I nod. If she’s there, I need no food but her. I don’t even need water. Dana’s all I need.
By the end of the day, I’ve helped Dana pack and repack the supplies we’ll be cramming into the emergency pod with us. The food is vacuum sealed into tiny pouches that expand when moistened, but each one still takes up some room and our quarters are extremely limited. To make matters worse, she’s going to eat only once a day. “It’ll be just like when Nasit feeds me,” she jokes.
I don’t laugh. I don’t like that she’s going to go hungry because I can’t go into stasis. “We can pack more.”
“I don’t think we can, actually,” Dana points out as she lines up the bags of supplies in the hall outside the still-charging pod. “We’re going to need room to move around.”
“Like you said, we can just be all over each other like we are now.” I move closer to her and wrap my arms around her, because I can’t get enough of touching her. Of tucking her smaller body against mine and feeling her warmth, her softness, her sweet scent. “We’ve got a whole station here, and we still end up sharing the same chair and the same bed.”
“True, but—”
“No ‘but,’” I say. “You deserve to eat just as often as I do.”
“Hmm.” She seems like she wants to argue, but her fingers stroke lightly over my arm. My cock—and my fangs—respond, both lengthening. “Well, we can pack the pod and see what we can squeeze in.”
“Let’s do it, then.” Because I’m absolutely going to find a way to get more supplies into the pod. She’s not going to suffer. Not under my watch.
Chapter Nine
Dana
Well. That’s all that’s going to fit,” I announce, my hands pressing against the stack of bags crammed into the far end of the emergency pod.
We’ve spent the last few hours playing Jenga with our supplies, trying to get as much to fit in there as we can. The interior of the pod is cylindrical and is designed for up to four people in very close quarters. We’ve got only two people, which is a bonus . . . but we’ve crammed a bunch of food and clothing in. Rations are stacked on every surface and crammed into every cubby, and there’s still barely room to stand. There are weapons, too, and all the valuables that I’ve pilfered from the rooms on the station. Most of them are smaller, but there’s a crystalline vase that I know is expensive, because I’ve seen the owner polishing it regularly and snarling when anyone tried to touch it. That’s coming with us for sure.
One of the bags slides out of place, and I push it back atop the stack again, then turn to look at Vlad. He’s frowning with displeasure, his arms crossed over his broad chest as he studies the cram-pile of our belongings. “This is all we can fit?”
I nod, patting the bag on top. “The food supplies have to be here, because we won’t be able to reach them if we put them on the bottom. We’d have to unpack the entire pod to get to them. So the stuff near the floor is what we don’t need immediately—extra clothing and valuables.”
“And that leaves . . . this much room?” He puts his hands out, touching both sides of the pod interior.
“Yup.” We’ve removed two of the stasis pods to add a bit of room, but with the supplies in place, we’re still basically tighter than a small elevator or an old-timey phone booth. There’s no bed, just the stasis pods to lounge in. If we leave the lid off, I guess it’s not so bad. But we’re going to be pressed tit to tit for the next four months. “I hope you’re not claustrophobic.”
He considers that for a moment and then shakes his head. “I have been in and out of tubes ever since I awoke. This is roomier than usual.” He taps the opposite wall and then eyes me. “You are the one that is being faced with hardship. How does this feel to you?”
“It feels like an escape, and that’s all I care about.” I could cry about the cramped conditions or work myself into a panic about the thought of hurtling through deep space in what amounts to a phone booth, but the alternative is spending the rest of my life here as a poodle, and that’s not going to happen. And it’s not about just me. More than anything, Vlad needs to get away. He’s told me about all of the experiments they’ve run on him to try to “fix” his vampirism, and I worry what will happen when they realize he can’t be fixed. Clones aren’t real people to these aliens, any more than I am. They’ll just destroy him.
So we need to go, and this method works as well as any other.
I drape my arms dramatically over my head and lean back against the stack of tightly packed supply bags, like a heroine in distress. “This’ll be fun. We’ll just pretend we’ve fallen down a well together.”
“Why would we go down a well together?” He arches a thick brow in my direction, his skepticism making him look deliciously saturnine.
“Maybe we didn’t go together. Maybe I’m just a sweet, helpless woman and you’re the well monster, looking for a snack to nibble on.” I flutter my lashes playfully. “Oh, woe. Woe, indeed.”
Vlad puts his hands on either side of my head, looming over me. “You are quite tasty.”
“I like to think so,” I whisper, heat surging through my body. I arch my back, thrusting my breasts in his direction. “Don’t suppose you’re hungry right now?”
“Always,” he agrees, his hot gaze locked on my face. “You want to be touched, don’t you?”
I bite back the needy sound rising in my throat as his gaze skims over me. “You know . . . we could practice some other things in the pod, since we’re already in here.”
“Like what?” He leans in, going for my throat, and his nose whispers over my skin.
“Like having sex.”
Vlad groans, his mouth moving up my neck to kiss along my jaw and then on my mouth. “You want me?”
God, I do. We’ve flirted at this for a week now. He’s touched me and drunk from me, and we’ve kissed and cuddled. We’ve snuggled in bed together every night. We’ve even showered together. We’ve been inseparable since that first time he drank from me . . . yet he’s never asked me for sex. I’m tired of waiting. I want to be touched. I want to be filled.
God, do I want to be filled.
“I do,” I tell him. “We might as well see what we can accomplish in this cramped space, because something tells me that we’re not going to make it four months without making love at least once.”
“You only want to do it once?” He grins even as he nips at my lower lip with those big fangs of his. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“You make me sound greedy.”
“I like you greedy.” He kisses me once, then twice. “I like all of you, but I especially like you greedy and demanding.”
“That’s good, because I definitely plan on being greedy and demanding with you.” I lift my leg and hook it around his hip, dragging him closer. His hips brush against mine, rocking there, and I moan when he presses his cock to the center of my core. “I think you should kiss me.”
He growls low in his throat, the sound feral and delightful. “I plan on doing just that.”
Before I can make another sassy comment, Vlad’s mouth is on mine. I moan against his lips, drowning in the feel of his conquering mouth. Then his tongue slicks against my own, and I lose all coherent thought. The only thing that exists in my world is Vlad’s hungry mouth. For a man that was created in a medical lab a short time ago, he sure can kiss the hell out of a girl. There’s something about the way he kisses me that makes me crazy. It’s not that he wants to devour me. It’s that he wants to savor me. Each kiss is thoughtful—intense but thoughtful—and it’s like I’m his favorite dessert that he’s taking small, careful nibbles of because he wants to prolong his enjoyment of it.