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“Usually in bunches? Thousands? Tens of thousands?”
Bones came to the bed and knelt next to where I sat.
“Let me explain how I was after I was changed into a vampire. For a few years, I brooded over the fate Ian forced on me, but eventually I figured I may as well have a grand time being dead. Back then I had a talent for exactly one thing, and that was shagging. If the girl fancied feminine company also while we were in bed, I certainly didn’t object. Then as the years passed, I began meting out death to those I thought deserved it. Later I started making an income from it. Soon killing became the other thing I excelled at, and between the two, I thought I was as happy as I had any right to be.
“My life went on like this, and yes, A
We had never discussed how Bones became a hit man, or very much at all about his early years. Despite our months together, I realized we’d spent most of our time chasing the bad guys and very little time talking about who we were, or who we had been. It wasn’t hard to imagine the type of life Bones had described, either. I couldn’t relate to all the sex, but for the past four and a half years, I’d had little to offer people but my ability to kill as well. And at the end of the day, that was a very lonely feeling.
“Don’t judge her so harshly, Bones. A
“Except for that one instance I truly regret with A
The truth was in his eyes, and it took the sting out of discovering everything, and everyone, that had come before me.
“Well, then…okay.”
“Okay?” Bones pulled me onto the floor with him until our faces were level.
“Yeah,” I said softly, touching his face. “Okay.”
When he kissed me this time, I didn’t flinch. I coiled myself around him.
Bones drew back after a long moment. “I still have to deal with A
I shrugged, an idea I normally wouldn’t have considered threading its way into my head.
“Do it your way, but I suggest another one. You could go ahead and beat her bloody, or…you could give me such loud, screaming orgasms that the sound of them blisters her ears. If you have any former-whore-turned-promiscuous-vampire tricks you’ve been holding back, well, bring them on. I only have one stipulation: You’d better outperform any service you gave to her or anyone else, because if I don’t wake up tomorrow red in the face from embarrassment at what you did to me, I’ll be disappointed.”
A
“We have business to sort out, you and I,” he said with silky threat. Then he glanced back at me. “Later.”
And he slammed the door in her face.
“Trying to hang my knickers around your neck?”
The look in his eyes, already marbled with green, made my reply unsteady. “You don’t wear any.”
He glided over and drew me to my feet. “I should assure you that in bed you have nothing to prove to me, or that I’ve never enjoyed making love to anyone more, but only a fool passes up what you just offered me. Now, I am short on some props, and there isn’t nearly enough time in one night to run through all the ways I’ve fantasized about taking you, but I promise you this…” His voice deepened. “You’ll be scandalized in the morning when you can think again.”
THIRTY-TWO
WITH DELIBERATE SLOWNESS, BONES BEGAN unbuttoning his shirt. I watched his creamy skin revealed with each unfastened clasp. When he was finished, he pulled it off, and then ripped each sleeve free with a tug. The reason for that strange action was revealed when he tied the fabric around my eyes, blindfolding me.
My nails dug into my palms as everything went black. He’d done a good job with it. The next thing I felt were his hands pushing me back onto the bed, and then easing off my clothes until I was naked.
Something was secured around my wrist, stretching my arm out lengthwise and then restraining it, presumably to the bed frame. The same action was repeated with my other arm.
“Don’t fight them,” Bones whispered. “They’re not strong enough to hold you. Relax.” A low chuckle. “Let me work.”
Thus shackled, I could only listen as he moved around. It sounded like he was in the bathroom rummaging through the cabinets, for what I had no idea. Being blindfolded and tied naked to a bed was disconcerting, to say the least, but he didn’t take long before he returned.
Hands trailed over my shoulders and moved lower to cup my breasts. A mouth closed over my nipple, fangs already extended. He laved the peak with his tongue, and then the flatness of his human teeth nibbled it to hardness.
I inhaled sharply when he carefully dug his incisors in next, just short of breaking the skin. He drew stronger on my nipple until ribbons of raw desire shot through me.
“I want to touch you,” I moaned, pulling on the bonds that prevented me.
He clamped his hands over my wrists without breaking contact with his mouth.
“Later.”
His English accent was thicker, and I knew from the brush of his hip that he was naked now as well. Below us the TV switched on, A
A cry wrenched from me, but not of pain. He made a hoarse noise and began to suck harder, pulling my blood into his mouth. As before when he drank from me, I started to feel warm all over. My breast was positively burning, but I also felt a thrill of apprehension. I’d said anything goes, and Bones wasn’t wasting time.
“Your heart is thundering in my ears, but you won’t fret long,” he murmured, switching to my other breast. “I’m going to knock the fear right out of you.”
I gasped and arched underneath him when he bit me again in the same way. Now both my nipples were sizzled and each breast throbbed with heat. His lips slithered up my arm as he shifted higher in bed, moving off me.
I felt the probe of his tongue on my wrist below where those unseen bonds held me. His mouth covered the spot in the next instant, fangs puncturing so quickly I didn’t even have time to tense.
That same throb from my breasts was now duplicated in my wrist. Hot, pulsing waves beat in accordance with my pulse. If heroin addicts feel anything like this, I thought dizzily as it spread like warm caramel down my arm, then I completely understand why they do it.