“Why? Because your friends will have to hear about how shitty you treated me?” I knew I had no right to be as angry as I was. Kroven didn't owe me anything, I knew that. The tequila was taking over and I was happy to let it. “Fine, we can talk here then.”
The people with him dispersed away from us, probably because they were getting the sense that drama was about to ensue and they wanted absolutely no part in it. Which left Kroven and I with a little corner by the bar to ourselves, with minimal people around.
Kroven sighed. “Firstly, I didn't come here with friends. I just met these people.”
“I don't care.” I snuffed, but my reaction totally said otherwise and I'd chastised myself in the morning about it.
“Secondly,” Kroven kept going as if I hadn't just made a fool out of myself. “I really don't think this is appropriate.”
“I don't care if it's appropriate.” I shuffled forward, closer to him so he could hear me better. Or there was a part of me that wanted to be closer to him despite how irate I was. “I want you to be man enough to tell me why you stopped coming to the center after…” I stopped myself.After I thought you were going to kiss me. I couldn't say it. The last time he'd been at the center, there’d been that moment where Kroven had leaned in after our conversation and I was convinced he'd wanted to kiss me. Then he had fled the center without saying much else and proceeded to skip out on coming to the center for over three weeks now, clearly going to a different center to tend to his craving.
Why was it bothering me so fucking much that this Orb who had yet to express interest in me had dipped out on getting his consumption needs from the blood center I worked at? Why the hell did it matter to me?
Because you like him. I couldn't deny it anymore. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. I liked Kroven. I was attracted to him beyond all the shit I'd gone through in the past, beyond all the societal bullshit that waited for me, for us, on the other side of figuring out what was going on here. I just liked him.
“You're drunk. If you want to talk later, maybe—”
“Did I do something wrong the last time you came to the center?” Ignoring him, I finally asked him the question that had been burning me from the inside out the past couple of weeks. “If I did, I'm sorry, but I need you to tell me what I did because I've gone over and over it in my head and I can't think of what I could've done for you to flee like that and then not come back.”
The music thumped loudly around as is transitioned to adifferent song and I watched the colored lights transform over Kroven's face as he went from alert to what looked like sorrow. He ran a hand through his choppy blond hair, reminding me of Thayer's nervous tick. Why the hell would Kroven be nervous?
“No, Bas, you didn't do anything wrong.”
"Then why did you leave like that?" I said with too much pain in my voice. I didn't want Kroven to think that I'd been heartbroken about him leaving the center without telling me. Then again, I had sort of been acting like a lovesick teenager about it without a justifiable reason. I just wanted some answers. "Why did you start going to a different blood center? I thought we had a decent camaraderie between us. I thought you liked me.”
“That's the problem!” Kroven said with frustration, his red eyes flaring. Clearly he'd drank earlier enough to be able to see everything around him at the moment. He looked so serious as he looked down at me. He inched closer to me and I felt my chest heave. We were so close now, closer than we'd ever been to each other, and my body was starting to rumble with heat.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The reason I left the center that day, the reason I haven't been back since.” Kroven nodded. “Is because despite my better judgment on what is and isn't right ineitherof our worlds," Kroven stared at me with such intensity, it felt like I could get high from it. The last thing I needed right now was to be crossfaded, so I just stood there and gulped down the lump forming in my throat. “I started feeling...I was becoming attracted to you.”
There it was. The hope that Kroven might feel the something forming between us being fully realized made my body fill with electricity, and we stared at each other for what felt like eons. In that moment, I didn't care that we were in a room full of humans and Orbs. I didn't care that society would see the two of us together as an abomination. I didn't care at all. All I caredabout was that Kroven had felt the same something that I did. And I wanted to make sure that he knew as such.
I didn't think, for once, I just let my body react. So I leaned forward, grabbed his face with both of my hands and pulled him into a kiss. Our lips crashed together in a pulsing wave, my entire body going warm with intense need and want, the desire to feel Kroven closer to me now that I knew that he saw me. He saw me as desirable and I saw him as attainable. I was afraid he wouldn't register what was happening but when I felt his hands go to my hips, pulling me into him, I smiled into our furthering kiss.
We kept kissing, shifting our mouths and Kroven started to open his mouth a bit to playfully bite my lips, a surge of pleasure going straight to my dick when one of his fangs applied pressure to my lower lip. I could feel something hard against my thigh and it made me even harder knowing that I was giving this kind of reaction to Kroven. I felt his tongue sliding over mine, that long purple tongue that felt textured in a way that made me wonder what else on Kroven's body could be different than a human's. I wanted the chance to find out, so painfully hard at the contact between us that my cock was throbbing from the denim prison of my too tight jeans.
All too suddenly, Kroven pulled back and ended our kiss. I looked at him with longing in my eyes. A smile curled his lips and I could feel the stares from people who had just witness a human and an Orb making out pretty heavily. It hit me all of the sudden what I’d just done. I'd made out with Kroven. A patient of mine. Or was he technically a former patient? Moreover, I was drunk as fuck. I didn't want Kroven like this, when I was too wrapped up in the safety blanket that alcohol had given me to properly express myself to him. I saw his mouth quiver to tell me something but I was becoming too aware of the situation and I beat him too it.
“Kroven, I-I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have—”
“No, it's okay, I just—”
“I have to go,” I said in a whisper, clearing my throat so I could amp up my voice. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
Fleeing, I made my way back through the aimless dancers and drunk mix of everyone enjoying everything the club offered at a reasonable rate and found Thayer dancing with a very attractive woman with red hair. When he saw me, he broke apart from her a bit.
“Where did you go?”
“Can we leave?” I said in a desperate too-loud tone. “I really need to go.”
“What happened?” He stopped dancing and the redhead looked between us in annoyance.
“Thayer, Ireallywanna go.”
My voice cracked as I pleaded, overstimulated from what had just occurred with Kroven that I needed the safety of being anywhere else but at the club. He nodded and the woman with him scoffed.
“Are you serious?” She recoiled, but Thayer just shrugged his shoulders and apologized. She rolled her eyes and disappeared into the sea of dancers.
