The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires

Chapter 14

'Still with me, sweetling?'

'Barely. It was a close thing there when you turned the frosting on me.'

Theo, lying on his back, a sated and very smug look on his face, waggled his eyebrows and hummed a happy little song about frosting-covered nether parts. 'You certainly did seem to enjoy it.'

'That, my adorable fanged one, is the understatement of the year. Are you sure you're full? You seemed to spend more time in action, to be euphemistic, rather than dining.'

'I am full. I am well-pleasured. I am physically exhausted,' Theo said, waving a languid hand. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed as he lay next to me on the bed, delightfully naked. I trailed a finger down one of his biceps, making him smile a drowsy smile.

'You take a nap then, handsome. You certainly worked hard enough.'

'I did indeed, although it was a labor of love. And, I will admit, you helped a little.' He yawned.

'A little, huh?' I pinched his nipple. He pretended to snore.

The many pleasant after-tingles that were zinging around my body were one more reminder of the powerful emotions our lovemaking created. I gently traced the planes of his face, my finger stroking the length of his long, arched eyebrows, down to his high cheekbones and aristocratic nose. His lips curled slightly as I brushed them with the tips of my fingers, leaving me to marvel again at how something so mundane as a mouth could give so much pleasure.

'Sleepy,' he said, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction.

'You go ahead and take a nap.' I glanced at the clock and sighed as I got off the bed. 'I'd best go wash off the frosting and other…er…residue before we have to show up at the hearing.'

'A shower?' Theo's eyes snapped open. 'Where you're naked and wet and soapy?'

'That's generally how a shower works,' I said, pausing at the bathroom door to bat my eyelashes at him. To my surprise (and no little amazement), he showed signs of arousal. I stared at his penis, watching as it stirred, thickening before my eyes. 'You can't possibly be serious. You can do that again so soon?'

'Given the proper encouragement and inspiration, yes.' Theo slid off the bed and started toward me, a familiar glint in his eye. 'I must admit to having a fantasy or two about taking you in the shower, your flesh satin- smooth, slick with soap and warm water.'

The images that filled my head left me stunned for a second, for a fraction of a second, really, and then I was running for the shower, intent on fulfilling the erotic images that danced before my mind.

The shower wasn't very large, one of those stall types with just enough room for the two of us to squeeze into it. But I was soaped up and ready for Theo by the time he joined me, fully aroused and filled with a hunger that seemed to echo inside me.

'You're sticky,' I said in between kisses, my hands busy rubbing soap on his chest.

'It's the frosting you smeared all over me,' he growled, nipping my earlobe. His hands were busy as well, smoothing a soapy washcloth over my back and lower, to my backside, before sliding around my thighs and heading straight for my personal paradise. 'I'm not as sticky as you are, though. You're a dirty, dirty girl.'

'Oh, yes,' I gasped as his fingers danced a soapy dance that had me squirming against him. 'I'm very, very dirty.'

'It behooves me to clean you up, then,' he mumbled against my shoulder.

'Especially since it was you who made me so dirty. Oh, sweet mother, do that again!'

He did. His fingers sank into me, curling ever so slightly until the friction pushed me to the very edge of an orgasm. I teetered there, not wanting to fall alone.

My hands slid lower, lovingly cupping his testicles with one hand while slicking soap down the length of his penis.

His eyes crossed. A sharp, pointy canine nicked my shoulder. He lapped up the blood as my hands moved up and down, quickly finding a rhythm that had his breathing ragged, his hips jerking in time to the movement of my hands. I opened my mind to him, allowing him to feel what his skillful fingers were doing to me at the same time he shared his rising ecstasy. It was a startling feeling, experiencing not only my own passion, but his as well, and it pushed us both higher until we hung with tantalizing agony at the edge of completion.

Theo's fingers stilled inside me, my flesh quivering around them. My hands stopped moving, his penis pulsing with his rapid heartbeat. Our eyes met.

I love you, I told him, pouring my love into him, chasing away the darkness that dwelled where his soul had lived.

You are everything to me, he answered with an honesty so intense it humbled me. I could not exist without you.

An exaggeration, but a sweet one…all rational thought left my mind at that moment. His teeth pierced the skin at the back of my neck, his fingers coming to life inside me. My hands tightened around his penis, and the world supernovaed around us, exploding into a million tiny, brilliant pieces.

It took a long, long time for us to come down from our shared high, but when I did, it was to find myself slumped against him, his hands holding me upright since my legs had failed me. We were both wet, no longer soapy, and as I looked into his somewhat glazed eyes, I made a vow to myself that I would move the earth itself in order to spend the rest of my life with him.

'The penalty for murder in the Court of Divine Blood is eternal, and irrevocable. Only intervention by the sovereign can change it, and that has never happened.'

'A death sentence?' I asked, my knuckles white. I relaxed my hands, trying to take in everything Terrin was saying to us. I didn't ask how Theo had found him. I was just grateful that someone was willing to talk to us.

Slowly, sweetling. I will not allow harm to come to you.

I don't think even you can stop the people here if they wanted to hurt me. Can you?

Theo didn't answer me, but his sadness was all too evident.

'Not a death sentence.' Terrin paused for a minute, looking from me to Theo. 'That is, not in so many words. Your existence would not be destroyed, but you would be…incarcerated.'

'Incarcerated here? In the Court?'

I suppose there are worse things in the world than being held prisoner in heaven.

Don't count on it.

Terrin shook his head.

'The Akasha,' Theo said. For some reason, I shivered.

What's the Akasha?

It's another name for limbo. It's where banished demons go, a kind of holding cell of misery and eternal nightmare. You do not wish to visit it.

'Yes.' Terrin's gaze moved to me. It was frankly assessing, as if he was weighing whether or not I was worthy of his time. Oddly enough, I wasn't offended by this. The days when I would feel outraged over the idea that someone might not consider me an equal seemed like long years ago. I sat, humbly waiting to see what information Terrin was willing to share, well aware that Theo and I were in a particularly precarious position.

Terrin seemed to make up his mind, nodding to himself. 'When I conducted your second trial, I questioned your fitness as a virtue. You seemed to possess none of the knowledge, none of the skills needed to achieve success in the Court. And yet, despite the fact that you are charged with the murder of one whom you succeeded, my instincts tell me that you are telling the truth. I have seldom had cause to doubt my instincts, and I am loathe to do so now just because the evidence is to the contrary. The tale you told is unlikely, but not, I believe, impossible.'

He believes us! That's a step in the right direction. I'm glad you picked him over the other seneschals.

I had little choice. He was the only one on the list of Court officials whom I recognized. I simply