Page 73 of Fangs with Benefits

Chapter 25

Elijah

When I first set foot in Molly’s apartment, I have to pause for how good it smells, how her it is. She wears green trousers with little Santa hats on them, and a matching long-sleeve top. I brought groceries, some she requested, others I picked up to cook for her. I also brought the cat, who travelled without complaint, perhaps somehow intuiting she was headed to Molly’s house.

Molly proposed that during the five-day holiday from Drummond, we coop up in her apartment and complete a media marathon of the many films and TV shows she deems necessary for me to know as both a vampire and as a vampire pretending to be human.

I didn’t even ask what media she had in mind–I said yes without thinking about it.

Written on sheets of notebook paper are three lists, each containing different titles for us to choose from. There are over a dozen, so we have our work cut out for us.

We start with a list she titled ‘The Movies That Raised Me’, which includes The Hunger Games films, The Princess Diaries one and two, Jennifer’s Body, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and, underlined three times, The Twilight Saga.

‘We don’t have to watch all of them this weekend, but I would be remiss not to teach you about Twilight at least,’ she tells me. And so, it begins.

Over the next two days, we get through the whole of the first list, some of which I watch on her laptop wearing headphones while Molly sleeps. We also use the entirety of her two-person table to start and complete two different puzzles, pieces sorted in cleaned yogurt and sour cream containers.

Molly loves to talk during her favourite movies, plying me with random trivia. Luckily for me, I love to listen to her talk. I also love watching her sleep, and her studio apartment not separating her living space from her bedroom with a wall and door means that I have every opportunity to do just that.

The second list is entitled ‘Musicals’, and on Thanksgiving Day, Molly sings her way through all three High School Musical movies, The Sound of Music and finally a low-budget vampire musical called I Kissed a Vampire.

It’s all very cosy, very domestic and comfortable, and there’s a startling lack of awkwardness despite suddenly spending two full days and nights in the same six hundred square feet. As friends, of course. Nothing more.

By Thursday night, though, I am beyond buzzing from the proximity to Molly.

At some point during the last movie, I garner the courage to put my hand on Molly’s knee, a casual touch, but one that ratchets up the tension in the apartment intensely. She keeps her eyes on the screen, but a few minutes later, shifts closer until practically her whole leg is against mine.

In the corner of my vision, I see Molly lick her lips and the sight makes me tense. I’ve felt that tongue in my mouth and crave it again. All the time, actually. There is hardly an hour that goes by when I am not thinking of kissing her.

I stretch my pinky higher up her leg, then the rest of my fingers one at a time. I do this twice more until my hand is more than halfway to her centre. Her breathing has grown heavier, pale cheeks reddening in the light of the TV.

‘Molly,’ I whisper.

I see her neck move with a swallow before she slowly turns her head in my direction. ‘Yeah?’

‘I’m desperate to kiss you,’ I admit.

Molly exhales. ‘Finally,’ she says, and practically lunges for me, grabbing my neck and pulling me to meet her.

Kissing Molly doesn’t seem to be a chaste affair, because any time my lips find hers, my hands move on their own to touch as much of her body as I’m capable of. Now, kissing her on a couch, I’m even more incorrigible, pushing her to recline, sliding a knee between her thighs and supporting her lower back while I push my tongue into her mouth with abandon. Molly’s little sounds might make me insane.

Maybe it’s the hundred-year dry spell, but I think more likely it’s that Molly actually is a witch, a sorceress, and her power is aimed at weakening me to do her bidding for eternity. I would gladly fall under her spell just for one chance to kiss her and to hold her like this.

Molly reaches for my belt, fumbling with it and making me pant, stunned. She wants my pants off? Wants me bare to her?

The last time I lived among humans, there was courting and chaperones, chaste kisses on the backs of hands, longing glances. But Molly has said before that this is not courting. This is casual. No strings attached. Hooking up.

Friends with benefits.

I must remember this.

She undoes my belt and starts in on the button. My cock is pressing obscenely against the fabric, and I hold her hands to halt her movements.

‘Do we talk about this first?’ I ask.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Boundaries, ground rules–I just, I want to be clear.’