The crowds thinned to the point that the gallery seemed nearly deserted by the time they left the museum. They held hands during the brief walk from the museum grounds to the parking garage. Once again, Katrina permitted him the satisfaction of driving them home in the Audi. Halfway home, he smiled while recalling the occasion when he had asked why she typically wanted to drive.
“It’s not a reflection on my confidence in your driving skills,” she had assured him. “It’s merely that vampires have quicker reaction times, which is safer for both of us.”
He had wisely conceded the logic of her argument. However, it didn’t stop him from asking for the keys from time to time.
Upon arriving at the estate, they had no sooner exited the car and walked into the house, when Katrina tugged on Caleb’s left arm from behind. She spun him around to face her and noted that his eyes had widened with surprise. As she adopted a sly smile, a wave of passion crashed over her, and she sought his lips aggressively.
She pressed her body to his, forcing him backwards into the dark hallway behind him. Her hand quickly cupped the base of his head to prevent it from smacking the wall, and she kissed him with passion. His arms reached out to encircle her waist as she wrapped her free arm around the small of his back.
He responded eagerly to her passionate kisses and felt her silky tongue press its way into his mouth. Their tongues met as they continued to kiss deeply. A longing grew in each of them, though hers was torn between both the desire for sex and the craving for his blood.
It had been weeks since she had taken his blood, an episode she recalled ruefully and all too well. It had been the second night following her and Alton’s return from battling Chimalma. Her reunion with Caleb went seamlessly, and she had felt as if their lives were returning to normal again. However, while sleeping beside him, she had a horrible nightmare in which she had been attacked by assailants. Then one assailant transformed into the visage of Chimalma. In her dream, Katrina attacked Chimalma by sinking her fangs into her. But the real nightmare began when she tasted Caleb’s blood in her mouth and awoke to hear him screaming in the darkness next to her. She had unconsciously bitten into his upper shoulder, and blood had streamed from the gouges formed as he had tried to dislodge her fangs by lurching away from her. One of the gouges had been so severe that he still retained a small, faint mark on his upper left shoulder, despite the healing power of her saliva.
Since that horrible, fateful night, Katrina vowed not to take blood from him. Instead, she had shared and displayed her love and intimacy with him in the traditional human manner of sexual coupling. In fact, she had not slept beside him until just a couple of weeks ago, though she had often lain awake in bed beside him to share at least in the intimacy of being next to him while he slumbered. Her sleep was attended to via naps taken during the day and always when he wasn’t beside her merely to avoid any accidental recurrences of nightmare-induced attacks.
However, that evening, sleep was the last thing on Caleb’s mind. His desire grew rapidly as they kissed lustfully in the hallway. His breathing and pulse were both elevated significantly, a fact not unnoticed by his red-haired mate. She used a proportional amount of strength with her arm around the small of his back to press him in the direction of the mostly dark living room, where the only available light emanated from the glow of the exterior eaves’ lights through the sheer curtains. He eagerly complied as they kissed, not paying attention to the path they took, but instead concentrating on the amorous application of his lips to hers.
Katrina giggled, interjecting a pause in their kissing, and Caleb felt a faint smile form on her lips. The moment they were sharing felt comfortably familiar to her. She instantly recalled the first time she had kissed him in the front entry room, not far from where she had herded him through the kitchen.
“What?” he whispered with confusion.
“The first night we made love,” she prompted. “Remember?”
He rolled his eyes and smirked, easily recollecting that night. He had been so nervous, having deliberated for days following the abrupt