Chapter Nineteen | Resisting Temptation

Warren loitered at the threshold of consciousness. In Hypnagogia, he didn't react as volcanically as he might have had he been fully conscious when he registered Karou clinging to him. His body felt awake, but his mind wandered, adrift from reality, dreaming vividly, blurring the lines. Karou wasn't merely lying with her head and hand on him; no, she meant to tease him awake. Tracing warm pathways up his neck with her fingertips. Tender were the kisses she left on his bare skin. With her leg coiling his thigh, her hips needily ground against him. And the sounds she made! The sound that haunted him. Tormented him! The sound he wished he didn't know—the sound of Karou's pleasure echoed through his mind. Immersed in his dream, his sleepy moans and mumbles woke Karou. It was plain to see on his face he was enjoying their dreamland tryst.

"Morning," Karou whispered. Her waking movements woke Warren, too.

"Uh–g'mornin'..." Warren caught a glimpse of her feeling about the sheets, searching for her pyjama top, and before he could fully come too, she pulled it over her head to conceal her chest. He suddenly felt nauseous and confused, and the tightness of his underwear felt shamefully sinful. The dream he'd been having—was that real? He felt over his chest and his neck as if he'd be able to feel where her hands and lips had been. No, she wouldn't… Would she?

"Thank you for last night. I slept really well afterwards, and it doesn't hurt anymore." Karou smiled, hopped off the bed, and made off for the bathroom.

Paranoia set in. What she said was meant to clue him in. Something more than what he remembered had happened. Rattled, he demanded, "What's that supposed to mean?" Warren sprang out of bed and dashed after her. His hand grasped the edge of the door and halted its swing closed. Karou startled and let go of the handle, so she wouldn't trap his fingers. "Karou?" Warren urged. On high alert, they peered through the gap at each other as confused as the other.

"What do you mean? I was saying thank you for the pills and the... back rub..." Karou nibbled at her bottom lip nervously. "D–Did something else happen, Warren?" She asked, mildly concerned. 

"No. No, I don't think so." Warren shook his head, cooling off and coming to his senses. He exhaled, and the tension in his face melted away because if Karou's memory of the night before matched his, nothing untoward had happened. "What you said and where you were lying spooked me for a second. I thought I'd made a terrible mistake. What a ridiculous thought. Ha!" He quietly chuckled, brushed off his faint panic by combing his fingers back through his hair, and retreated from the bathroom door.

"Right," Karou said, shutting the bathroom door. That wasn't pretending. He really is a jerk.

In that short moment, Karou got to see Warren when shaken. It was no stretch to imagine what he thought might've happened. It was an honest mistake. She'd already pondered what it would be like if they crossed that line. She'd have been disappointed to be unable to remember it, but he'd shown fear. His reaction to the possibility stung. His words 'terrible mistake' and 'ridiculous' stuck with her. It was clear Warren did not want her to touch him. 

Karou turned on the shower, and the bathroom filled with steam as damp as her mood. The hollow feeling in her chest was no stranger, but she wasn't some unfeeling thing, knowing that she wasn't even allowed the illusion of affection hurt. 

Ugh, why does it matter what he thinks? Stripping off her pyjamas, she waited for the water to warm up, and in the mirror, she caught sight of her naked body. Standing there deflated, self-deprecating thoughts ran wild in her head. It doesn't. I shouldn't care, I know… but I feel so ugly.

✷✷✷

'No man is an Island.' 

Warren knew the phrase and often wondered if he was the sole reason it was a lie. He'd never had any qualms about being alone. He'd managed for at least twenty years with no constant companions. Magnus and Ellis, he saw sparingly outside of their short seasonal visits. Yet it was July now, and Karou had lived with him since November. For eight months, he hadn't been completely alone. Every morning, he'd pass her bedroom and could take for granted that she was tucked up in her little bed, safe and sound and fast asleep. That morning had been different, though, and that difference plagued his thoughts. He hadn't bothered to get dressed yet, put any coffee on to percolate or fetched the morning paper to read over breakfast. His life felt dramatic enough since his embarrassing mix-up with Karou without reading about the troubles of the wider world. While Karou showered, he sat at the kitchen island, overthinking. He'd lost his cool in front of her. He had much to mull over, too much for one person to tackle alone, so flitting back into his bedroom, Warren grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand and called the only person he could trust: Magnus VaRossa.

"Warren! It's good to hear from you. Not like you to call during work, though. What's the dilemma?" Magnus asked, slipping straight into conversation for Warren's sake; he hated small talk.

"Uh– I'm not at work. And I'm not sure it's a dilemma."

"So, if it's not bad, is it good?"

"I can't grasp a singular clear thought, that's all."

"Tell me." In the pause, Warren recognised the draw of breath and puffs of lips as the sounds of smoking; he imagined Magnus lit up a cigar, "Tell me what you're confused about. We can go from there, si?" Magnus asked, taking on the role of Warren's therapist as had been the case before.

"It's Karou," Warren admitted bashfully. Falling onto his bed, he grabbed hold of the sheets and brought them near his face so he could take in her scent from them.

"Ah–ha, the girl." Magnus chuckled knowingly. "You still have her living with you?"

"Hmm. There's nowhere else to put her… I nearly put her in a cell yesterday." 

Magnus gasped. "¿Qué?"

"It—It's not as bad as it sounds. She… tried to leave the Compound. So, I had to show her the other options if she didn't want to live with me." Once again, Magnus' alarm sounded down the line, but Warren still had something worse to confess. "Well, the cell didn't do the trick. So—Oh, God—" Warren pinched the bridge of his nose. "Magnus, I showed her the blood farm." Regret rang through his words.

As expected, his mentor sounded dismayed and disappointed, "Warren! Manipulation through fear never works."

"I know that. I'm not even sure that I wanted to scare her. And it didn't. She took it on the chin."

"Then why have you called, mi hijo? Because you're tired of having her under your feet, and you want permission to dispose of her?" The Spaniard chuckled darkly. Warren's silence on the matter was telling. A second later, Magnus softened his tone and addressed what he thought the issue was. "Or is it that you're enjoying having her there and unsure how you feel?"

"The latter. It's always the latter…" Warren muttered almost inaudibly. "But I think about the former. I can't help imagining what it would be like." Unlike himself, he began to ramble; his thirsty mania had returned, "I don't know how I haven't given in to thirst already. You understand, right? She smells the same to you?"

"Si," Magnus agreed, cutting a word in edgeways.

Warren carried on. "Her scent is embedded into every fibre of this unit, Magnus. I can't escape it. It's the last thing I smell before I sleep, and then I have these dreams. God, they're so vivid. I wake up aroused, and then she's the first thing I smell." He lapped his lips. "Her honeyed, mouth-watering scent is everywhere. She's tormenting me. It's driving me insane, Magnus." Warren had buried his nose into his bedsheets again, "What's worse… I think she would let me bite her. I think she wants me to. I think I want t—"

"Warren!" Magnus called his name almost sternly to pull him from his budding monologue. "Caution. You might have invited a Sanguinaphile into your home, a masochist even, or worse, a Succubu—"

"Good God, Magnus! She is not a masochist. I know the difference. Ellis is a masochist."

"Vale vale, entiendo. But if she's a taste for Vampires, there's no issue, no?"

"Stop, Mag', she doesn't have a fetish; she's never even kissed any—" He'd been about to lie. "Hmm, I might've indulged her in that."

"¡Ay! Did you kiss her? Then this isn't just about her blood?"

"She asked me to," Warren whined, his feeble explanation.

"Ha! And what? Plenty of women have made passes at you, and you've rejected them just like that." Magnus snapped his fingers and seemed to be speaking reasonably until he got carried away. "Perhaps she is a Succubus! Feeding from her will be the least of worries if she fucks out your soul…"

"Can you hear yourself? You sound crazy. You're meant to be my voice of reason." Warren grumbled down the line; by now, he was used to Magnus' melodramatics.

"Don't avoid the issue; mi hijo, you called me, remember? And if we are cutting the theatrics, you should cut this unnecessary worrying and get on with it. Who will stop you? You're the law at the Compound. Suppose she wants you? All the better."

"Magnus, that would be a huge abuse of power. She's so young and innocent; she doesn't deserve to be used by me."

"Youth and innocence are fleeting—"

"They are when you're concerned, you mean."

"The age of consent fluctuates by the century." Magnus scoffed.

"Magnus, stop. I'm not considering sleeping with her."

"Aren't you?" He called Warren's bluff. "She's not as untarnished as you've convinced yourself. I noticed when I first met her—she has darkness in her, or at least, she has been touched by it."

"I know that. None of it's twisted her. She's a survivor. If I killed her, her struggle would all have been in vain. I don't want to add her face to my nightmares."

"¡Dios mío! Anybody would think you were raised a Catholic. You have an innate affinity for guilt I will never comprehend. You overthink everything—" The line muffled; Magnus has covered the phone's mouthpiece while talking to someone. "I'll have to cut this short, the wife calls, but remember, despite what you think, you're a good man. You'll do the right thing."

"Right. Catch you later, Mag'" The call ended. "A good man', right..."

The bathroom door opened ajar, and through the gap, steam seeped free, but Karou didn't appear.

"Warren! Are you there?"

It didn't take him a moment to appear before the door. "Yes?"

"Can you pass me a towel, please? There aren't any in here." Karou asked as she pushed a few wet strands of hair behind her ear.

Though the door shielded her naked body from view, Warren focused on the residual water dripping down her neck and bare shoulder. That sweet, intoxicating aroma he'd been talking about rolled down her pale skin, encapsulated in the water droplets. The steam escaping the hot bathroom behind her warmed her skin as it passed. It flooded his nose with her scent and added another layer of temptation. Could she tell how hard it was for him not to force his way past the door and devour her? She was tantalising, and he was wholly captivated.

Initially, Karou's brows rose; she was concerned by the look on his face. "Is something wro—" She started but cut off when she saw his eyes. "Oh, you're just thirsty."

"What?" Warren hadn't entirely snapped out of his trance when he posed his question. He was still staring at what little of her skin he could see.

"Your eyes... They're all dark and thirsty looking, and... Uhm–" Karou tapped her lips. "Your fangs are out."

"It smells like you in there." Warren licked over his left fang and realised she was telling the truth. His eyes remained trained over her jugular. "And my bed, too."

"I just had a shower. But your bed... Well, I'm sorry about that." Still wounded from the words shared earlier, Karou attempted to be contrite until she figured out where Warren's attention was and how distracted her neck had him. Dark curiosity and a willingness to corrupt her own innocence intermingled and motivated what she did next. Tilting her head to the side, Karou displayed more flesh. At the same time, she kept her eyes trained on his face to gauge his reaction.

Warren had undoubtedly noticed, so not only did his fangs remain drawn, but his lips peeled back from the rest of his teeth as a low purr-like growl resonated from his chest and throat. Although it was a predator's threat, it spoke more to his yearning than aggression and left Karou with the notion that he was requesting permission to satiate his desire for her blood.

Karou's delay, however minute, gave Warren an opening. Instinct took over, and his feet carried him a step further towards the bathroom door. With his hand around the edge of it he added pressure to push it open, showing an intention to enter.

Certainly, Warren's sudden advance surprised her, but she thought she wanted him to burst in and take what he wanted. He seemed more willing to make a "terrible mistake" than he'd let on. But still, he would've regretted it, and no matter how much she yearned for connection of any kind, deep down, Karou didn't want shallow or false feelings.

"Wait!" She yelped, "I'm naked. Remember? I need a towel."

Her protest brought him back to his senses. He stepped back from the door, embarrassed that he'd faltered again so easily. "Ngh–W–wait, there, I'll get you one." Just like that, he disappeared from view. When he returned, he barely looked at her as he passed her the towel.