were important - the first was that I had just had mind-blowingly fabulous sex with a murderous vampire, and the second was that I'd just had mind-blowingly fabulous sex with a murderous vampire . . . right out in the middle of the Akasha. That last point was driven home when in the distance I heard a scream of anger.
Alec pulled back, his breath as rough as mine, the sense of shared fulfillment fading as we stared at each other.
"Good lord. I had sex with you. Right here. Where anyone could have seen us." The taste of him lingered in my mouth, a sweet taste, one I doubted I'd ever get enough of.
Stop it! I yelled at my little devil. Stop pointing things out like that! For god's sake, look what you made me do - I had sex with a vampire!
"You don't have to say the word "vampire" like it's revolting. We prefer 'Dark One,' anyway," he said, withdrawing from me with an audibly wet noise that had me wincing in embarrassment.
"Sorry," I murmured. "I was a little bit . . . enthusiastic."
To my utter surprise - and inner delight - he grinned as he tucked himself away. "You weren't the only one who was enthusiastic, querida."
I bent to retrieve my underwear and jeans, not able to look him in the eye after my wholly irresponsible and completely uncharacteristic behavior, still a little weirded out by his choosing querida as a term of endearment.
It was clear he didn't understand that I was the woman who had been killed, hadn't put together the pieces of the puzzle I'd so disjointedly spilled. And although god knew I was physically attracted to him, the last thing I wanted was to be in Jacintha's position - bound to him forever.
Why not? the devil inside me asked before I hushed it up, worried Alec might overhear it. You're here. You're lonely. He's in pain. You could comfort him. He'd be grateful for that. He might even come to love you.
I closed my eyes against the pain that thought brought with it. I didn't want to be merely a convenience - I wanted a man who would choose me because of who I was, not because of some connection that was lost several hundred years before, and certainly not because of one random act of sex.
Oh, dear god, that was the single most erotic, most fulfilling experience of my life. But as the endorphins faded, the thought returned to me that I had had sex with a vampire. Jas would never let me live that down if she ever heard of it.
"Who is Jas?"
"Jacintha. My sister. And stop reading my mind."
"Stop projecting into my mind if you don't want me to read your thoughts. Jacintha, eh? The one who is a . . ." I felt the brush of his mind against mine for a moment. "A Beloved? Interesting. I do not know this Avery Scott, but I do not get to Britain much."
"I object to you just marching into my head whenever you like," I told him, my hands on my hips now that I was decent again. "I don't think it's polite at all."
"That fact that I've marked you isn't right, either, but that doesn't seem to concern you." He frowned at me. "Just who are you?"
"I've told you three times now!"
"Yes, I know your name, and I know that you're mortal, and that you hum when you orgasm, but who are you? Why are you here, and why did you revive me?"
"I felt sorry for you, more fool me," I said, pushing past him to glare at the gently rolling landscape of rocks, dirt, and more rocks. "I hum? Really?"
"Yes."
"How mortifying." It was, too. I had no idea I was a hummer.
He shrugged. "I don't see why you'd feel that way. I think it's charming."
I stared over my shoulder at him. "You're . . . you're a strange man."
"That's been said before. Is that why you came on to me, because you felt sorry for me?"
"I did not come on to you! You were the one thinking all sorts of smutty thoughts about me!"
"You thought them about me, too."
"Only because you put them in my mind! Besides, you manhandled me!"
He raised one glossy black eyebrow, looking me over from crown to toes. "If I had manhandled you, love, you wouldn't be standing right now. I will admit to responsibility for a certain amount of what just happened, but I don't make a