Page 63 of Falling for a Villainous Vampire

“No, of course not, that just felt—” I start to say.

Then stop before this goes way too far.

I promised Phone, I think. I promised myself.

“They were cries of pleasure,” he finishes for me.

And then I forget whatever I was promising at all.

“Because you were kissing my body.”

“I was feasting on you—and yet it fills you with desire, it has made you almost feverish, it fills your dreams and drives you to say such things to me. To ask that I might take from you again, rather than any other creature.”

Say no, I think.

But it’s such a lie I can’t even force it out.

“It was just very intense for me, okay.”

“Because you are not used to being touched.”

“Well, women not being used to that can’t be so unusual to you.”

“In my time women were as voracious as men. I have no understanding at all of this puritanical A-Merry-Can culture and its insistence that you be untouched,” he says, and I want to laugh when he does, I do. And for so many reasons, too.

But I can’t, because things just got even more fraught.

Now we’re talking about the fact that I’ve been a virgin for hundreds of years.

“Hold on a second. I don’t have much sex because I can’t trust or confide in anyone and haven’t been able to for all of my lives—mainly because of the evil version of you. It’s not because I’m a puritan,” I say.

Much to his surprise.

His eyebrows go up.

“I was not suggesting you were. I have, after all, seen the moving images you have stored inside your television,” he says, in so genuinely baffled a way I can’t even be embarrassed that he’s seen my collection of sexy movies.

Instead, something else happens when I think of him watching things like The Hairdresser’s Husband: a great wave of heat goes through my body. And I’m already hot enough as it is. It feels like I’m sweating through my nightdress. The nape of my neck is damp. Do you think he did something to himself during the scene where—

I have to cut off the thought.

The look on his face says it’s probably right, and this is already too much.

“Good, then you know that I am perfectly normal about sex,” I say.

I just wish it came out convincingly.

“And yet you ache even for so little.”

“There was nothing little about what you did. None of this is little. I mean, yes, it overwhelms me, but you doing all of that would make pretty much anyone go over that hard.”

“What does this mean, go over?”

Uh-oh, I think.

Too late now, though.

“Nothing. Forget that part,” I say. But I can already see it’s dawning on him.