Our Little Secret

Author's Note: Spoilers. No this would never happen but that blood exchange scene in Bone Crossed was freaking charged I wrote two fics from it and this is the first thing I imagined when listening to this scene. The audio books are amazing!

Somehow, Stefan, my one and only vampire friend, and I, the only Walker I knew of, kept finding a need to exchange blood. The first time had been when we were trapped by a demon-ridden baby vampire. This time we were trying to keep an older vamp from controlling me. The reasons were justified in both instances, but that didn't make the situation any less intimate. He was the only vampire I would ever trust to do something like this with. It didn't help that he had just whispered in my ear about how his marks wouldn't show- like a particularly good lover who knew how to please a woman without leaving hickeys behind. His sultry whisper had hit me to my core and I was still a little unsettled by the intimacy in his voice.

Now I sat in his lap, drinking blood from his wrist. He had turned his face from me so I couldn't see his expression but the noise he had made when I started to drink made me pause and look anyway. His face showed pure bliss. I didn't take it personally- surely he felt this way every time he fed, or else he wouldn't have hidden his face from me so as not to disturb me. The problem was I wasn't disturbed but I was definitely bothered in an entirely different way.

I became intimately aware of my position of sitting on his lap. As I resumed feeding, my mind wandered into a scenario in which we both fed from one another. I could imagine myself, back pressed to the front of his chest so he could feed from my neck while I fed from his wrist. But with pleasure in the mix, my mind also pictured us naked and me riding him.

"Impractical," he murmured and I froze. He couldn't really read my mind, could he?

"I," Stefan hesitated as if unsure about whether he wanted to continue or not. "I can read your mind- but only while you feed from me." He said the last statement all in a rush, as if worried I would misunderstand him.

I stiffened, shame washing over me. I hadn't meant anything by the vision. It had just been an interesting observation of how one could mix sex and a blood exchange.

"It's alright, Mercy," Stefan spoke slowly. "You are correct. That is a common position between vampires who have no fear of nicking a vein and causing their partner to bleed out by accident."

An interesting thought had just occurred to me. "You feeding from me could've been more pleasant, couldn't it?" I asked.

He glanced at me, a small smile upon his lips. "Yes," he said simply. "I am very good with my hands… and other extremities. You would have felt little or no pain while under such care."

"Have you had fantasies about me?"

The smile disappeared and he finally faced me with a steady gaze. "Do you really wish to know?" he asked, his voice soft as velvet.

I had, after all, just been caught in my own. I moved my eyes down to his chin so there would be no risk of compulsion and nodded.

He searched my face. He didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, with reluctance, he admitted to it with a quiet, "Yes."

I thought about that for a moment. It would make sense for him to view every person he encountered in such a way since we were all food and entertainment to him. Somehow I got the impression it was more than that when it came to me. Not that I thought myself special or anything, but I just had a strange feeling...

He said slowly, interrupting my thoughts. "Do you wish me to show you, as well?"

I blinked. I had forgotten he could invade my mind. I guess it wouldn't be considered an invasion this time if I gave my permission. I swallowed and then said, "Yes, if you don't mind."

"Look into my eyes," he whispered.

I trusted him, so I did.

The fantasies blurred past me, a different one in focus every few moments. Stefan had considered this longer than I realized. One image showed him holding me still as he fed from my neck, but my face showed only bliss as he moved inside me, our bodies bare and joined. In another he distracted me with his hands instead as he fed. I could see his thumb rotating around my pressure point as the fingers of one hand moved inside of me while the other was fisted in my hair.

More fantasies of similar situations flew by until new ones emerged that involved only lovemaking and no feeding. There were more of these than the former kind. One showed him feasting upon my most delicate flesh as I cried out again and again. In another I was tied up and happily helpless as he teased and tormented me until finally joining with me, thrusting inside of me as I came.

Those fantasies gave way to others, somehow more private than the others. The need and desire to feed and fuck were completely understandable. But in the next visions we did ridiculously adorable things, like snuggle on the couch to watch Scooby Doo or kiss slowly under the moon, or hunt prey together in the forest. There was so much love and devotion in them it took my breath away.

The fantasies stopped, though I somehow knew it wasn't because those were all of them. His face was completely blank. I wanted to ask about the things I had seen but it felt wrong to speak about them out loud. I had the distinct feeling he hadn't intended for me to see all that I had.

Stefan released a shaky breath. "The urge to seduce-to compel- is a strong one. If I wanted to I could have you in all of those ways and you wouldn't fight me at all. But that is not the same thing as consent and I would never do that against your will."

I was still blown away by the emotions I had gotten from what he had shown me. I had known, sort of, how he felt. It had been as obvious as how Adam and Sam felt and I had ignored all of their feelings equally until I had been recently forced to deal with the wolves. Even now, I didn't think I needed to have a conversation with Stefan about it. I had asked and he had shown. He hadn't asked for anything to come from it.

Not that I could have even if I wasn't mated to Adam and made pack. I was broken thanks to Tim and a Fae cup that had stolen my free will for a short time. I also viewed sex as something serious between two people, not something you just did for fun.

I swallowed. "There are a good number of reasons why those would never become a reality." He nodded. He knew at least one of those reasons was his own fault. I hadn't forgiven Stefan for considering two people I had saved to be expendable. Necessary sacrifice for my own safety or not. Even if I forgave I would never forget the way vampires viewed the people who were unimportant to them.

But in every other way, Stefan was different from any vampire I had ever met. He didn't need a vehicle since he could teleport, but he had a van he had painted to look just like the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo. I had even given him a giant Scooby Doo doll to ride around shotgun with him. He knew ASL for unfathomable reasons and had used it to argue with a child about whether Scooby Doo or Dragon Ball Z was a better show. He had referred to himself as more a Spike than a Buffy, to say he was more villain than hero; as if forgetting how Spike had earned his own soul back through his own good deeds.

He had lamented the creature he had become.

I felt a lot of conflicting things. But right now, he was just my friend and we were mutually helping one another. All of the people he could have depended on for such release had been murdered by Marsilia. That was also my fault. He had put them in danger to hide the fact that I had killed Andre.

"I obviously can't touch you and you can't touch me… but as far as anyone knows, my thoughts are my own. Also, I cannot control what you do to yourself while I feed from you."

He stared at me.

I grinned and leaned forward to lick at his arm again, imagining myself licking a very different part of him. Stefan groaned, not at all in pain. I felt something pulse beneath me as his arousal became more apparent.

I pictured a different scenario: me drinking from his neck as I rode him, moaning softly in his ear. In reality he stroked my back and I pictured him stroking something else as I fed in case he hadn't understood my intentions. His hand stilled on my back.

"Do it," I murmured.

His hand moved down until it rested on his lap. I pictured him bending me over and taking me from behind in quick thrusts while his hands wandered all over my front. I felt his hand twitch behind me and slowly start to move along himself over his pants.

A few more fantasies later and he was out, stroking himself to an impending completion as I moaned into his arm, no longer feeding, but still stuck in my own visions.

He pressed a different fantasy into my mind: him pressing me up against a wall, pinning me so the top halves were still while our bottoms ground against one another in slick heat as he fed.

I breathed heavily, my real body shuddering under the weight of completion just from having imagined it over and over. Stefan stiffened behind me as his orgasm rocked through him. His head lolled back in relaxation.

I didn't want to move, but I had to be sure nothing had gotten on me. I could explain away the different occurrences that would lead me to smell like vampire and masturbation but vampire and semen? Not so much.

I kissed his arm softly over the wound and shimmied myself into the seat next to him. I climbed into the front seat and rifled around in the glove compartment until I found the fast food napkins standard to every vehicle in existence. Without looking I held them out behind me. He stroked my hand with his previously injured one before taking them from me.

"Mercedes Thompson," Stefan said, finally, sounding far better than he had since he landed in my trailer half-dead. "You could tempt a saint straight into Satan's arms."

I smiled and he continued. "If we ever have to do another blood exchange I hope it it just as… entertaining… as this one."

I barked out a laugh. I doubted there would ever be a repeat performance of this but I knew this was one small part I would keep away from Adam in my retelling of tonight's adventures. Stefan finished cleaning himself and left to drop the napkin in a trash can outside the rest area. I went in to clean myself up, take a quick pee, and do another check, just in case.

Once satisfied that I was in the clear and that I didn't smell suspicious, I made my way back to the van. Stefan had lowered or opened every window that could be. His eyes glittered when he saw me and I grinned. Not a drop had made it anywhere on my or the van and by the time we would get home it would be completely aired out.

"I think it would be best if this remained… confidential," Stefan said.

"Yes," I said, my voice heavy with sated pleasure. "Our little secret."

A little secret we might one day exploit again. Most likely not, but it would be something pleasant to recall later when I was alone and needed… inspiration. He'd given me plenty of material to work with when I wanted to please myself.

As Stefan started the van, I leaned back the car seat and reflected on the day. I had made decisions that would impact my life and other's lives but it had all been my choice to make. No one would die because of them and no one but the two of us would ever know the full extent of what had happened. As the Bible says, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The day had been evil enough and I had found a way to make it a little less so. Whatever tomorrow's troubles would be, they could wait until tomorrow.

Having decided that, I fell into an easy sleep the rest of the ride home.