Much Ado About Vampires

Stop it! I yelled at my little devil. Stop pointing things out like that! For god’s sake, look what you made me do—I had sex with a vampire!

“You don’t have to say the word “vampire” like it’s revolting. We prefer ‘Dark One,’ anyway,” he said, withdrawing from me with an audibly wet noise that had me wincing in embarrassment.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “I was a little bit . . . enthusiastic.”

To my utter surprise—and inner delight—he grinned as he tucked himself away. “You weren’t the only one who was enthusiastic, querida.”

I bent to retrieve my underwear and jeans, not able to look him in the eye after my wholly irresponsible and completely uncharacteristic behavior, still a little weirded out by his choosing querida as a term of endearment.

It was clear he didn’t understand that I was the woman who had been killed, hadn’t put together the pieces of the puzzle I’d so disjointedly spilled. And although god knew I was physically attracted to him, the last thing I wanted was to be in Jacintha’s position—bound to him forever.

Why not? the devil inside me asked before I hushed it up, worried Alec might overhear it. You’re here. You’re lonely. He’s in pain. You could comfort him. He’d be grateful for that. He might even come to love you.

I closed my eyes against the pain that thought brought with it. I didn’t want to be merely a convenience—I wanted a man who would choose me because of who I was, not because of some connection that was lost several hundred years before, and certainly not because of one random act of sex.

Oh, dear god, that was the single most erotic, most fulfilling experience of my life. But as the endorphins faded, the thought returned to me that I had had sex with a vampire. Jas would never let me live that down if she ever heard of it.

“Who is Jas?”

“Jacintha. My sister. And stop reading my mind.”

“Stop projecting into my mind if you don’t want me to read your thoughts. Jacintha, eh? The one who is a . . .” I felt the brush of his mind against mine for a moment. “A Beloved? Interesting. I do not know this Avery Scott, but I do not get to Britain much.”

“I object to you just marching into my head whenever you like,” I told him, my hands on my hips now that I was decent again. “I don’t think it’s polite at all.”

“That fact that I’ve marked you isn’t right, either, but that doesn’t seem to concern you.” He frowned at me. “Just who are you?”

“I’ve told you three times now!”

“Yes, I know your name, and I know that you’re mortal, and that you hum when you orgasm, but who are you? Why are you here, and why did you revive me?”

“I felt sorry for you, more fool me,” I said, pushing past him to glare at the gently rolling landscape of rocks, dirt, and more rocks. “I hum? Really?”

“Yes.”

“How mortifying.” It was, too. I had no idea I was a hummer.

He shrugged. “I don’t see why you’d feel that way. I think it’s charming.”

I stared over my shoulder at him. “You’re . . . you’re a strange man.”

“That’s been said before. Is that why you came on to me, because you felt sorry for me?”

“I did not come on to you! You were the one thinking all sorts of smutty thoughts about me!”

“You thought them about me, too.”

“Only because you put them in my mind! Besides, you manhandled me!”

He raised one glossy black eyebrow, looking me over from crown to toes. “If I had manhandled you, love, you wouldn’t be standing right now. I will admit to responsibility for a certain amount of what just happened, but I don’t make a habit of engaging in sexual acts with women I’ve just met.”

There was an odd sort of mental twitch, as if his words weren’t quite the truth. I tried to peer into his mind to see just what it was he was shielding from me, but I lacked the ability to just go marching into his head as he did mine.

“Well, thank you so much for making me sound like a great big ho!” I slapped his arm. “For your information, I have never, ever had sex with a man who I knew less than six weeks. Minimum! So you can just stuff that in your ‘I’m so incredibly sexy, women can’t keep their paws off me’ pipe and smoke it!”

He tipped his head to the side, a lock of his hair swinging over his brow. “Can you keep your hands off me?”

“Of course I can!” I pushed the lock of his hair back, my fingers trailing down his jaw. Just the touch of his stubble on my fingers restarted fires deep within me. “Look, we had sex, OK? It’s no big deal. I admit that it’s totally against my character to do that, and that I can’t wholly blame you for what happened, but the bottom line is that it’s never going to happen again. I don’t like you. I don’t like men who are prettier than me. And I especially don’t like bloodsuckers!”

Is that so? His mind was filled with arrogance as he pulled me up against him, his mouth like fire on mine.

I put both hands on his chest and shoved him back, slapping him before I realized what I’d done.

“Oh!” I stared at him in horror, one hand over my mouth, the other reaching out to touch his cheek. “I’m so sorry! I’ve never hit anyone before. Did I hurt you?”

Ire flashed in his gorgeous eyes for a few seconds before it faded to amusement. “Unfortunately, I have been struck many times. No, you didn’t hurt me, although I do not like to be slapped. Please refrain from doing so again.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, appalled at my behavior. “Really, I seem to be all discombobulated today. I think it’s because of this whole weirdness of being in the Akasha.”

“What did you do to end up here?” he asked, frowning again.

Even frowning, he was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

He smiled.

“Stop that!”

“You’re projecting.”

“I am not! I never project! And what did you mean, you marked me?”

He sighed. “Why won’t you ever answer a question I ask?”

“Probably because I don’t want to. Did you leave some sort of Dracula mark on my neck? I don’t remember Avery doing that, although he sure gave Jas a whole lot of hickeys that she just thought were funny.” I tried to look at my own neck, failing as I knew I would. “What sort of mark is it? Am I going to have to wear a scarf forever to keep the Van Helsings of the world from staking me so I won’t become a female vamp?”

He rolled his eyes, and just walked away.

I stared after him for a minute, not believing what I was seeing.

“Where are you going?” I finally called once I realized he was really leaving.

Away.

“Away where?”

Does it matter?

“Yes, it matters! You can’t just walk away! I gave you blood!”

Thank you for the blood. Good-bye.

I stared at his receding figure, stunned. He was going to leave me? Just leave me? After I’d given him blood and had the most erotic experience of my life, he was just going to leave?

“Hey!” I bellowed. “Alec? You’re leaving me?”

He stopped, and I knew, just knew, he was sighing.

I apologized for taking more blood than I should. I didn’t berate you for reviving me. I made you hum. What more do you want from me?

I bit back my pride and ran after him, trying to follow the same path he took around the rocks. “Well . . . geez, I don’t know. I just think that you kind of owe me, you know?”

He turned, his expression dark with anger. “For bringing me back to awareness that I am doubly damned? ” He made a low, sweeping bow, his mind filled with bitterness. “Thank you for tormenting me as no one else has