Elongated fangs flashed white in the dimness of my living room as he smugly smiled at me while I continued to shriek until little black dots started to cha-cha into my line of vision.
"H...how...when...what...," I stuttered and stumbled unable to put a full sentence together while my head ping-ponged from him to the locked door, back to him and then around to the locked kitchen door behind me.
Gasping for air, I scrambled to put basic sentence structure back into my speech abilities. I only needed a noun, a verb, possibly an adjective or two, a pronoun...conjunction...Conjunction junction what's your function from School House Rock started to play in my head and ate at my brain like a demented zombie.
"Sit down before you pass out." The sound of his profoundly seductive voice momentarily threw me off balance and I grabbed the doorframe before I toppled over. Leaving a perfect imprint of my fingers in the trim. Drat! One more demerit against my security deposit. At this rate, I'll be buying Mrs. Myrtle a condo in Florida.
I needed to invest in some earplugs when it came to him. That husky voice mixed with his alluring accent was lethal to a women's libido. Not to mention his sexy bod all laid out on my couch as if he was offering himself up to me like a Pu Pu Platter.
Gathering my sidetracked thoughts, I griped my spoon shovel and thrust it towards the seductive beast.
"How the hell did you get in here?" I demanded, pleased that I had indeed figured out how to form complete sentence structures again. Next stop, Nobel Prize for Literature...here I come.
"I don't have time for this," he said, running an irritated hand through his raven hair, still clutching my billfold.
The man missed his calling in life, he should have done commercials for shampoo instead of being a creepy canined cat burglar.
"Good, because I don't have time for you either, Fang. Now, if you would kindly put my wallet back into my purse which...dude...didn't your mother ever teach you not to go into the forbidden zone of female purse?" I motioned with the spoon to my purse.
Sighing, he dropped my billfold back into my bag. "Happy?" he asked, quirking one of those sexy brows at me.
"Ecstatic." I slowly inched my way towards him, my trusty spoon held out in front of me as if I was holding a rifle with a bayonet through the jungles of Vietnam. Rambo had nothing on my moves.
When I was in grabbing distance, I reached out and snagged my purse, tossing it over my shoulder and quickly backed up.
"I'd better not be missing anything," I warned, narrowing my eyes at him and poking the empty space in front of me with my wooden weapon.
"Trust me, I have no desire for your membership card to Starbucks." He rolled his icy eyes.
"Goes to show what you know." I stuck my tongue out at him. "I'm one Frappuccino away from getting a free muffin. That's as good as gold," I mumbled while trying to rifle through my bag to check to see if he absconded with anything while keeping my spoon firmly pointed in his direction.
Multitasking seriously was not my thing, so I gave up and assumed he would have no use for tampons, safety pins and a half eaten bag of Goobers.
"Satisfied?" he asked sweetly, giving me another one of those "aren't you special" kind of smiles.
"Not until you're gone, now...SHOO!" I indicated the direction of the door with my spoon shovel.
You know...I really should have switched to the fork. It at least had pointy ends and would have been easier to shish kebab him with. Though, I had to admit, I had developed a fondness for the spoon. We'd been through a lot tonight and it felt like it had become a part of me. Maybe, I could keep both of them and strap them to my back like a dual pair of Excaliburs.
Then I could give myself one of those really cool nicknames or aliases like the Wooden Warrior...the Welder of Wood...the Timber Terrorist... No, that one was no good. I'd probably end up on the Homeland Security most wanted list for a name like that.
"Are you even listening to me?" Fang...I mean...Drake's exasperated voice popped my inner thought process like a child's balloon.
"Um..." I shrugged. What could I say? I totally wasn't listening to him and the vampire busted me on it.
"You're a real mouth breather aren't you?" he hissed.
My temper snapped like a dry twig. "Get out!" I snarled, stomping towards him and shoving the asshole hard in the chest with the spoon.
Handsome or not, nobody insulted me. I grew up in the system, I knew how to put a beat down on somebody who picked on me. My wedgies where still being talked about in hushed tones at my grade school.
Drake fell back in a tangle of arms, legs and leather. I pounced and hovered over him breathing hard, my wooden weapon held aloft and ready to skewer him. Fang didn't flinch a beefy muscle from the imminent danger of being perforated like a drain-strainer.
"What are you doing?" he asked softly, his strange eyes glowing like a Lite-Brite. He pulled back those full lips and handed me a full fanged grin.
"I am about to turn you into a pile of ash," I said breathlessly. His smile giving my hormones a Richard Simmons workout.
Sprawling his colossal body under me, he tucked his hands behind his head as if he was about to settle down for a nice nap. "I like the view of you suspended over me, Melanie," he growled throatily, his lids dropping down to half-mast.
Something nudged my thigh closest to his lap. Looking down I watched as an enormous snake started crawling under the confines of his leather pants, heading towards his bellybutton and a little to the left. My eyes grew wide in shock. That was no snake, well...maybe a trouser snake or in this case, a pants python.
I clambered to jump off him, inadvertently sending my knee straight into his crotch and accidently smashing the python.
"Son of a bitch!" he howled, grabbing his precious package and curling up like a kitten he tossed me off him sending me flying across the room into the opposite wall.
Stunned for a moment, I listened to him moan and cuss. Well...I think it was cussing. It was in several languages, so a lot of it was hard to understand. But, I am pretty sure none of it was overly flattering judging by the furious glares he was sending my way.
I got up off the floor and brushed myself off. In the process of picking up my purse and spoon, I noticed a perfect indentation of my butt in the drywall. Well...that should be fun to try and explain to Mrs. Myrtle. I seriously could kiss my damage deposit goodbye.
I whirled around and faced the still seething and groaning Drake. "You pushed me!" I accused.
"You tried to turn me into a eunuch!" he bit out in a moan as he shakily made his way off my couch.
"Urchin?"
"No! Eunuch...a man with no...." Drake stopped, looked up at the ceiling and had that pained expression on his face that I quickly recognized.
I've seen that one before, lots of times. He was counting to ten, but given how angry he was...he might need to multiply that by a few hundred.
"Listen...I'm sorry I accidently kneed you in the one eyed wonder weasel, but seriously...talk about inappropriate." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Usually a guy takes me out to dinner before he tries bumping uglies," I sniffed indignantly.
"What?" That dropped his head from admiring the popcorn ceiling.
"Weren't you listening?" I mocked him with his own words.
"I..." he took a deep breath and stalked over to me. "You are in danger. Very serious danger."
"And you are one more step away from being a vampire on a stick." I dared him, raising my spoon and poking him in his massive chest.
"What is with you and this fucking spoon?"
"It's made of wood."
"I can see that, but unless you plan on spanking me with it, I am not sure why you feel it's necessary to keep threatening me with cutlery."
"Vampires don't like wood...duh." I rolled my eyes.
His chiseled face froze in a WTF expression before the corner of his lips began to twitch. The twitch turned into a smirk which eventually melted into a full blown howl of laughter. I should be pissed that he was laughing at me, but...sigh...he was so beautiful to watch. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners and the deep throaty sound of his chuckles vibrated through me trapping me within its seductive clutches.
Any sense of righteous indignation I had melted away at the sound and tumbled my resistance onto its back, legs spread wide and arms opened in welcome. My defiance was such a slut, easily persuaded by a sexy leather clad vampire's giggles.
"I hate to tell you, Melanie, but..." he snorted another chortle, "staking a vampire to death is a myth."
"Are you sure?" I frowned at my trusty spoon.
"Neither splinter, nor toothpick or threat of stake shall vampires life it take," he rhymed, holding his hand in the three fingered Boy Scout salute before he continued his sexy sniggering.
"Hardee har har," I muttered, while digging through my purse.
"You humans are really quite oblivious sometimes."
"News flash, bucko. I'm not human."
Grasping what I was searching for, I dropped my purse and precious spoon and let out a war whoop loud enough to make Zena proud while I threw myself at a stunned Drake who could do little more than catch me like a pop fly out in right field.
Both of us tumbled to the ground and I reared back and stabbed him hard. The toothpick plunged into the exposed flesh from our wrestling and lodged into his collarbone.
"Fuck!" Drake slapped a hand to his neck, rolling me off him.
I sat back and scooted far enough away from him as to be out of the splatter zone. Clapping my hands like a retarded seal in excitement, I waited for him to start...well...I'm not sure what he was about to start doing but I was damn sure enthusiastic to see it.
OH! I hope he didn't do something disgusting like melt. That could get messy. I secretly wished for ash or better yet...a bright flash of light and then nothingness. That way I wouldn't have to haul out the Dyson.
I did feel a little bit bad about stabbing Fang with a toothpick, but it was all in the name of science. It's not like I could take the word of a vampire who was facing the business end of a wooden spoon. It was the oldest trick in the book. It ranked right up there with "Hey! Your shoelaces are untied." I snorted.
Besides, he called me a mouth breather.
But, instead of him melting into a puddle of ectoplasm, or self-combusting like a yule log or exploding into a shower of fireworks, he sat up, yanked the toothpick out of his neck and started cussing at me...again. Only this time I was pretty certain it was in Russian.
He continued sputtering at me like a Russian Cossack while he stalked me, his hands clenched in tight fists at his sides while his leather creaked threateningly. But, despite all the menace his body was presenting, it was his eyes that had me backpedaling faster than Lance Armstrong.
They glowed through narrowed slits targeted straight at me and made me wish I had a nuclear fallout shelter, because I had a feeling I was going to need it.
"Hey! No hard feelings right, Fang?" A low growl was the only response. "Um...Drake. Have I ever told you how much I like the name Drake? It's a good...strong name. Did you know it means dragon?" Which was completely appropriate right now, because I could swear there was smoke coming out of his nostrils. "It also means male duck..." More growling. "Which, of course, nobody wouldn't ever confuse you with waterfowl."
I kept backing up until my butt hit the wall. Drat! I continued the Trivial Pursuit commentary while I slowly eased my way down the wall until I hit a doorframe and could make a run for it. "Not there is anything wrong with ducks. I mean...they're pretty cool. Did you know they have three eyelids?"
I was about four feet away from the kitchen entryway when the drywall next to my head exploded, leaving behind a perfect nickel sized hole. "What the..." Before I could finish my exclamation, another piece of drywall detonated. This time in the place my head only just vacated to inspect the first hole.
"Get down!" Drake hurled himself at me, tackling me to the floor, shoving my head into the green shag carpeting.
Drake survived being staked with a toothpick, but will Mel?
Stay tuned for the next installment of FANGED to find out .
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