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“And did you see the Baron’s face?” Alex giggles, collapsing backwards onto the bed.
“Such an expression of horror, shock!” Esmeralda exclaims, just as triumphant and giddy. “I shall treasure it always. Oh, my dear…”
Before Alex can blink she’s scooped off the plush mattress, back to being upright and wobbly on borrowed heels. Esmeralda grips her steady, and Alex knows what crime she’s committed even before Esmeralda parts those red-painted lips to scold her.
“Oh, right!” She glances down at herself. “Rule number one of the vampire ball: don’t damage the dress.” She takes a moment to be proud of herself for avoiding any blood or dust splatter in the massacre downstairs, then hastily smooths down the velvet covering her hips. “No creases.”
Esmeralda hums, satisfied. “I did tell you, I would hate to send Igor to the village for dry-cleaning again so soon. Especially after tonight’s clean-up.”
It had been Esmeralda’s idea, but really Alex had sparked it. After all: vampire slaying was a promising career, and moving into a known vampire castle to date the known vampires within was putting a real damper on it.
So she’d suggested, ever-so-casually: “Any vampires you want getting rid of? Rivals? Just annoying?”
To which Esmeralda had looked thoughtful, made her usual approving hum, and promptly organised a ball of guests personally despised by her and Ybbob.
It was possibly the best date Alex had ever been on.
Esmeralda crooks a finger under Alex’s chin, drawing her into a kiss Alex suspects might include addictive venom of some sort. “You look ravishing, my dear. You must let me dress you up more often.”
“Even with the creases?” Alex says, all innocence.
“There shall be no creases.” Esmeralda’s eyes flash like she’s attempting a mild hypnosis, the cool brown of her irises momentarily scarlet.
God, dating a vampire is hot.
“Get this dress off me, then,” Alex suggests, with a quirk of her mouth. “Or it’s gonna get pretty creased soon.”
It’s one of the very few dresses of Esmeralda’s she was able to be laced into, and as a result there are ribbons galore. Alex is not getting this thing off by herself unless she’s allowed one of her knives, and those are all currently being swept up by Igor in the ballroom as those stabbed crumble to dust.
But she has Esmeralda, who sweeps her across the master bedroom to the floor-length mirror in its antique frame. She positions Alex to face the mirror - vampire strength? Hot - and her slender fingers pluck the first of the strings criss-crossing Alex’s back. Before she guides it loose, however, she tucks her chin to Alex’s shoulder, gazing at their reflection.
Or rather, Alex’s lone reflection.
Alex strikes a pose, one hand on her hip, the other reaching up to muss her hair. It’s been growing while she’s in Transylvania, creeping to a point just below her ears. “Like what you see?”
“Mmm.” Esmeralda murmurs. “Very much.” Alex can’t see it in the reflection but she feels it, the touch of lips to her neck.
Alex likes it too. She’s too used to her usual uniform of flannel, jeans, and converse to change her style, but it’s a striking contrast to the way she looks tonight. Esmeralda’s dress, while it fits, is tight - clinging to her curves all the right ways, and all that. The neckline dips to her breastbone, the emerald pendant against her bare skin acting both as a match to the green of the dress itself and an invitation.
No-one downstairs would have thought twice about the iron knives and stakes hidden in the ballroom, not with a bubbly American girl around to display so much neck.
With her speed and skill, Esmeralda could make quick work of the dress. She doesn’t. She takes her time, unveils each new strip of Alex’s skin like those really annoying people who open birthday gifts without tearing the paper.
Alex doesn’t mind, though. She keeps her gaze steady on her own reflection, delighting in watching her own involuntary shivers. She doesn’t need to look over her shoulder to know Esmeralda is equally enjoying the experience, if the gentle nosing along her neck and collarbone is anything to go by.
Too soon the strings are undone, the pressure around Alex’s ribcage easing. She exaggerates her breathing, draws attention to the heave of her chest the way the vampires like.
Esmeralda’s hands skim around her sides, palms resting just below Alex’s breasts. Alex purposefully doesn’t look down, keeps her gaze trained on the mirror.
Neither of them move. It’s like they’re playing chicken.
Alex gives in first, with a rumbling groan as she spins around and throws herself at her vampire girlfriend.
There’s the hint of fangs in the first kiss, which is always promising - Esmeralda caught off guard is Alex’s favourite version of her, the way she’ll freeze like she’s rebooting. Indeed, it takes all of three seconds before she grips Alex’s shoulders and pushes her back, like she’d momentarily forgotten what they were doing.
“Off first!” She commands with the familiar flash of her iris. The red matches her lipstick, barely smeared from Alex jumping her. “You are still in the dress!”
“If that’s what’s stopping-” Delicacy forgotten, Alex bends down to grab fistfuls of velvet. The pendant swings, the bosom of the dress hanging loose.
“Ah!” Esmeralda swats her away, taking up the material herself. “Gentle.”
“That’s not what you said last night,” Alex says, before she can stop herself.
When Esmeralda laughs, she laughs like a dinnerbell. Inviting. Promising. “Are all American women as hungry as you?”
“We’re thirsty,” Alex counters as Esmeralda draws the dress up her thighs and hips. “Like a vampire who’s visited Antarctica on holiday, and returned to an airport full of delayed flights.”
The dress gets tugged over her chest and her world goes temporarily dark before it’s pulled off entirely.
“You have such a strange way with words,” Esmeralda says, with a quirk of her mouth and the hint of a canine. She shakes the dress and drapes it over the ornamental chair they have in the corner of the master bedroom, for reasons Alex is still unsure of. “And now. Bed.”
Alex shimmies out of her heels and manages three steps before she remembers Esmeralda is still fully dressed herself. She turns on her heel. “D’you want some help-?”
Esmeralda laughs and touches a fingertip to the neckline of her slinky maroon number. So fast that Alex would have missed it had she blinked, Esmeralda’s nail slices a neat line through the fabric from chest to thighs.
“Oh,” Alex says, heart thudding and blood roaring in her ears. “You could’ve just done that to me, y’know.”
Esmeralda shimmies her arms from her flowing sleeves and steps from what remains of her dress, a study in grace. “Now,” she says, low like a purr. “Where would be the fun in that?”
...
Dusk has not yet fallen when Alex grasps Esmeralda’s wrist, halting her from exiting the bed.
“Wait.” Alex scuttles upright while Esmeralda raises a quizzical brow. “Wait. Just one-” She swings herself off the bed herself, heading to the pile in the corner that she’s chosen as her own storage space. A quick rummage later, and-
“Here!” She thrusts the flannel into Esmeralda’s arms. “Put it on. Instead of your usual gown.”
Esmeralda tilts her head. “I thought you liked my gown?”
“Oh, I do!” Alex rushes out in assurance. “I really like your gown.” Esmeralda’s ivory dressing gown was silky-smooth and left little to the imagination, like a dapple of sunlight. Every evening, like clockwork, Esmeralda would begin the night by sliding it on and sitting at the vanity to brush her hair one hundred times. “An old habit,” she’d explained, when Alex asked. “I must keep humanity somehow, as the saying goes.”
“Then why…?” Esmeralda holds up the flannel with forefinger and thumb, nose crinkling like she hadn’t willingly pulled the same shirt off Alex more times than they could count.
“It’s like.” Alex puts her hands on her hips, chewing the inside of her mouth. “Like, a boyfriend thing.”
Esmeralda raises a perfect eyebrow.“Was not the point that we were not boyfriends?” Nevertheless, she shakes out the flannel - her and her thing about creases - and slides it on.
Esmeralda’s dress was tight on Alex. Alex’s unbuttoned flannel hangs loose on Esmeralda. Alex’s mouth goes dry.
Esmeralda reaches to the nape of her neck, drawing her long hair from the collar like a blonde waterfall. “Well?”
Alex nods abruptly. She’s glad Ybbob left before the ball last night; she wants this sight all to herself. Another part of her heart lost to Transylvania. “Yeah. You should, uh - wear my clothes more often.”
“Oh.” Esmeralda stands. She’s only a little shorter than Alex, so the flannel only falls a little longer down her thighs. It’s still everything. “That, I understand.” She settles at the vanity and reaches for her hairbrush, casting a smile back at Alex. “I enjoyed dressing you up in my things, too.”