Page 67 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“I know you would.”

He removes my jeans, then kisses my shoulder. Then the inside of my elbow, of all places, and I stop being funny. His teeth graze the place he just kissed, and he pulls back long enough to say, “I would like to do this many more times.”

He pauses at my bra.

“This is entirely impractical.”

“It’s a balcony bra. It’s supposed to be impractical.” And no, we’re not talking about why I chose it this morning.

He studies it with a scientist’s interest, then fumbles a little as he unfastens it, which I find oddly reassuring. And then his mouth is on me and a muffled noise escapes his lips and he isn’t fumbling at all. He takes his time with my breasts, pressing cool, open-mouthed kisses to them. The night he touched me, he had one hand in my underwear. I thought that was going to be the part that destroyed me. I had no idea.

He slides one cool hand between my legs, still over my underwear, and stops once, to look up at me.

“May I?”

“I will pay you.”

A quick flash of a smile and then his fingers find the place I want them immediately. I am so wet that I can hear it, and he makes another of those sounds, and the whole idea of being embarrassed is beyond me. I put my hands into his hair and push against his hand, and he strokes me slowly, and I come apart under him for what feels like the first time in my life.

Afterwards, I am breathing too hard to speak and he is watching me in a way I do not have the brainpower to analyze.

“You’re very good at that,” I manage finally, which makes him smile again.

“I’ve had time to practice.” He leans down and kisses me, soft and deep, his hand still between my legs. “And I have a great deal of time to improve.”

I reach for him, and he lets me, because I’ve learned he would never refuse me if I asked. I get his sweater off, and then the shirt underneath, which is black and silk. Then I am kissing my way across a chest I have already seen and yet somehow am not prepared for.

He is cool all over. Not cold like something dead, but cool like clean sheets in winter or stone in the shade. His skin doesn’t become warm simply because he wants me. It warms exactly where I touch him and nowhere else, an inch around every point of contact, and when I move my hand the coolness comes softly back over the place I’ve left.

So I keep touching him.

He makes a low sound when my mouth finds the base of his throat, and I do it again because I can. I trail my hand down over his smooth cool stomach, and when I get to the waistband of his pants he catches my wrist.

“Not like this.”

I look up, and flash him a smile.

“Not like that,” I agree. “Like this.”

I kiss my way down his body, and he doesn’t stop me this time. His hands go to my hair, not to pull me away but just to hold on, and I understand that I have given a man who has been alone for centuries something he doesn’t know how to ask for, and I want to give it to him for hours.

I get his pants undone and pull them down, and he’s wearing black silk boxers because of course he is. I pull them down too and lose the ability to speak. Again. He’s long and thick and better than I could have imagined, and when I wrap my hand around him, he’s cool beneath my fingers. I look up at him, and the look on his face is more naked than I’ve ever seen it.

“Please,” he says.

I give him my mouth.

His hips lift, just once. I take him deeper, and I can feel him fighting not to move and not to thrust, not to do anything that might make me stop. His hands are still in my hair, but now they’re shaking.

“Penny,” he whispers, and then he makes that sound I’m starting to think of as mine, and he comes in my mouth with a single hard shudder.

I taste him. He’s cool and salty and he doesn’t breathe through it the way a man should. There is a brief, dizzying moment where I am fully aware that I have my mouth on a man who does not breathe, does not have a heartbeat, and who has lived through centuries I cannot imagine. I am the first person in God knows how long to have had him like this. And I’m still not afraid.

I slide up his body while he is still coming back to himself, and his hands come with me, as if he has forgotten he is allowed to let go. I kiss him once, just to do it, and his eyes open. They’re still that dark brown, but the red tint is more obvious now. He looks up at me as if I’m something he has never seen before. Then he blinks, slowly, and the smile that moves over his face is like the sun coming up.

“Penny,” he says again, but this time it’s a completely different word.

He destroys my underwear with one quick rip, then rolls us over so I’m on my back and he’s braced above me, and his hand slides between my legs again. He hasn’t lost an ounce of coordination. His fingers slip inside me easily, and I’m still wet and open and embarrassingly noisy about it.