“Your eyes are glowing,” Dante announced quietly after a moment.
“Are they?” Mary asked with disinterest. Then she smiled seductively and stood to walk around to where he sat. Pausing in front of him, she whispered, “I must be feeling passionate then.”
Dante stood at once, but rather than take her in his arms as she’d hoped, he moved around her and walked toward the small fridge in the entertainment center, asking, “Are you thirsty? Would you like something to drink?”
Mary scowled at his back. No she didn’t want a bloody drink. She wanted him to take her in his arms so that she could lay her head on his shoulder, bury her face in his neck and lick, nuzzle and nip her way along the vein pulsing there and—
“Dear God!” Mary gasped and turned away in horror.
Hearing Dante approaching from behind her, she turned, mouth opening to warn him to stay away. She never got the words out; the moment she turned to warn him, he slapped a bag of blood at her mouth. Mary blinked in surprise, automatically reaching for the bag, but he dumped the other two bags he’d brought with him onto the table and caught her hand with his now free one as he held the bag in place with the other.
“Relax,” he instructed. “Your fangs will do all the work.”
Mary tried to relax, but it was the oddest sensation. She could feel the cold liquid moving up her fangs. She couldn’t feel it after that, but she could feel it in her fangs and she wasn’t sure she liked it. In fact, she was quite sure she didn’t. It was blood after all. She was consuming blood. She was a vampire. One of those horrid creatures that fed on mortals like a leech, filling its belly on blood from people like her friends, her children and grandchildren.
Mary’s eyes widened with horror as it occurred to her to wonder how this would affect her life in more ways than just her looks. How was she to explain this to her children and grandchildren? How was she—?
“Mary,” Dante moved closer.
She glanced to him and saw the concern on his face. It seemed pretty obvious that he could see her mounting distress. Sliding one arm around her, he pulled her close, and then tugged the blood bag from her teeth. She waited to be splashed with the red liquid, but wasn’t. The bag was already empty, she saw with surprise as he tossed it to the table. Dante then caught her chin in his hand, turned her face back to his, and kissed her.
Mary hesitated, but quickly gave in and kissed him back. She didn’t want to think about what she was now and everything it meant. She didn’t want to consider the complications, and his kisses seemed a good escape from her thoughts.
The moment she opened her mouth to him, Dante caught her by the bottom and lifted her to sit on the table, pushing the dishes back with her behind as he did. Mary didn’t protest, she merely wrapped her arms around him and then her legs and kissed him hungrily. She didn’t realize her fangs were still out until she tasted blood in her mouth and realized she’d nicked him.
Moaning, Mary immediately found herself sucking on his tongue, drawing the warm, coppery liquid from the small wound and swallowing it eagerly. Some part of her mind immediately stepped back from her when she did that, horrified that she could enjoy the crimson liquid, and she feared Dante was doing the same when he suddenly broke their kiss, but then she found another bag popped to her fangs. She blinked at him over the bag, worried and grateful all at once, and Dante kissed her on the forehead. It was a sweet gentle kiss and made her feel better at once.
When she relaxed against him, Dante took her hand and placed it to the bottom of the bag. Mary automatically grasped it, and the moment she did, Dante grabbed the third bag and placed it in her free hand, then scooped her up off the table and carried her to the bed. Once there, he dropped to his knees, lowering her to sit on the end of the bed as he did. He then sat back on his heels in front of her.
Eyes wide, Mary tipped her head down and watched wide-eyed over the bag of blood as he took one of her feet in hand and lifted her leg so that it was extended. He paused, seeming to examine it, then ran his fingers lightly up the leg he held and murmured, “You have the loveliest most shapely legs. I noticed that when you came out of the bedroom in shorts the morning we breakfasted at the Round Up.”
Mary’s eyes widened even further. He’d liked her legs even then? When she’d looked her age? The thought startled her, but not as much as Dante did when he suddenly bowed his head and began to nibble his way up the inside of her calf.
Grunting in surprise, Mary dropped the third bag of blood she’d been holding and reached out to try to catch him by the hair and stop him, but he merely caught her hand in his and then continued to kiss his way up to her knee. He then set her foot back on the floor and it wasn’t until he moved forward to kneel between her legs that she realized he’d set her foot down so that her legs were spread.
Before she had even fully processed that, Dante was tugging at her towel.
Mary immediately released the bag at her mouth and tried to grab at his hands. Fortunately, there was so little left in the bag at her mouth that it didn’t fall away and splash everywhere. Unfortunately, Dante was quicker than her and by the time her hand reached his he’d pulled the sides of the towel apart, exposing her. Mary clutched his wrist anyway and squeezed her eyes closed as she felt a blush rise up over her face. She hadn’t been bothered at all at his seeing her when he’d walked up behind her as she’d been examining herself in the bathroom mirror. But then, she hadn’t been so exposed then, her legs spread to him. Then too, the body in the mirror hadn’t really felt like hers yet in that moment. In truth, it still didn’t, but she wasn’t looking at a mirror, she was sitting with her legs wide open as Dante—
Her stomach gave a sharp jolt and Mary blinked her eyes open as he pressed a kiss to her stomach. It was such a sweet, tender action . . . and then his hands closed over her breasts and his mouth moved to claim one already erect nipple.
Mary nearly bit right through the dwindling blood bag then. Managing to restrain herself, she eased her grip on it and then moaned around the plastic as he suckled first one nipple, then the other. He was so enthusiastic in his attention that she was surprised when the moment the last drop of blood had been drawn from the bag at her mouth, he was aware of it and reached up to pluck it away and toss it to the floor. Dante immediately wrapped his hand around her neck and drew her forward for a kiss. Mary kissed him eagerly back, one hand covering his where he was still caressing her breast, and the other sliding around his shoulder to pull him closer against her.
Dante let her have her way and, releasing her breast, slid both arms around her, pressing her close and then shifting his chest across hers. Mary moaned and found her legs wrapping themselves around his hips as the soft cloth of his T-shirt brushed across her erect nipples. Hearing, sight, taste, and smell were only four of the senses. Touch was the fifth one, and Mary was quite sure the nanos had improved that too and made her more sensitive. Certainly she had never been set afire by such a light caress. A butterfly’s wings probably would have been stronger than that brush of hair, but her body responded eagerly to the caress and her kiss became a little more desperate.
Dante responded by thrusting his tongue into her mouth and urging her back onto the bed until she lay flat with only her legs hanging off from the knees down. He kissed her thoroughly, once, then broke the kiss and slapped the last bag of blood to her fangs before rising up and backing off of her.
This time Mary groaned in disappointment at losing his kiss as well as his touch, but he was not done. She could feel his hips still between her knees, then he began to press kisses to her stomach, blazing a trail down to her hip and nibbling there briefly before moving between her legs.
Mary cried out against the new blood bag, her hips bucking as his mouth found her sweet spot. It was really quite amazing that she didn’t split the bag with her hands right then, but she somehow managed to keep from crushing it, all while twisting her head on the bed, her body jumping and trying to move simultaneously away from his caress and into it at the same time. It didn’t move anywhere, however. Dante was holding her down with his hands and arms as he worked and Mary was left to tremble helplessly under his ministrations until the bag at her mouth was finally empty and she could tear it away.