Sex, Lies, and Vampires

"You said you had spoken to Melissande, so I assumed you knew he was my son. As for the other, you smell different to Damian. The blood of a Beloved is poison to all but the Dark One she is Joined with. That is what Damian is reacting to."

I stared in open-mouthed surprise as Adrian tucked his satchel behind a chair and peeled off his duster. "Are you saying that to every Dark One I smell funny?"

He nodded.

"Does Allie smell funny to you?"

"Yes."

"Like what?"

"Something rancid."

"She does? Are you sure? Oh! That means I smell the same way to Christian! I do not smell rancid!" I whapped Adrian across the arm. He just looked at me. "Rancid? Really? Like what? Old milk? Stale bread?"

"More like something dead that has lain in the street for several weeks."

I goggled at him as he pulled his sweater off. "I smell like road kill?"

He looked up at the rising note of hysteria that I was all to aware streaked my voice. "Only to others, Hasi. To me you smell…"

"What?" I asked as he struggled to find the right words. "Sludge? Bloated whale carcass? A sewage plant?"

Like the sun warming a field of wildflowers. Like the rarest and most exotic of spices, tantalizing and teasing my senses until you threaten to overwhelm me. Like a costly wine aged and mellowed such that it warms the blood and lifts the spirit. You smell of hope and love and life, Hasi, and I do not want to spend even a minute of my life without you.

Oh, Adrian! I sniffled as I threw myself into his open arms. That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. You're going to make me… hey! I heard you before I was touching you! My mind is back to normal!

He scooped me up and carried me over to the bed, his eyes indigo with desire as he set me down in the center, pausing only long enough to strip off his remaining clothing before he lay next to me. I knew your powers would return, Hasi. But I am glad you are no longer worried about it. Now perhaps I will have your full attention as I prove to you that I am not to be taken lightly.

I squirmed out of my shoes, socks, and pants as his hands swept under my sweater, pushing it up, tugging it off with one hand while using the other to caress one of my breasts. I shivered with the feeling of his hot breath as it teased the other. "I never, ever doubted your skills at that. Where lovemaking is concerned, you're top of the heap. If I had the power, I'd formally crown you King of Hoocheewawa."

And you, my beloved Hasi, are the Queen of Seduction. He licked the underside of my breast with long, sweeping strokes of his tongue. I shivered again, the cold air on my wet breast mingling with the fire of need that he generated with the simplest of touches. I read with perfect clarity his dark, erotic intentions, and despite my body's instantaneous approval of said intentions, I felt obliged by the responsibilities thrust upon us to offer a token protest.

"Christian said he'd be waiting for us in his library so we could make plans about Saer and Sebastian," I said on a gasp as his mouth closed briefly over a taut nipple that wanted badly for him to do just that. My back arched as he paid his respects to the other breast before he kissed a hot, wet path southward. "Shouldn't we… shouldn't we… oh, good Lord, Adrian, that's got to be illegal!"

No, it is not illegal, he said, his mind filled with arousal and need and hunger that boiled into me until it swept me up as well. I accepted it and returned it with all the love I had, reveling in our joining. His tongue flicked over the tender flesh that protected my secrets, sending me spiraling toward heaven. He turned his head slightly so his lips caressed the pulse of my femoral artery, his stubbly cheek pressed against me in such a way that it provided a wonderful abrasion that picked up where his mouth had left off. But this is, Hasi.

His teeth pierced the flesh of my inner thigh, the momentary pain making me gasp as it melted into a profound pleasure that joined with the erotic feel of his whisker stubble brushing back and forth on my sensitive parts as he drank deeply of my blood.