Аманда Хокинг: Flutter

He was supposed to be helping teach me chess, but I can’t really concentrate on anything. It was an extravagant glass set that my brother Milo set up in the living room hours ago, and he was still sitting in the corner, growing frustrated as the game drug on. He was a bit of an expert player, so he had offered to help teach me, and he had unwisely thought that it would be easier to teach me if he set me up against Jack.

Jack smiled at me from across the board, and any thoughts I had about the game were completely lost.

Since I had just made the transformation from average seventeen-year-old girl to full-fledged vampire three weeks ago, the ability to focus on anything had become much harder. Everything seemed to catch my attention, and Jack especially would always take over my mind.

My new senses were a hard thing to adjust to. The crystal chess pieces were probably lovely to human eyes, but with my eyes I could see the way the light shined off of every cell of it and all the tiny imperfections that made it glow even brighter. I would often find myself captivated by seemingly inconsequential things. It was like I had never seen anything.

Before I had turned, Jack’s brother Ezra had explained that turning into a vampire would be similar to being a toddler all over again, and that’s very true. The way babies just seem completely in awe of everything and can laugh for hours at the same things? I felt just like that.

By far, the thing that amazed me the most had to be Jack. When he moved his hand to touch a pawn, he inadvertently sends a breeze of his scent towards me, and I’m filled with the light, tangy smell of him and his blood, which always makes my mouth water. He looks even more attractive than I could ever imagine, and I’ve spent far too many hours just gaping at him lately, but he seems happy to oblige.

“Ahem,” Milo cleared his throat more loudly than necessary.

In all honesty, he could grab my attention by just changing the way he breathed. Every sound is so much more magnified than it was before. While I couldn’t exactly hear a butterfly flapping its wings, my hearing had greatly improved. When it came to heart beats and blood, my ears were particularly sensitive.

I apologized as pushed my dark hair behind my ears, and I was still unable to ignore how much silkier it felt. I lowered my eyes from Jack’s playful grin, or I would just keep getting sucked into gazing at him like a ridiculous school girl.

“You said you wanted to play chess!” Milo grumbled.

He was sitting behind us, perched in an over stuffed chair with one of his legs hanging over the arm.

In human years, he was two and a half years younger than me, but in vampire time he was actually over a month older than me. Still, a month doesn’t give him that much expertise on vampirism, but he played the part very well. The change sat with him immensely. With dark, wide eyes, he managed to look deep and mysterious, while has a human, he had just looked innocent and naive.

“I know, I know,” I admitted sheepishly, and my embarrassment amused Jack. Knowing this, I refused to look at him. “Just go over what a rook is one more time.”

“You’re not even trying at all, Alice,” Milo sighed, and he was throwing in the towel.

“Be serious,” Jack chimed in, his tone very dutiful.

Meanwhile, under the glass chess table, he had started brushing his foot against my leg, trying to get me to pay attention to him. It had never even wavered from him, but anything less than constant contact felt a little weird anymore. Our relationship currently bordered on unhealthy obsession, but that had a lot to do with me turning and our recent bonding, and everyone assured it us that it would eventually lessen to an acceptable level.

His touch, even through a sock against my calf, did insane things to me. Touching anything felt better than it had ever had before, so taking something that had always effected me wonderfully and magnifying that was insane. My heart fluttered unabashedly, but at least I could hear his reciprocate for a change.

“Okay, I totally know what you’re doing,” Milo pointed out, sounding disgusted.

“Sorry!” I repeated and quickly pulled my leg back so Jack couldn’t touch it.

“You’re no fun,” Jack grumbled but made no attempt to touch me again.

Ezra insisted that we keep some distance for awhile. My emotions tended to get the best of me, and if were to do anything heated, things would very easily get out of control. Anything passionate, like hunger or lust, tended to over power any sense of reason, and there would be a very good chance that I could actually accidentally kill Jack if were to get frisky. So, we almost constantly had baby-sitters, in the form of Milo, Ezra, or Ezra’s wife Mae.

Jack rather smartly decided that he probably wasn’t the best one to tell help teach me the game, so he bowed out and let Milo take his place. Milo attempted to explain the rules to me for the fiftieth time today while Jack made himself comfortable in the chair across the room. His giant white Great Pyrenees, Matilda, brought her rope over to him so he would play with her, and even though he had moved far from us, my attention remained fixed on him.

Without on effort on my part, my body would automatically tilt towards him. My ears were tuned into the slow, subtle sound of his heartbeat, and I could smell him from a hundred feet away.

Since I had turned, everything about me had been set on the Jack frequency, and everyone kept promising that it would fade to more livable extent. As it was, I could hardly sleep during the day because I was up in his room, and he was down in the den, and my body insisted that was much too far away from him.

“Alice!” Milo snapped his fingers in front of my face, trying to draw my eyes away from Jack. “I’m going to send him out of the room if you don’t knock it off.”

“Sorry!” I repeated for the millionth time, and Jack laughed softly, and that did nothing to help the situation.

With sandy, permanently disheveled hair, dancing blue eyes, and flawless, tan skin, Jack was attractive in his own right (even more attractive to me than he probably was to anybody else), but it was his amazing that laughter that always bowled me over. It was the clearest, most perfect sound I had ever heard, and I just melted whenever I heard it.

“Oh, that’s it.” Milo stood up, preparing to make good on his threat, but Jack’s eldest brother, Ezra, walked into the living room, interrupting his plans.

Ezra had presence like no other. He carried himself with such confident dignity, it was hard to disagree or disregard anything he said. Handsome in a way that only a vampire could be, his blond hair fell across his forehead, and his warm, russet eyes were unnaturally anxious. Mae stood close behind, and her usual happy demeanor had been replaced by a fretful gaze at Ezra. She was literally wringing her hands when they walked into the living room.

“There’s been some trouble,” Ezra explained evenly in his deep voice, edged with his faded British accent. As always, he tried not to betray any of the anxiety he felt, but for once, I could hear how his heart sped up, much quicker than a vampire’s heart normally beat. “I’ve got to go take care of some things.”

“What trouble? What are you talking about?” Milo questioned, and his voice raised an octave, the way it did when he was nervous. When he had first turned, I had been afraid he would lose some of his human traits, but for the most part, they seemed intact.

Ezra exchanged a look with Mae, debating how much he should tell us, but she shook her head noncommittally. Jack had dropped the rope, and Matilda kept pushing it against his hand to get him to play with her again, but he ignored her. His gaze was firmly fixed on Ezra, and he was starting to get an idea of what this was all about, and his eyes hardened.