EVEN VAMPIRES GET THE BLUES

establish my footing with you. I'm a bit nervous.'

'And you are taking advantage of that fact by dictating to me a bizarre set of rules you just thought up?' Paen may have been grumbling, but he kept unbuttoning his shirt.

'Maybe. OK, I am. You got away with all that experiment stuff, so I'm going to be the rulemaker. Rule number one is that you get naked before me.'

'Do you have body issues?' he asked, shucking his shirt.

It took me a minute to answer. I clutched the malacca, mosquito-netting-wrapped bedpost to keep from running over to touch that magnificent chest again. 'Just the usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. Why, do you think I should have body issues?'

'No,' he said quickly as I looked down at myself. 'I just wondered. So many women seem to be unhappy with themselves, it's refreshing to find one who isn't.'

'Oh. Well, as far as that goes, I'd like pretty much everything improved, but since that's not going to happen without a new set of genes or a really expensive plastic surgeon, I'm resigned to living with this body.'

'It's a very nice body,' he said politely, sitting on the rhino's back to pull off his shoes and socks.

'Thank you. I wouldn't mind being taller than five foot four, having bigger boobs, and less in the hip and thigh area, but eh. I can live with myself.'

'That's a good attitude to take. I never understood women who feel driven to surgical enhancement to match a society's ideas of beauty.'

'Well, I did have my ears bobbed,' I reminded him, watching with interest as he stood back up and put his hands on his belt.

'Yes, but I assume that was to lessen the taunting that you must have undergone as a child.'

'Yup. Although my dad says he thinks my mother's pointy ears are sexy. He likes to nibble on them. Mom says that to an elf, ears are an erogenous zone, but I've never found that to be true.'

He unbuckled his belt, dropping it and the sporran on the chair. 'Would you like me to nibble on your ears?'

'They're not pointy,' I answered, a little shiver of mingled anticipation and excitement doing a number on my nervous system. 'Are you purposely stalling? Are you not dropping kilt because you suddenly realize that making love is a hundred times better than just plain old fucking?'

'No,' he said, his hand on the waistband. 'Why, are you having second thoughts?'

'You asked me that before. I said no then, if you recall.'

'That's right. Well…' He hesitated for another moment, then with a quick move unbuttoned his kilt and let it drop to the floor. He wasn't wearing underwear, something that mildly shocked me. 'There. I'm naked and you're dressed. Now it's your turn.'

'Don't rush me,' I said, not sure where to look first. Oh, OK, I looked there first, but just because I wondered. But once that curiosity was satisfied, I gave the rest of him the once-over. 'I'm guessing you have no body issues whatsoever.'

'You guess wrong. Are you going to just stand there and stare at me?' he asked, picking up his kilt and neatly folding it to sit on top of his shirt.

'I'm an elf. I'm a visual person. I like looking at you.'

'You're human,' he said, marching over to me and pulling me up against his naked body. 'You're also one of the sexiest women I've ever met, bobbed ears and all. Now take off your clothes before I rip them off.'

'Oooh. Aggression. Dominance,' I said, my breath catching as my hands slid up his ribs. He was warm, hard, and male. My senses went into overload as I rubbed myself against him, stroking all that lovely flesh.

'Does it arouse you?' he asked, nibbling a path up my neck toward my ears, his hands moving down my sides, around to my butt.

'Not really—oh dear god!'

I've had boyfriends who've done a little earlobe nibbling before my mind took its usual coital walk, but never has anyone ventured beyond earlobe territory to the rest of my ears. When Paen bit gently down on the top of my ear, I just about passed out from the bolt of arousal that zapped through me. My legs literally shook from the tremors of pleasure that were coursing down from the touch of his mouth. 'Rip them off!'

'Hmm?' Paen asked as he nibbled the top arch of my ear. My knees buckled.

'Rip my clothes off! Right now!'

He pulled back a little to look at me. 'You want me to rip your clothes off?'

'Yes! Right now! Rip them off, then ear me again!'

'I thought you didn't find aggression and dominance—'

I slapped a hand over his mouth. 'Too much talking, not enough action.'

'Very well,' he mumbled under my hand. 'But I want you to remember that the destruction of your clothes was your idea.'

In the end, he didn't rip my clothes off, although he did help me out of them in a time that would do a quick- change artist proud.

'There, I'm naked. Now do my ears again!' I demanded, lunging at him as I kicked off my underwear.

He chuckled as I turned my head for maximum ear position. 'Changed your mind about ears being sexy, have you?'

'You have no idea,' I said, quivering as his hot breath touched my ears. Something occurred to me then. As his tongue swept a long stroke up the side of my ear to the top, I sent him the sensations of sheer, utter arousal that he was generating, alongside a hunger that I hadn't known existed in me. For a moment I could feel an answering hunger in him, and then gently I was closed out, as if a door had shut between us.

Stop doing that!

'I thought you liked this?' he asked, nipping my ear. Every bone in my body turned to pudding.

I do. I mean stop shutting me out of your mind. It's not fair. I'm willing to let you into mine. I just want you to feel what I'm feeling. I want to know what it is that I do to you, too. Why won't you let me in?

He stopped nibbling long enough to take one of my hands, place it on his belly, and slide it down the intriguing trail of hair that led to points south. 'Does that answer the question of what you do to me?' he asked as my fingers closed around his erection.

Only partially, I answered, wanting more from him, but unable to express what I wanted without sounding like an idiot. I wanted to tell him that I needed some sort of emotional attachment, but I knew what his answer to that would be. And since I had agreed to his ground rules, I couldn't change them now.

I'd just have to make him realize how shallow sex was without anything behind it, my inner elf decided. The human in me wanted to point out that most men were completely and utterly happy with nothing but a physical relationship, but I squelched that thought. Paen wasn't most men. He was different, in more ways than the obvious. He was so… needy. He needed someone to show him how much more there could be to life.

'I'm going to lick you from head to toe,' he mumbled against my neck, his voice thick with desire as he backed me the couple of steps to the bed. 'Then reverse the route until I end back at those tasty little ears of yours.'

'Sounds like a plan to me,' I agreed, grabbing a foil packet from my nightstand drawer before beating back the mosquito netting and getting into the bed—without allowing his mouth to break contact with my skin—as gracefully as possible.

One eyebrow twitched at the sight of the foil packet.

'For later,' I said, pulling him down onto me.

'We don't need that,' he said, his tongue making a swipe across the top of my ear. I shivered with ecstasy and rubbed my hips against his erection. 'You're immortal.'

'No, I'm half elf. That means I have approximately double a human life span, but I can still get diseases. Not to mention pregnant. And since I'd like to avoid both at this time, we'll just have to do this my way.'

'If you insist,' he said, pausing to suck his breath in when I trailed both hands down his sides to find the proof of his interest again.

'No more ears. I'm on the verge of an orgasm now, and I don't think I could stand much more,' I told him as his head dipped toward mine.