AN: I like Kevin. *sigh* inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com ************************ Curiosity Killed... Chapter Twenty-Four ************************* “If you don’t stop tapping that pencil, I’m going to break it.” I stop, for a moment anyway, and grin cheekily before tapping it again, firmly, against the wooden arm of one of the couches in the back of the ‘entertainment room’ on Kevin’s bus. I don’t like riding with Kevin. He’s across the length of the couch in a flash and in an equally short flash, my pencil is snapped neatly in two. He glowers down at me. I reach up and snatch the two ends out of his fingers before beginning to tap both pieces on the couch’s arm. “I’ll break your fingers,” he warns, looking somewhat stressed. Long bus rides together are not a real good idea. He really should have stuck me with Howie or maybe Brian. He doesn’t trust me with AJ at all and Nick, Nick and I tend to cause each other pain when left alone for great amounts of time. “How many?” I ask as I continue to tap cheerfully. “How many what?” Kevin growls as he visibly tries to restrain himself from letting his eye tic in time to my beat. Funny Mr. Dumb Pants. “How many fingers will you break?” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. I watch and try not to envy his fingers too much. Pretty Kevin hair. Bad Cat. Bad Kitty… “Does that matter?” I blink. “Yes?” “You annoy me.” I blink again. “Good.” Kevin sighs again. “Is there a reason you revel in my frustration?” “Is there a reason you’re holding me captive against my will in an effort to seduce me away from Dracula?” I watch him count mentally to ten, then twenty. “Because,” he responds in a low, clear voice, “if I seduce you from Dracula I might actually have some kind of guarantee that my friends, my brothers won’t be murdered in cold blood.” “Cold stolen blood.” “Catherine…” “Well it is! How do ya’ll feed anyway? I mean, I haven’t see you tempt little groupies off into dark corners or anything…” “We do NOT tempt fans off into corners. We have a network set up- sometimes there’s bagged blood, sometimes live, willing offerings. You more than anyone should know we don’t have to feed often to survive and we certainly don’t have to kill to feed.” I grin up at him through too long ash blonde bangs. “Ya’ll have a blood network? Are you kidding me?” “Do I ever?” It’s my turn to sigh. “Point taken.” “May I ask you something?” I think for a moment. “Maybe.” “Why are you afraid of AJ and not me?” “I’m not afraid of AJ!” I snap back automatically. Kevin laughs and it’s an ugly sound that makes me suddenly aware of how close he’s gotten during our little argument. I’m not a large woman. I’m more of an itsy tiny woman and well, Mr. Richardson dwarfs me. Usually I don’t notice. I’m noticing now because the couch, well, what used to seem like a lot of space has turned into a very cozily shared space. I use the term cozy loosely. I watch mutely as he reaches down and gently pries the pencil stumps from my fingers while taking the time to lightly caress my knuckles with his rough fingertips. I shiver and stare at up at him, at a face that I find so much more beautiful than I should. At lips I feel on mine in my dreams. I shouldn’t dream of him. I learned long ago that I wasn’t meant for dreams. “Kevin…” His jaded gaze drains slowly, carefully to black, slow enough to let me see just how in control he is. His hands trail a slow path up my shoulders and cup my cheeks with a tenderness that’s as fake as his humanity. As real as his humanity. Dammit. “Are you afraid of me?” he asks as his fangs lower slowly until they gleam alabaster against his skin. I swallow and reach up to slowly trace the fangs with two fingers. “Not as much as I should be.” He shudders. “Do you want this?” he demands hoarsely. “More than I should.” My honest is painful to hear but then, there aren’t anymore words. He kisses me with darkness and lost souls on his lips and maybe I’m damned because I let myself be lost with it. In it. I never knew that kisses could be ferocious. I never could have guessed that I would want them to be. I react to him like fireworks to an open flame in a way that should make me ashamed but only makes me want more. But I can’t. There’s too much I have to weigh… I don’t want to die for a moment of reckless abandonment and I know, KNOW, that the Backstreet Boys won’t be able to protect me if Dracula forsakes me. If I let myself love them. If I let myself love the man, the monster, holding me. His lips break away from my mouth and trail a slow, languid path down my neck and I freeze, suddenly acutely aware in a way that I never have been before of his fangs brushing my bared neck, my scars. He senses my sudden terror and pauses. I tremble as his fangs retract. “Cat?” I can’t answer. I’m too busy fighting my own fear. “Cat,” he whispers, “what makes you so afraid?” I draw in a deep breath, too shaken to attempt to lie with glibness. “All the things that go bump in the night…” “All the things that have scarred you.” I sigh as he places a too warm hand over the handprint scarred across my stomach, the thing fabric of my long sleeved shirt one of the few barriers between us. “Yes.” “Am I one of those things Catherine?” I shut my eyes as tight as I can, trying to block him out and not quite succeeding. “Only if you kill me.” “I won’t take your life Cat.” I laugh and it’s an ugly of a sound as his own. “There’s more than one way to die Kevin.” His lips brush my closed eyelids as his breath washes over me like a whisper of regret. “I know.”