, cradling my legs with his. I twisted my body in a futile attempt to put some distance between us but he held tight. I fidgeted enough to wake the bear.

"Stop squirming," he grumbled.

"What time is it?" I asked, trying to remember what I had forgotten.

"How the fuck should I know?"

"You always know," I replied because it was true. There wasn't a single clock in his apartment but he always seemed to know what time it was.

"Two. Go back to sleep," he mumbled.

"Two?" I tried to clear my head and breathe in the suffocating heat. "Fuck! It's Thursday! I have to go! My rent is due! Shit!"

He just gripped me tighter.

"Come on, Eric. Let me go. I have to get home before the manager leaves."

"You keep wiggling your ass like that I'm going to shove my cock it in," he threatened.

I stopped trying to get away. I knew damn good and well that he wasn't joking. "Please, Eric. I'll get evicted."

He growled low and deep. Any wild animal with half a brain cell would have taken it for the warning that it was and fled for safety. I went the other way. "Come on you overgrown lummox. Let me up. I have to pay my rent."

"Fuck!" he spat out and rolled onto his back, freeing me.

I jumped up and climbed over him to get off the bed. After I used the bathroom I came back out to find him in exactly the same position.

"You're a real pain in my ass, you know that?"

I snickered. "I'm pretty sure that I'm the one walking funny today."

He cracked one eye open and looked at me standing at the edge of the bed wearing nothing but a smirk. He opened the other eye. "You're fucking beautiful," he told me. Then he lurched up, grabbed me by the waist and yanked me back into the bed.

"Eric!" I yelped. "I don't have time to play. I have to go."

"I'll drive you," he offered, sniffing and nuzzling my neck.

"Thank you." I had counted on it but I thanked him anyway. If I had to walk I wouldn't make it before my manager left for the day. He didn't keep regular hours but he'd never once stayed past four. Most of the time he left before three. I squirmed out if his arms and he let me, most likely because he had to piss. I dashed down the stairwell while he was occupied in the bathroom. I slipped into my clothes that had been left on the floor when we went to bed. At least, some of my clothes. My shirt was ripped, straight up the back, from hem to collar. It was totaled. Vy could have fixed it if it had been on a seam or something small but I doubted there was anything salvageable.

Eric came down the stairs in a pair of black jeans. He was shirtless and the sight of his lean, muscled torso made my body twitch. He was carrying two t-shirts. He tossed one at me when he stepped off the stairwell and slipped the solid black one over his head.

"Thanks." I pulled the shirt over my head and looked down at it. It was a concert shirt for This Mortal Coil and it wasn't a bad fit, which meant it wasn't his. When I looked up he was headed for the kitchen. "Hey. I really need to go," I reminded him, gently.

"Coffee. Smoke," he grumbled.

"Please, Eric. I don't have time."

He turned and glared at me. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"You can smoke in the car," I suggested.

"I don't smoke in my car. It ruins the leather."

"Please," I begged, just short of whining. I learned the hard way to never whine around Eric. It flipped his psycho switch.

"Fuck." He gathered up his keys and grabbed the handle on the door, sliding it open. We didn't speak until we pulled into the parking lot at my apartment building. He was bitchy and it was best to just let him be. I loved his car. It was a sedan that was a couple of years old but it was in perfect condition. There wasn't a scratch outside or a speck of dirt inside. It was, of course, solid black outside with black leather interior. It was like an oven during the summer but it had amazing AC. "How much do you need?" he asked when he'd stopped the car.

I shook my head. "I got it."

He looked up at me and his eyes dropped into that bored look that made my blood cold when it was focused on me. "Did you work last night?" His voice was soft, dangerous.

"Yes." I knew he wasn't going to like the answer but I wasn't going to lie to him. If he wanted to be with me he had to accept what I did for a living. The truth was that I could have paid the rent without working. I had gained a foothold the first night that I worked at the hotel and I had been working steadily for the three weeks since my bites had healed. I had a lot of money saved. It was only about $2000.00 but it was a fortune to me. I wasn't naïve enough to think it would last if I quit working. Vy and I would go through it in two months.

"That guy I saw you with?"

"No. It was before that."

"Did you..." He hesitated. I'd never known him to be at a loss for words. He, admittedly, wasn't one to talk about his feelings and such but he was eloquent in casual conversation. He was more upset than I thought he would be. "Was someone else inside you last night?"

"Just my mouth."

He was silent while he processed that. "I don't want you working anymore."

That wasn't acceptable to me but I didn't have time to get into it. "Can we fight about this later?" I asked. "I have to get in there."

"There's not going to be a fight. It just is," he stated. "I'll take care of you."

"I really have to go." I leaned over and kissed him. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah. Fine. I have to work, anyway," he groused. "Starlight. Nine o'clock," he demanded.

"Ok. I'll see you there."

"Where the fuck you been, kid? I've been waiting on you," the manager bitched. He wasn't a nice guy but he wasn't abusive either. I'd had worse. He was heavyset, balding, and in his upper forties or early fifties. He was Hispanic and his name was Oscar. I didn't know his last name.

"I was out," I told him. "I've got the money for seven and eight."

He shook his head. "Don't need it for eight. Parent's came and cleaned it out this morning. You got a lock on your door and I want the fucking key, now."

I was reeling from the first part of what he'd said. I didn't register the second part at all. "Cleaned it out? What do you mean? Where's Vy?"

"Who?"

"Vanessa. The girl who lives in eight," I clarified.

"Her," he huffed. "Pimp showed up last night and beat the fuck out of her. Had cops and shit swarming the place. I don't need that shit here." He held out his hand.

I counted out my rent for the week and handed it to him but he kept his hand out. "You deaf or some shit, kid? Gimme the fucking key."

"Key?" I asked.

"To the deadbolt on your door. Fuck. Are you high? I fucking said this already."

"Oh. Sorry. Yeah." I fished my keys out of my pocket and unwound the spare deadbolt key from the ring. "Is she ok?" I asked.

He shrugged and pocketed the key. "They took her to Parkland." He looked at me while I just stood there. "You got something to hide that needs a deadbolt I don't want it here. Get rid of it."

I shook my head. "Pillows."

"Pillows? What the fuck is that?"

"Pillows. You know. For sleeping on," I explained.

"Fucking pillows need a deadbolt?"

"Do you know how expensive pillows are?"

He glared at me. He, obviously, wasn't buying it. "Get the fuck out of here. Don't get busted with your fucking pillows or you're out. Got it?"

I went directly to Vy's door. I had a key but I didn't need it. The frame was broken. It had been kicked in. I pushed the door open and the place was trashed. All of the personal items seemed to be gone but the bed and dresser were still there. The dresser had been a cheap particleboard thing that was now broken and smeared with dried blood. There was also a good sized bloodstain on the floor. I gathered up the things that had been left behind that were serviceable to me. It wasn't much, the kitchen utensils, a couple of pans, and a bath towel. I also checked her hidey holes for her stash. Most of it was gone but I did find some pot behind the faceplate of the hollow brass doorknob on the bathroom door.

It may seem opportunistic of me but I knew that she wasn't coming back. If I didn't take the stuff one of the other vultures in the building would have. Vy would have preferred it was me. I stripped down and crawled into my bed. I missed her and I hoped that she and the baby were ok but there wasn't much I could do. I didn't even know her last name. I stayed in bed and smoked a joint, thinking about how little I actually knew about the people that I claimed to care about. I had known Vinyl since the day I moved in, over a year before, and I had never learned her last name. I knew Eric's last name but only because it was on all his finished work. He'd never asked mine. The only person that I could remember telling mine to was that guy, Dylan, and I had never gotten his in return.

The pot was good and I was pretty fucked up before I'd smoked half the joint. I put it out and went to take a shower. I needed to clean and dress my wounds and, luckily, Eric had only bitten me in places that I could reach this time.