Even The Vampires Get The Blues

'Well… I started to once, with my last boyfriend, Carl, but I zoned out almost immediately, and that evidently ruined the whole experience for Carl so I never tried it again.'

'Sam?'

'Hmm?' I said, flicking my tongue across the end of his penis. I smiled at the zing of pleasure my touch sent shimmering through Paen.

'Let's not talk about your boyfriends now.'

'OK. But one of them kept talking about me doing this…' I snagged my purse from the desk and dug out a tin of breath mints, popping a couple in my mouth. 'This isn't too much, is it? I've always wanted to try this.'

Paen's eyes grew big as I crunched the mints loudly, licking my lips as the minty sensation of a cold burn made my mouth tingle.

'You don't think you're going to—dear lord, you are. And it's your first time… good god, woman!'

'Less talking,' I said, swirling my mint-coated tongue along the underside of his penis. 'More moaning.'

And oh, how he moaned. He sucked in huge quantities of air as I took him into my mouth again, so caught up in what he was feeling, of the added sensitivity the mintyness brought to the experience, that it was almost as if I was the recipient.

I laved the entire length of his shaft with my tongue. Paen's entire body trembled as the air hit his wet flesh, his eyes rolling back in his head when I clamped my fingers around the base and concentrated on a particularly sensitive spot on the underside. 'This is amazing. So this is what you feel when we have sex? It's so different than what I feel, but I have to say, it's making me incredibly aroused. What happens if I try this?'

He lasted a whole second before he jerked me upward, spinning me around so I faced the desk, shredding off my underwear and unhooking my bra before I could even blink.

'This is what happens,' he growled, bending me over the desk, his knee nudging my legs apart. I gasped from the dual sensations of the cold wood of the desk as my sensitive, tight breasts hit it, and the burning brand that thrust into my waiting flesh.

'Paen!' I shrieked, clutching the table, knocking the phone off as my body was rammed forward. 'Condom?'

'Don't have one,' he growled, pulling back. 'Should I stop—'

'Never mind, we'll risk it this oooonce…!' My sentence ended on a slight scream as he lunged forward into me again.

'Too hard?' he asked, pausing.

'No! Harder!'

He grunted a happy reply, his hips flexing, his fingers digging into my thighs.

My flesh made a squeaky noise on the polished wood as he pounded into me. The pretty wire flower- embossed in-box full of letters and receipts slid off the desk, bursting into a shower of paper as it fell to the floor.

'Oh, my god, yes! More!' I gasped, arms flailing for something to hold on to as Paen continued to make my eyes cross with ecstasy. The wire flower pen holder that matched the inbox (both gifts from Clare) went flying, pens scattering everywhere. 'More!'

'I'll give you more,' he grunted, grabbing my hips and pulling upward to alter the angle of penetration. A small pad of sticky notes trembled on the lip of the desk, then fell to the floor just as I started to moan non-stop. He was deep inside me, hard and hot and invasive, but at the same time, so much a part of me that I wasn't sure which emotions, which sensations were mine, and which were his.

'Christ, you're tight,' he groaned, thrusting forward.

'I Kegel. A lot. Oh, yes, right there, oh my goooooooooo…' My inner muscles, honed by years of doing Kegel exercises, cramped from the attempt to keep him within their grasp. The cold burn of mint went from pleasant tingles to wildly erotic sparks of electricity that burned brightly, so brightly I thought I was going to pass out from the experience. 'No more! I changed my mind! I can't take any more!'

You can take it, he said, his voice rich with emotion. You can take this and more.

My back arched as he filled my head with the sensations he was feeling, wanting—no, needing—for him to take life from me. Our souls entwined as he shoved my hair aside, baring the back of my neck.

Please, god, do it, I begged, on the verge of mind-numbing rapture. His teeth pierced my skin, the sudden sharp pain merging with the pleasure the rest of his body was providing both of us as he pumped into me. Light, silver, pure light blossomed behind my eyes as I gave in to the sensations we shared, spiraling us both into an orgasm of blinding magnitude.

'It's a good… thing I have a… strong heart,' I gasped long, long minutes later, from where I lay panting on top of Paen after he had collapsed into a chair. His chest, slicked with perspiration, rose and fell in a ragged rhythm beneath my still quivering body. 'Because otherwise, I'd be dead in a week.'

'It's good that you're immortal, then,' he said without opening his eyes, his head lolling exhaustedly against the high back of the chair. I pressed a little kiss to the pulse that beat so wildly in his neck, freezing as what he said made a couple of synapses stand up and take notice.

'Bloody hell!'

His eyes opened to look at me with curiosity.

The enormity of what I'd done sank in at that moment. 'I'm not… I'm not immortal anymore.'

'What?' The word shot out of his mouth in a manner that might be said to be yelling. I matched the sudden frown that appeared between his eyebrows.

'I'm not immortal anymore. I used that to barter with the seer.'

He stared at me in disbelief for a moment. 'You saw a seer after I explicitly told you not to?'

'No, I saw the seer after you unreasonably ordered me not to. The difference should be apparent, even to you.'

'Unreasonably? Is it unreasonable for a man to expect his Beloved to listen to him once in a while?'

I pushed back so I could really glare at him. 'You de-Beloveded me! You told me you didn't want me anymore—oh, not in so many words, but you know what I mean.'

'You used your immortality—the one thing I could give you—in exchange for information?' he asked, disbelief warring with pain in his eyes.

I rubbed my thumb along his jaw, sharing the anguish he felt. 'You said we had no future together. I thought there was no reason for me to live forever if the man I loved didn't want me to share eternity with him.'

'Oh, Sam—' Regret filled him, spilling over onto me. 'I never meant for you to be hurt. I just… I didn't…'

'I know,' I said, kissing his nose. 'You just were a little commitment-shy. What changed that? It happened so fast—one minute you were yelling, the next everything went flying and we were using my breasts to polish the desk.'

He groaned. 'You're going to force me into a detailed discussion of my emotional state, aren't you?'

'Yup. It's every woman's right as soon as she knows she's snagged a man. The sooner you start, the easier it'll get. Now spill.'

'I stopped pretending you weren't important,' he said, trying to look pathetic. I kissed him just because he was so cute. 'When you ran off earlier, there was a moment when you passed through me. I felt just how much I'd hurt you—and how much you loved me. No one but my family has loved me, Sam. I thought I didn't need it. I realized then that I was wrong.'

'It takes a big man to admit he's wrong,' I teased, squirming against his penis. My tone was light, but I let him feel how much joy his words brought to me.

His hands tightened on my hips. 'Stop distracting me or I won't tell you the last bit.'

I stopped and looked contrite.

'I told myself the entire time you were gone that I was just waiting around for you to return so I could fire you, and go back to my life. But then you walked in looking so warm, and beautiful, and sexy—and all I could think about was how right it was that you were here with me.'

Tears formed in my eyes. 'Oh, Paen, that's just about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. That's so