Growing Pains Keeping Me Up At Night - Chapter 1 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Kira

The door to the playroom opened with a slam to the adjacent wall that made Kira jolt, the book in her lap slipping to the floor with a clatter. She glared up at her intruder as she swiped it up from the ground.

Aiden stood over her with a condescending smirk. It pulled his mouth slightly open on one side to show a flash of perfect, sharp, white canine. Intimidating and daring. Kira gave him a scowl in return. She hated when he used his vampire speed around her, it wasn’t fair. Her eyes had never been able to follow so much as his blur.

She adjusted herself back into the chair with her book perched on her knees, ready to ignore him full-force, but he snatched it from her like the crack of a whip and held it aloft, upside-down.

“Why do you read this crap?” he sneered.

“There’s nothing wrong with Percy Jackson,” she argued, although even to her own ears it was clear she didn’t have the energy to duke it out with him right now.

Aiden scoffed. “It’s for kids.”

“I don’t know why you think I’d take hot book takes from someone who can’t read.” She pushed herself up but he refused to back away, forcing her to press her chest to his when she stood. She glared up at him. “Give it back and go away.”

“Or what?” That confident half-grin again, creating a heat that caused her emotions to boil. All that fuelled her ability to retaliate to his teasing these days was her barely contained emotional storm. It wasn’t without many attempts to restrain herself, she just felt so… sensitive lately.

If you asked Kira what Aiden was to her she would say a menace. If you asked her mother, she would say her ‘god-brother’, a term that came from their mothers calling each other ‘comadre’. His mother had started it when they were babies, she said it was a Dominican thing. It was pretty much the only Spanish Kira heard spoken in the house these days. As they had gotten older, Aiden had stuck with English and only spoke a little Spanish with his mother, and usually in private. He still had the slightest of lilts to his speech though, a lighter version of his mother’s accent.

Technically, they were second cousins: her father was the cousin of Aiden’s father. They weren’t blood-related, though, Kira was adopted. Most importantly, her mother was best friends with his mother, and that was the real reason they grew up together. Otherwise, Kira’s side of the family might have been forced from the main house for not being a direct relation of the new clan head: Elijah Bonnet, Aiden’s father. At least, that’s the story her mother told.

Kira liked to think that having known each other most of their lives that she knew how to handle Aiden, but then he would come within a hundred metres of her and she would be reminded that since hitting adulthood he was a force of nature, like a hurricane or an earthquake, and no one could truly control or predict what he did anymore.

He was still standing over her, waiting for her response. What was her response to “or what?” He was bigger, faster and stronger than her. And that was before his vampirism solidified his body.

“Or…” There was one option that never failed but Kira didn’t like to use it. She glared into his sea-green eyes for a few more moments. His brows were raised in a way that made his shiny marble-like eyes even rounder, full of mischief. No, full of trouble. “Or I’m telling your mum.” She raised her own dark brows and leaned back a little to cross her arms over her chest victoriously.

It may be a cheap and easy shot, but she was tired of bickering with him. At least for today… maybe tomorrow she would have it in her to argue for hours on end like he clearly wanted.

He tilted his head to one side, then the other. His lips scrunched to one side as he pretended to consider her threat before his shit-eating grin slid back into place and he shoved her back into the seat of the armchair, using both his enhanced speed and strength to take her by surprise. Kira yelped loudly when her back hit the chair and then again softly when he suddenly boxed her in, leaning over her and planting his hands either side of her head.

“Go and tell her, then.” He had her trapped beneath him, unable to leave and tattle.

“I can leave any time I want,” she lied.

“Go ahead. I dare you.”

They stared each other down for a few seconds. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled against her skin as though picking up the current that his body was feeding into hers.

Kira shoved at one arm. “Let go!” she huffed. “Get out of my way!”

Not even a buckle at the elbow, his form held completely firm.

Aiden’s grin lowered to her. “Ask me nicely,” he breathed against her.

“Fuck off,” she grunted.

“If that’s how you want it, I can stay here all day. Makes no difference to me. In fact, I enjoy being able to do this-” He slid his face to the side of hers and nipped at her ear, a small pinch of pain but she ignored it. He would love it if she made a fuss. And she would love it too much if he did it again. “-and this.” He dragged his open mouth down her neck and her breath shuddered just a little, she knew he heard it, you didn’t need enhanced hearing when you were that close.

She kept her eyes up, refusing to let him try and make eye contact with her, she knew exactly how pleased he would look. That cocky womaniser grin and raised-brow combo that he aimed at her every time she let slip a gasp or a whimper. Every time her thighs trembled just a little or her body jerked from his ministrations. It didn’t happen often, she liked to think she had almost complete control of her own body. When it did… that self-congratulating look was almost painful to see, rubbing salt into an already gaping wound.

Their relationship had changed a lot after Aiden’s body completed its vampiric transition. It signalled that he was fully grown now. And that he no longer had any of the human traits his maternal genes gifted him at birth. Unlike vampires that were created through a bite, the old-school horror flick way, Aiden was born one. Just like his father and his father before him. Aiden’s body behaved like a human one, with some added abilities, until he finished growing. Once he had reached adulthood, his body froze forever.

The night his heart had stopped beating, he had appeared in Kira’s room. She’d held him in her bed until the sun came up. Something shifted that night. A tension had grown between them by morning. Suddenly, they weren’t children anymore, and his presence affected her in ways she could never have considered before.

Kira told herself she was physically attracted to him and that was it. They were adults, it was normal. It also wouldn’t be an issue as long as she kept it to herself.

The day Aiden caught on to her attraction was probably the worst of Kira’s life so far.

He had always messed with her. From the day her parents brought her home to the Bonnet mansion he had played pranks on her, teased her, prodded and poked at her. A rambunctious, mildly spoilt, little boy that she grew more and more fond of with every passing day in her new family.

It was intended to be a harmless scare prank. He had been crouched behind the door of the kitchen, ready to pounce and make her scream.

Kira trotted down the three steps into the room, blissfully unaware of his presence until she was within touching distance of the table in the centre. He leapt forward with a “boo!” that sent her half a foot in the air with fright before spinning to face him. He was laughing hard and put his hands either side of her nonchalantly. Palms to the table behind her, his chest inches from her own.

At first, she could pass off her erratic heartbeat as being from the prank, but when her panting had returned to normal breaths her heart still pounded and her cheeks still burned. He leant closer, blinking curiously. He smelled way too good.

Kira pulled back, her breath catching in her chest. He pushed forward again, pressing their foreheads together but she refused to look up at him, she suddenly couldn’t breathe.

“You okay?” His voice was still light and a little teasing. She kept her eyes down.

“Y-yeah.” She finally managed to let out her breath and gave his chest a push, trying to squeeze her way out from under him. He grabbed her arm and pulled her flush against him.

“Then why are you acting weird?”

She was overly aware of his other hand sliding closer along the edge of the table. She knew she was blushing and the humiliation only made it worse, her cheeks burning all the way to her chin.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled awkwardly.

“Your face is red.” He released her arm to pinch at her cheek. “And your heart’s beating really fast.” He added and his fingers trailed down to the soft skin just beneath her jaw. A swallowed whimper still made a muffled noise and she tried to turn her face. He snatched her chin and tilted it up to point at him, forcing her to look into his blue-green eyes.

The hand that had been resting on the table pressed into the small of her back. If she weren’t so mortified she could have stayed like that forever, pressed against him with his hands holding her face and back.

Before she could decide what to do, though, he pulled her chin forward and pressed their lips together. She gasped softly against him, her eyelids fluttering, and he took the opportunity to poke just the tip of his hot tongue into her mouth, eliciting a quiet moan that Kira had tried so hard to hold back. Her legs trembled dangerously, threatening to let her drop against him. The shame of her own body’s reaction was almost painful, she couldn’t even enjoy the incredible feeling of his strong hands holding her and his warm mouth dominating hers. Well, maybe she enjoyed it a little.

Reality had to come back with a slap eventually, though, and when he pulled away every molecule of oxygen seemed to disappear in that instant. He stepped back. She raised her eyes slowly. His face was coated in an expression she didn’t recognise on him at the time: a combination of mirth and conceit. That was when she knew he had just been playing with her, toying with her body to see if she would react. And like an idiot, she had. A moment of silence passed between them. He looked her up and down, dragging his eyes over her with raised brows and the cocky smirk that soon became a resident of his lips, and left without another word.

Back to reality, his breath was running along her exposed neck in deep and slow puffs. He always had minty breath. Vampires didn’t get morning mouth-stink, and they brushed for the sake of the routine they learned growing up. She turned her head away even further though, acting like his mouth was emitting the odour of a thousand fish.

She kicked her feet out, hitting hard skin hopelessly, but he let himself rock back as though she had the strength to make him.

“You’re no fun when you don’t play along.”

“I never play along,” she replied, seething.

He scoffed. They both knew she was lying. Those few times when she slipped up and let him get to her, sank into his touches, whimpered under his lips, that was what he called ‘playing along.’

And every time she played along she felt herself sink deeper into the hole she was fighting to escape from every single day.

He left in a blur of dark hair and tanned skin. Kira slumped in the plush, antique armchair and let her book fall to the floor again.