Rain Falls

I slept like a rock. A very hot rock. Lava. Eric got out of bed before I did. The second he did, I tossed the covers off of me to try to cool my body down. It must have worked because the next thing that I knew he was waking me.

"Wake up, Baby. I want to go out."

I was on my stomach and he was hovering over me. It says a great deal about how thrashed I was to have slept through someone getting that close to me. I grew up on the streets. I was such a light sleeper that a ladybug sneezing would wake me up.

"Go out?" I mumbled into the pillow. Talking hurt. My throat felt like it had razor blades in it. I lowered my voice hoping it would help. "Thought you were working today." It didn't. It still burned to talk.

"I did." He punctuated the statement with a light nip on my uninjured shoulder. "Where did you think I was all day?" His lips blazed a path across my shoulder blade and he licked the center of my back. "Fuck you taste good."

Warning bells went off in my head. I didn't want to be bitten again. I tried to turn over within the tight confines of his arms and legs on either side of my body. I squirmed and struggled until I got on my back. He was looking at me with that predatory gleam again. He was fully dressed and his hair was braided in one long plait that hung over his shoulder and rested on the bed next to my head. "What time is it?" I whispered.

"Seven-ish."

"At night?" I squeaked, which felt like I'd swallowed a lit cigarette.

He cocked his head. "Have you been asleep the whole time I was gone?"

"Yes."

"Lazy ass," he smirked. "Get up. I want to go out," he repeated.

"No clothes here."

He rolled his eyes. "You need to just move in," he said. "We'll stop by your place on the way."

"On the way?" We would have to pass Deep Ellum to get to my place. "Where?"

"Kharma."

Kharma Café was in Denton, next to the college campus, over an hour's drive north of where we were. "Why?"

"Piper's band is playing. I want to see them."

"Piper?"

"Blonde chick," he explained, ambiguously. "She was at Starlight last night."

Truthfully that didn't help at all. I couldn't remember a single person that had been there. I had been too embroiled in my own distress to pay attention.

"Get up. Take a shower with me," he ordered.

That made me laugh and the action made my eyes water. "Seen your shower. No room for two people."

"That's what will make it fun," he leered at me.

"How about I shower and you find food?" I suggested.

He sighed. "Spoil sport." He took my mouth roughly and I realized my jaw hurt too. At least I knew why my throat was hurting. I had been worried that I had strep. "What do you want to eat?" he asked when he broke off the kiss.

"Something soft," I requested. "My throat is killing me."

Concern settled across his features. "Your throat hurts?"

I nodded.

"Why?"

I arched my eyebrow at him.

"Fuck," he hissed. "Did I hurt you?"

"I'll live." I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Food?"

"Something soft." He nodded and crawled off the bed.

The hot water felt like a wet dream. I opened my mouth and let the heat spray on my sore throat. I gargled the hot water and spit it out into the drain at my feet before repeating the maneuver. It helped. I had to commend Eric on his choice of bath products. Everything smelled great and I took advantage of the rare opportunity to use conditioner. He was in the bathroom holding open a soft towel when I stepped out of the shower stall. He wrapped me up in the enormous bathsheet and tenderly dried me off.

"I'm sorry that I hurt you," he murmured. "I was trying to be nice."

"You were wonderful." I smiled at him. "You're wonderful even when you're being all rawr too."

He smirked at me. "There's nothing soft here. I could cook but the best I can do as far as soft goes is pasta. We'll stop for food after we pick up some clothes for you. Then you can order whatever you want."

"You cook?" I was surprised. I didn't know that about him.

"Not gourmet or anything but I can work a stove." He followed me into the bedroom and stripped while I dressed. "Your ass hurts, your throat hurts. I'm tearing you up and I don't like it."

"My ass is fine," I told him. "My throat will be fine too. I just need to get used to your size. You've got a big dick, Eric," I said with a leer.

"Your ass is fine?" His eyes lusted over and his cock jumped. We'd switched statuses. I was mostly dressed and he was gloriously nude.

I nodded. "I'm pretty sure. We can test that theory later. If we start playing now you'll miss the band."

"Fuck it," he growled, pulling me into his arms. "I don't care."

I smirked. "Yes you do. Come on horndog. We can play later. Hopefully my throat will feel better by then too."

He groaned and rolled his eyes before letting go of me. "You're a prick tease."

I laughed at the irony and it fucking hurt.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed holding my shirt and the collar when he came out of the bathroom in just a towel. "Do you need a shirt?" he asked.

I shook my head.

He sat down next to me. "What's wrong?"

I shook my head again and held up the collar. "Do you want me to wear this?"

"Did you like it?"

I shook my head. "Not at first but I got used to it."

He took the leather out of my hands and set it on the night stand. "Not tonight. It's Fry. Too much unknown element. I don't want to go to jail for killing someone tonight because they messed with you."

The fact that he was willing to protect me gave me a warm feeling. The fact that he thought he had to made me a little nauseated.

"Will you wear it for me?" he asked. "Later, I mean. When we're alone."

"You liked that?" I grinned.

"Fuck yes," he replied. "The sight of you in just that collar... fucking hot."

As if to prove how much he liked it, the towel around his waist started to tent.

"Would you look at my shoulder?" I asked.

"Oh shit!" he exclaimed. "I forgot. Turn around."

He brought his bent knee up on the bed and turned sideways, facing me, with one foot on the floor. It caused his towel to part, exposing his semi to me. The site made my mouth water and my ass twitch. My body didn't know which it wanted more. I turned my back to him.

"It looks better," he told me, lightly brushing his fingertips over the wounds. "It's not red like it was last night."

"I heal well," I said.

"Let me go get the Neosporin anyway," he said and got off the bed. He came back with the ointment and rubbed some on me. "I'm really tearing you up, Rain. It's not good. You deserve better."

I turned to face him. "You've been tearing me up for a year, Eric. Scratches, bites, wrecking my ass and my throat. I'm fine and I kept coming back."

"I didn't know." The distress on his face was clear. "Every time I saw you, you were fine."

I nodded. "That's because I wouldn't work if I was damaged."

"I didn't realize," he frowned. "I knew that you'd disappear for weeks. I just didn't think. I thought you were avoiding me. Intentionally trying to make me crazy with want and need."

"You... Need me?" I squeaked.

"Holy fuck," he grumbled. "Are we doing this again? Can we please not do this? I've reached my limit on being emotional and girly this weekend already. Ok?"

He was being bitchy but I could tell that he wasn't really angry. Talking about his feelings, being vulnerable, made him uncomfortable. "Ok," I smirked. "You get a reprieve until Monday."

"Thank you," he smirked. "Now get dressed before I change my mind about food and just decide to eat you instead."

"What?" I exclaimed. "I'm twice as dressed as you are!"

"Yes," he agreed and got up.

I just sat on the edge of the bed and watched him get ready. I had seen him strip plenty of times and I had seen him dress for work and to take me home but I had never watched him dress to go out before. He ran a blow dryer over his hair but not enough to get it completely dry. It was still damp when he turned it off. With the amount of hair he had it would have taken too long to dry it completely. He left his towel in the bathroom and stepped into his closet. He was wearing black pants when he stepped out but they weren't his leathers. A white dress shirt went on next, buttoned all the way to his throat and a violet brocade vest went over that. Socks, knee-high boots, and a black, calf-length jacket completed the ensemble. He added black eyeliner and a couple of bulky silver rings before he was ready to go. It wasn't the complete club regalia but it was close enough to make me salivate. I wondered if he was dressing down because it was Fry Street or if he was doing it for my benefit. I didn't have the kind of money to be able to dress to his normal club standards.

He looked down at me still sitting there with my shirt in my hands. "Rain?"

I looked up at him. The boots that he was wearing had heels. The top of his head was barely clearing the ceiling. "You're fucking tall," I croaked. The hot water gargle had worn off and my throat was sore as fuck again.

He smirked at me. "Are we going?"

I nodded, slipped my shirt on, and followed him down the stairs.

He turned off the car in the parking lot of my apartment. "Do you want me to come in?" he asked.

I shook my head. He had never seen my place before and I didn't want him to. "I'll be quick," I whispered.

"Bring extra clothes," he said as I got out of the car.

Since I knew that I couldn't match his attire I didn't even try. I ran some mousse through my hair to fluff it up, put on far more eyeliner than he was wearing, and added black lipstick. I slipped on a pair of skin tight black jeans and a Bauhaus t-shirt that was missing the collar, sleeves, and was basically held together with safety pins. I added a studded leather belt that rode really low on my hips and, just for Eric, a pair of leather wrist cuffs that had d-rings on them. I figured that he'd appreciate that. I ran my hands over the pyramid studs on my belt, checking to make sure there was nothing that would catch on the leather of his car seat, before I stepped back into my Doc Marten's and gathered up my toothbrush and a few changes of clothes, not knowing what he'd want to do the next day. Honestly, the few changes of clothes amounted to about half of the stuff that I owned. I looked around the place before I left. As an afterthought, I grabbed the small stash of pot that I had filched from Vy's apartment.

I tossed my backpack in the back seat and bent over to lace up my boots. When I looked up Eric was staring at me. "What?"

"You look good," he said as he reached over the brushed his fingertips across the leather band on my wrist. Then he tilted my face up with the slight pressure of his fingers under my chin. "I wish I had known that you were going to do that. I would have kissed you before."

I smirked at him. "Do you want me to take it off?"

"No," he replied. "It looks good. It just makes me want to kiss you even more than usual." He stared hard into my eyes, as if he was trying to see into my soul. "You make me crazy," he told me again. "I've never been drawn to a guy like I am to you. I've messed around but out of curiosity, not desire. You're just so fucking beautiful. It makes me insane."

I smiled at him and reached up and flipped his sun visor down.

"What?" he asked, confused about what I had done.

"Mirror," I replied, grinning.

He smirked. "Well, it's good to know that the feeling is mutual. I'd hate to be the only crazy one." He grazed his fingers down my throat tortuously slowly, while intently staring at the path his fingers made. "Does it still hurt?" he asked, with his fingertips resting on my Adam's apple.

I nodded.

"Ok. Food. Something soft," he chanted like a mantra as he started the car and backed out of the parking space.

We pulled into the parking lot of a TGIFriday's. It made me uneasy because I had never eaten there before but mainly because it looked crowded. I had no problem with large crowds, as long as it was the right kind of people. The way we were dressed, we would stick out like a sore thumb.

"Stay here," he suggested. "Let me see if there's a wait." He went inside and came back out a couple of minutes later. "Thirty minutes," he told me. "Do you want to wait?"

I shook my head. "We'll be late."

"Ok. We'll find something in Denton. The Tomato is an option but I don't think pizza is soft."

"Kettle?" I suggested.

"Ok."

He was quiet, introspective, the whole trip. I knew that he was struggling with finding his balance again but I didn't ask. I didn't want to annoy him. We just listened to music in companionable silence. I had never been the type that had to have conversation all the time. I appreciated quiet when I could get it.

It was a busy night on Fry Street. We circled the area several times before we found a place to park. We walked to the beer store on the corner of Oak to get a pack of cigarettes before we headed the block and a half to Kharma. People were milling around the street as always. There were a few bars and a pool hall in the store fronts that made up the strip along Avenue A. The UNT campus was directly across the street so there was always an odd mix of college age people hanging around. Kharma was packed but it always was during the warm months that school was in session, especially on weekend nights.

The café was really one in name only. It had a couple of tables at the back, near the counter, but mostly it was filled with living room furniture. It wasn't very big. It was maybe twenty feet wide and sixty feet deep from the front door to the service counter on the back wall. The small stage was set up in the back third of the building, near the counter, where the tables would have been on a night that there wasn't a band playing. The center third of the space narrowed to allow for a single bathroom and a small room that had a single table in it with almost no space to walk around it. I never could figure out the purpose of the room but the regulars called it the mushroom room. The front third of Kharma held a couch, a love seat, and a few wingback chairs. The coffee table had an inset chess board and, on slower nights, you could usually find some guys playing chess.

The place catered to the college kids and allowed bands to play there and the artists to hang their art on the walls and offer it for sale. It was currently standing room only. Which was not surprising as the street outside was in much the same condition.

"Do you want coffee or something else?" Eric asked me as we stood outside the door, which was propped open.

"Coffee," I replied. "Please."

"I'll go," he offered. "I'll be right back."

I nodded and walked back up the half block to Hickory Street to wait for him. At the corner of Fry and Hickory, the street sloped down and the sidewalk sloped up, forming about a two foot drop from the sidewalk to the curb. It was a popular place to sit and I made my way over to sit there. A couple people made room for me and I sat next to an enormous rabbit stretched out on the warm sidewalk.

"Hey Behemoth." I scratched the rabbit on the top of his head, between his floppy ears. "Hey Tim." I directed to the guy holding the leash attached to the harness on the rabbit.

"Hey Rain. How's it been?" he replied.

"Good."

I scanned the crowd of people. There were quite a few that I knew but, with my throat hurting the way it was, I wasn't in the mood to socialize. I concentrated on the rabbit instead of the people. Tim and Behemoth were regulars on Fry street and the huge rabbit looked around the crowd with indifference. He was a spectacle. Before I had met them I had never even heard of a rabbit that big. He had to weight twenty pounds. I didn't know that you could put a harness on a rabbit and walk it around like a dog either. I'd never had a pet but thought that, if I got one, I'd want a rabbit. Something smaller than Behemoth would be good.

When Eric came back with coffee he handed me one of the cups and I took a careful sip. The heat felt fantastic on my throat and I was shocked to find it contained the perfect amount of cream and sugar for my taste. I had no idea that Eric knew how I liked my coffee.

I moaned in delight. "That's wonderful. Thank you."

Eric grinned and flourished a dramatic bow. "It is my pleasure to service you."

"Service?" I arched my eyebrow. "Freudian slip?"

"Wholly intentional, I assure you," he smirked.

That's about as much conversation as the two of us had because Eric always attracted a crowd. People started gathering in a small group around him, vying for his attention. I just sat back and watched. He was standing in the street in front of me but it didn't matter. No one tried to drive down Hickory on weekends without expecting to have people in the street. And, technically, he was standing in a designated parking space but, no matter how premium the spot was, only a total dickhead would try to park there on a weekend night.

I was amazed at the difference that a few days made. Just the week before I would have been one of those people dying for him to notice me, give me a word, a smile. Now I was content to just watch him flirt with others, secure in the knowledge that I would have his undivided attention as soon as we were alone. He was beautiful in his element. I couldn't fathom how I had ended up so lucky. I must have had an odd look on my face because, at one point, he glanced at me and raised an eyebrow in an unasked question. I just smiled at him in return.

We moved into the crowded café as soon as the band started to play. They were good but it wasn't the kind of music that Eric usually listened to. They had a heavy poppy sound and the college kids seemed to love it. We stayed in the café for the first set but moved outside for the second. We could still hear them on the street but it was much easier to breathe.

"Here." Eric handed me his coffee cup when he noticed that I had finished my own. There was no way to get a refill while the band was playing. His coffee was much sweeter than mine had been, it was practically candied, and it made me smile to know that he had a sweet tooth.

"Rain?" I turned toward the voice to see a short but voluptuous girl with gorgeous, long, wavy, dark red hair.

"Melissa?"

"Oh my God!" she screamed and launched herself at me. I had to drop my coffee cup in order to catch her as she jumped into my arms. "I haven't seen you in so long!" she yelled and kissed me on the mouth. There was no tongue but it wasn't just a friendly kiss either.

I set her down and hugged her tightly. "How have you been?"

"Great!" She gave me a 100 watt smile. "Do you go here too?"

"No. I'm just hanging out."

"God, I've missed you! What have you been doing? You look amazing." She was bouncing from foot to foot in excitement.

"You look pretty fucking hot yourself." She did but then she always had. She was half Hispanic and half Irish with beautiful brown eyes, the cutest nose, and a plump heart-shaped butt that used to make me hard as a rock every time I saw her. She was wearing a t-shirt that was cut off just under her large breasts and showed off her tiny waist but her short skirt had a petticoat so I wasn't able to see that delicious ass that had kept my frequent appreciation for so long.

"Ahem," Eric mock cleared his throat.

"Lissie. Meet Eric. My..." I trailed off.

"Boyfriend," Eric supplied and stepped up close to me.

"Boyfriend?" Melissa asked, surprised.

"Yes," I smiled.

"Ok." Melissa took it in stride. "Nice to meet you." She turned back to me. "Where are you living?"

"Dallas. Off Lemon. I've missed you. How is the family?"

"Great. Matty is in high school now, can you believe that? Like regular high school and everything," she beamed. Matthew was her little brother. He'd been born deaf and had been in a special school for blind and deaf kids when I knew him. He was an adorable kid and Melissa had taught me sign language so I could talk to him.