Thirsty Thursdays - I Wanna Suck Your...
*chanting* Frat-Boy-Vam-pires! Frat-Boy-Vam-pires!
Hello beautiful ~ and welcome to the very first edition of Thirsty Thursdays! Every fortnight, I’ll be sharing an extended exert from one of my Novels or Novellas in Progress - unbetaed, unedited, and unfiltered, for your reading pleasure.
Our very first entry in this series is from my upcoming novella, One Soft Bite, due for release in Winter 2025. Our protagonist, Cassie, is attending her boyfriend Dylan’s bumping Halloween party, dressed to the nines and ready for Dylan to claim her in front of all of his friends. Her plans fall apart, however, when she arrives to find Dylan kissing another girl.
Unable to face Dylan but too embarrassed to leave the party in tears, Cassie hunkers down with Dylan’s roommate, Eddie, who promises to sneak her out once the party dies down. Eddie is handsome and charming enough to offer a temporary distraction from Cassie’s broken heart. But Eddie is more than meets the eye, and Cassie might just be getting more than she bargained for.
Excerpt begins below! Enjoy.
Stay fabulous xoxo
Adeline
“Cassie, wait, stop!” She could hear Dylan call after her, but the people around her parted for her like the Red Sea. She shielded her eyes to spare herself from having to see anyone’s expressions towards her, whether mocking or pitying. The flash of the camera stayed on her for only a second before turning back towards the caught couple.
When Dylan stopped shouting after her, Cassie glanced back. Ally had hauled him down to her eye level, and was making sure their entire enraptured audience knew he was the guilty party. Good. Cassie didn’t need to be the centre of attention right now.
Cassie fled down the hall, heading for the stairs down, but she stopped at the last second. There were three times as many people down stairs as there were up here. She couldn’t bear the thought of any of them seeing her like this, having to cover her face and dash through the crowd, or worse, Dylan catching up to her while she waited for a taxi. She needed somewhere to lay low.
She dashed for the stairs, running blindly like a girl in a horror movie trying to escape the killer. The steps were narrow and her feet were uncertain, and she nearly tumbled over herself when she reached the landing.
All that was at the top of the stairs was a wide balcony to one side and a closed door to the other. A few smokers lounged on the balcony, staring out at the city lights, oblivious to her grand entrance. She couldn’t do more people right now, especially if she would be at risk of killing their buzz.
She reached for the closed door and prayed that the room behind it was empty. With any luck, it would be a broom closet she could hide until the party was over.
Cassie stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind her. She turned the lock on the knob and leaned back against the door, trying to manage her tears before she collapsed into hysterics. Only now that the chase was over could her emotions truly set in.
She took a moment to collect herself, surveilling the room she stood in, making sure she was alone as she sniffed back her misery.
The room was grand, bigger than the bedroom downstairs, with a small balcony that overlooked the backyard. She could hear the party continuing downstairs, the thump-thump of the DJ’s mix and the chattering of excited voices. If not for that, Cassie might have thought she had somehow walked into another house, maybe another dimension entirely.
The house’s beige plaster interior only peeked out from behind lush tapestries, handwoven and hanging from every surface. The only corner that was bare from tapestries was home to a tall, neighbouring wooden bookshelves, stacked with ancient, cracking leather bound tomes. Even the curtains had been changed, typical stoney grey replaced with heavy, dark red drapes.
And in the middle of it all, a huge four-poster bed, carved out of dark hardwood, and canopied with the same dark red upholstery that hung from the curtains. On impulse, she reached out and touched it. It was the smoothest thing she’d ever touched, soft to the touch and slick under her fingers.
Cassie wandered around the room, taking in the scene around her. This place felt like a coven’s clubroom. She didn’t mean to snoop, but the strangeness of a room like this in a house like this was the only thing able to distract her from her newly-broken heart.
Cassie gazed in awe at one of the tapestries before her. It almost looked handwoven, the threads too thick, too intricate, too imperfect to be machine made. She reached out to touch it. The colours were faded with age, but if she squinted she could make out the depiction.
It was a tree, rising high above a field of wildflowers, with a little doe sleeping at its trunk. The clearest colours were the dashes of gold thread on the trunk and leaves of the tree, and little red flowers blooming amongst the leaves, their tiny petals drifting down on the wind. The intricacy of the weaving was enough to numb the feeling of tears in her throat.
But as Cassie looked harder at the tapestry, squinting at the red flowers, she realised she had misread the scene. They weren’t flowers at all, but delicately woven little red drops. Her eyes followed the swirling branches up to their meeting place in the canopy, and she realized that in the dark spaces between the soft, curved leaves, there were little creatures with jagged black wings – bats.
Red threads dripped from the bats open mouths across the tapestry. Her eyes darted back to the doe, and the two little red knots woven into its neck, and she understood that it wasn’t resting at all. It had been sucked dry.
“Hey, Cassie.”
Cassie almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of her name, spoken by someone with a deep, silky voice.
A man emerged from the balcony, lighter in hand. He swung around on the doorframe as he came in. It was him, the masked guy from downstairs. But now, his mask was pushed to one side of his head, instead of covering his face, it was sitting off on a slant over his left ear.
It was Eddie.
“Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here,” she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “And I – I didn’t mean to snoop.”
“No need to apologise. Can’t host a house party and then get mad there’s people in your house.” He strode further into the room, leaning against one of the bedposts. “So, you find that boyfriend of yours yet?”
Cassie couldn’t keep down a bark of bitter laughter.
“Oh, yeah, I found him alright,” she hissed, ”with his tongue down another girl's throat.”
“Ouch,” Eddie winced. “Foul play. Sorry to hear that.”
“Not as sorry as I was to see it. Oh, you know what the best part is? She was wearing a cat costume, and not even two weeks ago he told me specifically not to go as a cat, because according to him, sexy cat girls on Halloween are sooo tacky! The nerve of that guy, right?”
Cassie had meant the anecdote to be funny, but it brought an angry sting to her eyes. She gave Eddie a wavering smile, but the best he could give her in return was an empathetic wince.
At his bare emotion, she couldn’t help but feel the tears threatening to spill over. Why on earth was she recounting one of the most humiliating moments of her life to this complete stranger? Her lips wobbled and she dropped her face into her hands.
“Hey, hey,” Eddie soothed. He crossed the room to her, taking the end of his cape in one hand. He cupped her face and drew his cape to her dewy eyes, dabbing away her tears.
“Don’t you cry a single tear over that clown. He should count himself lucky that you even looked at him twice.” his hand was still cupped around her chin. Cassie stared up into his dark, alluring eyes. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be crying over a chump like that.”
Cassie let the hand rest on her jaw for a beat more, before lifting it gently away. But even then, she didn’t let go of his hand. Maybe it was her recent heartbreak, and the building, burning desire for revenge, but there was something almost magnetic about Eddie, like the rest of the house outside this room didn’t even exist.
His hand only feel from hers when she was thrown back to reality by a pounding fist on the door.
“Cassie,” came a muffled cry from the other side. “Open up.”
Cassie’s blood went cold She knew exactly whose voice that was. She watched on in horror as the door knob rattled and twisted in vain against its own lock. Flat-palmed thumps on the door echoed through the room.
“Cassie, please, just talk to me!”
“Hide me,” Cassie pleaded, turning back to Eddie. “Please, I just – I can’t talk to him right now.”
Eddie glanced between her and the rattling door. He gave her a sharp nod.
“Come this way.”
He collected her hand once again and led her across the room. He encouraged Cassie to step across the threshold and onto the balcony. Cassie stepped through the door, a shiver cascading over her skin at the cool evening air.
Eddie pulled back one of the balcony doors and urged her into the corner behind it, his hand landing on the small of her back. He swung the door back around against her, placing her hand over the knob. Cassie stood sandwiched between the door and the wall, watching Eddie through the glazing between them. He pulled the nearest curtain closer to the hinge, trying to guarantee her obscurity.
“I’ll come get you when he’s gone.” Eddie gave her a wink before turning back to the room. Cassie watched him walk away. As Eddie walked to the door, she heard him start coughing, thumping his chest and dragging his feet, mimicking a man just awoken. All she could do was stand there, pin-straight and shivering, and strain to hear Eddie open the door.
“Dylan, what the fuck, man?“ He groaned. His voice was theatrically hoarse. “What do you want? I’m working opening tomorrow.”
“Where is she?” Dylan growled.
“Where’s who?”
“Cassie, you bastard! I’ve been looking everywhere for her! People saw you two talking downstairs. Where is she?”
“What the Hell are you talking about?”
“My girlfriend, jackass! I know she’s in here. Why else would have your door locked?!”
“Dylan, chill out, man,” Eddie said. “I was down at the party for, like, five minutes, I had one beer, and then I came back up here to get an early night. I barely talked to anyone, and I sure as Hell didn’t talk to any girl.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Eddie! People saw you together! Trey told me he saw her come up here after she-”
Dylan’s voice tapered off as his train of thought derailed. Cassie strained to hear their conversation over the music from the patio.
“After she what, Dylan?” Eddie pressed the issue. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
“Just tell me where she is!” Dylan’s voice cracked in a near-shout.
“Dylan, Jesus, take it easy,” she heard Eddie say. “You and I are friends, right? Do you honestly think I would lie to you about something like this? Why would she even be hiding from you up here in the first place? Now what’s the matter? You can trust me.”
Even from the other side of the door, Eddie’s next words flowed out of his mouth and wrapped around Cassie like silk. Something about Eddie’s tone had changed. Even from this far away, his voice seemed close, and warmer than it had ever before. Cassie pressed herself against the wall, shuddering in the cool night air. She hoped she would be able to come back inside soon, and closer to the owner of that silky voice.
When Eddie stopped speaking, Cassie could hear someone snivelling.
“I just don’t know what to do, man,” Dylan croaked in a tear-filled voice. “I mean, I never meant for it to get this far.”
Eddie hummed in sympathy.
“I mean, Ally’s been on me for weeks, man, weeks! And Cassie wasn’t even meant to be here tonight! She said she would be out of town! I mean, she lied to me!”
Cassie felt her face go hot with rage. She had to hold onto the balustrade to keep herself from going back in there and confronting him. Dylan continued through his blubbering.
“I just thought, you know, so what if this is a one-time thing? how much harm can it really do? But I really fucked up, and now – now I don’t know if she-”
“Hey hey, come on, Dylan, take it easy. You’re a smart guy, and I’m sure whatever happened, you’re gonna have it all figured out in no time.”
Dylan gave one more snivel, before Eddie’s voice returned, stronger, darker than before.
“You won’t hear a single sound out of this room for the rest of the evening, that I promise you. Now, you’re going to step outside, back into the party, and you’re going to leave me alone for the rest of the night. And when you see Cassie next, you are going to tell her the full truth of how exactly you’ve betrayed her.”
There was a command in Eddie’s voice which even she felt compelled to obey.
“Do you understand?” Eddie asked.
“I understand.” The tears were gone from Dylan’s voice. He sounded flat.
“Alright.” Cassie heard the door open. “Now, get out there and enjoy the rest of your night.”
The bedroom door closed. A set of footsteps grew closer and closer until Eddie appeared once again on the other side of the glass.
“Coast is clear.”
“Thank you,” Cassie said. She took Eddie’s offered hand as she stepped through the balcony door and back into the house. “I just – God, I don’t know how I’m ever gonna look him in the face again.” Her embarrassment was quickly replaced by fury. “I mean, can you believe him? ‘What harm could it do?’ Bastard!”
Eddie shrugged. “ he’s an idiot. And now, you don’t have an idiot for a boyfriend. That’s what we call a net benefit.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Cassie’s shock was crystalizing into a sharp bitterness. “You haven’t just spent two years of the best years of your life pining over him just to have him humiliate you in front of everyone.”
Eddie shook his head. “First of all, the whole best years thing is bullshit. You’re barely out of college”
“All I can say is that when you’ve been around as much as I have, you realise that one cheating scumbag college boy isn’t the end of the world. Especially when he’s enough of an idiot to cheat on someone as pretty as you.”
Cassie felt a blush rise in her cheeks. She was no stranger to empty flattery from drunken, horny boys. But she wasn’t so used to it from someone as good looking as Eddie.
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I just - I thought this was it, you know? Him and me? And letting all that go-”
“Give me your hand.”
“What?” Cassie looked up at him from her interrupted train of thought.
“I’m serious,” Eddie insisted, open hand waiting for hers. “Give me your hand.”
Slowly, Cassie peeled apart her folded arms and gingerly placed one hand in Eddie’s. He turned her palm to the ceiling, spreading her thumb and pinky knuckle with practiced skill. He stared intently at her palm, index finger tracing every line and crease like he was reading a map.
“One of my mom’s best friend’s was a fortune teller,” he explained. “She always said that if you want to know where someone’s been, you read the lines of their face. If you want to know where they’re going, you, read the lines on their palm.”
Cassie nodded along, paying as much attention as she could with Eddie standing so close, and trailing lines along her palms with his long, thick fingers, touching her so tenderly, so precisely.
“Let’s see here - deep life line, signifying rich experiences both present and future; long head line, meaning that you’ll be a life-long learner; and one of the strongest heart lines I have seen in a very long time.” Eddie’s thumb ran heavy strokes over her palm.
“Is that a good thing?” Cassie asked nervously, surprising herself.
Eddie sucked his teeth. “Well, I’m not an expert, but based on all of this -” his concerned facade broke into a smile. “I’d say you’re gonna be just fine.”
Cassie let herself smile at her good fortune. Her hand was still in Eddie’s. She looked up to find his gaze fixed on hers. She indulged in the eye contact, even trailing down to glance at his soft, full lips.
“That friend of your mom’s taught you well.”
Eddie smiled. “She did.”
“Are you guys still close?”
Eddie’s smile faded ever so slightly.
“I wish,” he said. “She, uh - she passed away, a few years ago.”
Cassie’s heart panged with sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Maybe there were worse things in life than a cheating boyfriend, after all.
Eddie shrugged. “Hell, what are you gonna do? Circle of life, right?” He looked back up to her, and she was suddenly enchanted by his gaze.
“Right,” Cassie said softly, gaze fixed on his own. She realised their hands were still looped together. Cassie let them stay there, her thumb grazing across his knuckles.
She spared herself at least from getting lost in his eyes, turning her attention instead to the furnishings.
“So, this is your room?”
“This is me,” Eddie nodded. He walked across the room as if he were taking her on a tour. “Up in the tower, all on my lonesome.”
Cassie took the room in once more, eyes trailing over the tapestries.
“This is some pretty intense interior decorating,” she joked.
Eddie hummed out a laugh.
“Yeah, they’re uh, old family heirlooms. I like them, though. They remind me of where I’ve come from.”
Cassie reached out with her free hand and ran her fingers across the velvet upholstery of the four poster. It was the softest material she’d ever felt.
“It’s nice,” she said, “cozy.” She turned back to Eddie, weighing up her next words heavily.
“And I can’t imagine it’s stays that lonesome,” she finally said, eyes landing on his, “guessing from who lives here.”
Eddie looked almost taken aback. Cassie cringed internally at herself.
“Sorry,” she said. “God, that was, like, so corny. I don’t know why I -”
Eddie drew her in by the hand. Her mouth didn’t stop running until he mercifully kissed her. Her hands curled into the front of his shirt. Her knees felt weak.
“Relax,” Eddie said softly as they drew apart. That same strange feeling of calm washed over her, just as it did when he’d spoken to Dylan. He brushed her hair out of her face, and immediately she felt her nerves and tension melt away.
“Believe me,” he said, “I’ve seen and heard a lot cornier in my time.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
Eddie’s eyes were fixed on her own. They seemed brighter this close, as if they shone. His gaze trailed across her, dancing from one eye to the other before landing on her lips. Cassie’s heart fluttered.
He leaned down for another kiss, and she met it with enthusiasm. Suddenly everything that had gone wrong tonighht felt distant, far away. All that mattered were the lips pressed to hers and the arms she was wrapped in and the chest her fingers were sinking into.
“Do you have anything to drink up here?” She gasped as they parted.
“I mean, I’ve got an open Modelo we could share the dregs of. Or I could go down stairs and snag us some more.”
Cassie nodded. “I was thinking maybe something stronger.”
Eddie chuckled. “How does a negroni sound?”
“Ooh la La,” Cassie said. “He knows cocktails.”
“As any good bartender should,” he chuckled. “Or I could spare us the go-between and just grab the gin?”
Cassie thought on it for a moment. “A negroni actually sounds really nice.”
“Perfect. I’ll be right back.”
Eddie squeezed her hand before crossing the room and slipping out of the door.
Cassie felt her heart beat a few times in her chest before she came back to herself. A gorgeous man was downstairs making her a drink and she had no idea what she looked like.
She glanced around the room for a mirror. Every wall that wasn’t covered in bookshelves was filled with tapestries.
Across from the bed was a door sitting just slightly ajar that she hoped led to an ensuite. Cassie crossed the room and stepped through. On one end of the small room was a toilet, the other a glass encased shower, and in front of her was a small sink and, thankfully, a medicine cabinet.
She flicked on the light to get a better look at herself, and almost flinched at her reflection. Mascara-filled tears had rolled down her cheeks, and their trails were already drying onto her cheeks.
She opened the cabinet and hunted around for anything to wipe her face with. A little pack of green wet wipes seemed like her best option. She wrapped a single wipe around her finger and wiped it slowly, steadily up her cheek, trying to keep the foundation beneath it intact. The heaviest parts of the mascara lifted, but she groaned in frustration at the dark trails that were left behind.
Cassie didn’t know how long it took to make two negronis, but she prayed it was shorter than the time it was taking to clean herself up.
She found a pack of cotton swabs and a bottle of moisturiser in the cabinet, and tried wiping her mascara away in delicate strokes. The mascara was coming away, but so was her foundation underneath it. without taking her foundation with her, leaving her with even more distracting streaks of clean skin cutting through heavy makeup.
Cassie groaned in frustration. Glancing into the shower, she found a bottle of face wash. She squeezed a dollop into her palm and spread it across her face. She watched her own reflection as her makeup melted away under the cleanser. In the back of her mind she worried about Eddie’s reaction to her bare face, but she banished it as quickly as it appeared. She had worn this for Dylan, and this wasn’t about him anymore.
She tucked her hair behind her ears and dove face-first under the running faucet. The face wash washed away easily, taking most of her makeup with it. She turned off the tap, squee-geeing her face with her hands, before gingerly dabbing her face with the nearest towel. She was flushed, and her baby hairs were standing with frizz, but she would take a million frizzy baby hairs over mascara tear trails. She did what she could, watching her reflection intently as she tried to pat them down.
“Sorry, I’m sure there’s better wipes in the main bathroom.”
Cassie almost squealed at the sound of Eddie’s voice behind her.
She wheeled around on her heel, back pressed against the basin, to find him standing in the doorway.
“Sorry!” She squeaked. Eddie shook his head.
“What for?”
“Well, for - going through your cabinet, and - God, this stuff’s not expensive, is it?”
As her mouth ran wild, the gears In Cassie’s head turned. Eddie She had heard Eddie before she’d seen him, but that didn’t make sense. He was standing in the doorway, directly behind her. He would have crossed her line of vision in the mirror well before he spoke to her. Why hadn’t she seen him in the mirror when he’d come in?
Eddie chuckled. “Oh, yes, Target-brand face wash is hideously expensive. But, I’m sure between the two of us, we can come up with some way for you to repay me.”
Cassie’s face remained still, her mind spinning on the reflection question.
“I’m kidding,” Eddie softened. “I can go downstairs and get you some actual makeup remover.”
Cassie felt her heartbeat rise. She needed to know. She really, really didn’t want to turn back around. But she needed to know.
Slowly, uncertainly, Cassie tilted her head back towards the mirror. Her eyes stayed fixed on Eddie, noting where he stood, paying attention to where he stood, imagining where his reflection would appear in the mirror.
With only a moments hesitation remaining, she whipped her head around to look fully in the mirror.
Eddie’s reflection was nowhere to be seen.
She looked back and forth between the two of him. Eddie behind her, no Eddie in the mirror. Eddie. No Eddie. Where was he? Why the Hell was he not showing up? The whole time, he stood there with a bemused smile.
Cassie stared at him in slack-jawed astonishment. She took one last look on the mirror, just make sure she wasn’t completely spinning out.
“No way,” she breathed.
She turned slowly back to Eddie. He laughed softly and held up his hands in a you-caught-me gesture.
“That's not possible,” Cassie mumbled. “I mean you - you can’t be.” She reached out and grabbed Eddie’s hand. “You’re not cold. You’re meant to be cold.”
“That’s a harmful anti-immortal stereotype.”
Cassie shook her head.
“You’re fucking with me. That mirror, it - it’s some trick of the light.” She pointed at his mouth. “And your teeth.”
Eddie leaned in close, opening his mouth and curling back his lips, revealing both rows of straight, flat, orderly teeth. “These teeth?”
“Yes, those teeth.” She pointed at his canines. “They’re completely normal. If you were really a, a vampire, or whatever, then - then they would look like-“
Eddie’s face tensed in concentration. In the next second, his canines dropped down to sharp, steeply-pointed fangs. Cassie drew her hand back in surprise.
“Like this?” Eddie said with a smile.
Cassie’s mouth went dry. She shook her head, as if she could will this all away.
“No way,” she breathed. “It’s not possible.”
“Anything is possible, baby,” Eddie said with a dark laugh. He took a half step towards her. “So, when you were talking about sucking my blood earlier, was that just a hypothetical, or…?”