All immortals had superior hearing, so Basil wasn’t surprised when Sam asked absently, “To know what?”
Sherry bit her lip and met his gaze briefly, and then admitted, “To know if he’s my life mate . . . or if I’m his, I guess.”
“Oh.” Sam winced. “I suppose this has put a wrinkle in the enjoying food test, huh?”
“I fear so,” Basileios said gently.
Sam nodded. “Well, then there’s always the shared pleasure bit.”
“Shared pleasure?” Sherry asked curiously. “What’s that?”
Sam opened her mouth, closed it, blushed, then quickly dried her hands, murmuring, “I think I’ll let Basil explain it to you, or show you. That’s really more effective anyway. I’ll leave you two alone.”
Sherry stared after her with surprise when the woman rushed from the room. When she then turned to peer at him, Basil smiled weakly.
Clearing his throat, he began, “Food is not the only pleasure we lose interest in over time. Sex too, becomes . . . er . . . boring?”
“Boring?” Her eyebrows rose at this news. “You’re kidding, right? I mean Stephanie mentioned something about life mates making sex mind-blowing, but—”
“Even sex grows boring after several centuries,” he assured her solemnly.
“No way! Sex is awesome,” Sherry said with a laugh, and then added, “You must have been doing it wrong.”
Basil stiffened slightly at the diagnosis, but then noted the twinkle in her eyes and realized she was teasing him again. He was beginning to recognize when she was, he noted, and found that fact reassuring. Even so, he answered her seriously. “Skill has nothing to do with it. All immortals eventually grow tired of it after a time. However, meeting a life mate stimulates a renewed interest in that just as it does food.”
“Wow,” Sherry breathed, and for a moment he thought she was amazed at what he’d just said . . . and she was, just not in the way he’d thought. He came to that conclusion when she added, “Only a lawyer could make passion sound so mundane. Seriously? A life mate ‘stimulates a renewed interest’?” She tilted her head, and asked, “That translates to my presence should make you horny, right?”
The twinkle in her eye took away any offense from her question, and actually made him laugh. She certainly had a way with words he thought as he nodded.
“I see,” Sherry said slowly, and then asked, “But what about this shared pleasure business?”
“Ah.” He floundered briefly, and then simply said, “If you were my life mate and we . . . er . . . when I touch you I should feel the pleasure you experience and vice versa.”
Sherry seemed to consider that, and then suddenly reached up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. Caught by surprise, Basil didn’t react at first, and before he could, she eased back to her feet to tilt her head and eye him with pursed lips. “Nothing. Maybe we aren’t—”
This time Basil silenced Sherry by kissing her. He couldn’t help himself. He’d been watching her lips as she spoke since meeting her, and they were full, and pouty and soft looking. Really they were quite the sexiest lips he’d ever seen, and he’d seen a lot of lips over the millennia since he’d been born. But he also did it because he didn’t want to hear her say that she was not his life mate. Sherry wasn’t petite and blond. She wasn’t biddable. Actually, she was nothing like the woman he’d thought his life mate would be, but she felt right. It felt right to be with her. He had no other way to describe it. He’d expected to be nervous and even a little anxious with her. After all, she was believed to be his life mate, a woman he wanted to like and accept him, a woman he wanted to convince to spend the rest of her life with him. He should be nervous and anxious. Instead, he had immediately felt comfortable and at peace in her presence. He didn’t feel he had to monitor himself around her; he didn’t have to edit himself. He could just be himself and that was enough.
That being the case, it was something of a shock when his mouth covered hers and passion roared up through him like a back draft. He hadn’t been prepared for that. He’d thought it would be a slow buildup, lips meshing, tongues dancing, and heat sliding up through him. Basil wasn’t ready for the explosion of heat that stole his breath along with his common sense. He even forgot where he was and that anyone could walk in at any moment. Otherwise, he would have damned near ripped her clothes off and copulated with Sherry on the kitchen counter top.
He didn’t . . . but he wanted to, and it came damned close. The moment the wave of passion rolled over him, it was as if a leash had been removed. Basil sprang on her like a slavering beast, his hands closing around her and pressing her close before lifting her off her feet so that he could bear her forward to the kitchen counter. He’d barely set her there when his hands were moving, trying to touch every available inch of her at once. They glided up her sides, slid around her shoulders to press her closer so that her breasts nudged his chest, then his hands slid down and around to find her breasts through the cloth of her shirt. But they paused there only briefly before dropping away and down and around to find her behind. He squeezed with delight as she sucked at his tongue, and he tugged her lower body tight against his own even as he urged her upper body back with his kiss.
Sherry was in turn gasping for breath and moaning, her body shifting, writhing, and arching, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out how she’d got there. One minute she was suggesting that perhaps she wasn’t Basil’s life mate, and the next his mouth was on hers and she was going up in flames. It all happened so fast. Caught by surprise as she was by Basil’s kissing her so abruptly, Sherry didn’t react at first. She remained completely still. But then his tongue urged her lips apart and . . . well, frankly, all hell broke loose in her body. Her brain shut right down and her body came to shuddering life in a way she’d never experienced before. And she couldn’t get enough.
Sherry didn’t fight when he lifted her off the floor and carried her back to the counter. She felt it press briefly into the small of her back, and then he was setting her on the countertop and bending her back enough that his hands could slide over her body. It was like those images she’d had flash through her head earlier, except that she wasn’t naked.
But she wanted to be.
Dear God, she wanted to feel every inch of his naked flesh against her own. Her very skin seemed to cry out for it and her body was weeping for it. She could feel the passion gushing through her, eagerly shifting to where it could be of the most use. Moaning, as his hand found one breast and the other began to tug at her top, Sherry reached to help him with the task of removing the impediment to his touch.
“I would say you are definitely life mates.”
Sherry heard Lucian’s words, but they didn’t really register until she realized that Basil had gone still against her. She didn’t know if it was a result of his age, but he didn’t act like a teenager and immediately jump away, all flustered and embarrassed. Instead, he broke their kiss and eased back just enough to give her the room to straighten her clothes and gather herself, sheltering her from his brother with his body as she did. Once she was done, he asked, “Okay?”
Sherry nodded, and—aware she was blushing, but unable to do anything about it—she decided to ignore it and forced her head up, determined to be as composed as he was.
“That’s my girl,” Basil murmured encouragingly, and gave her arms a squeeze before lifting her off the counter, slipping his arm around her waist and turning her with him to face his brother.
Sherry glanced at the man, grateful to find that he was at least alone, and then glanced to Basil as he said to Lucian with great aplomb, “It would seem so.”