The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,11

the SUV. Seeing that Stephanie's attention was on Harper as he hurried across the deck toward the kitchen door, Drina quickly swiped up a handful of snow off the SUV's roof and worked it into a ball as she asked, "Which laughing woke him? Your laughing when I was slipsliding around on the sidewalk? Or your laughing when you hit me with the snowball, and I went down like a ton of bricks?"

Stephanie turned an unrepentant grin her way. "It was funny," she began, and then her eyes suddenly narrowed and dropped to search for Drina's hands.

Realizing the girl had read her mind and knew what she was up to, Drina quickly shot the snowball at her, but Stephanie was faster, whirling and ducking at the same me so that the ball missed her and hit the passenger window instead.

"Too slow," Stephanie taunted.

Drina shrugged. "That's all right. I'll get you when you least expect it."

Stephanie chuckled, unconcerned by the threat, and slid out of the SUV to walk around and join her. "He has a nice chest, doesn't he?"

He certainly did have a nice chest, Drina thought, and she'd been hard-pressed not to simply throw herself on top of it and drool all the way down to the top of his jeans when she'd seen it. But she'd restrained herself, and now merely shrugged, asking, "You noticed his chest, did you?"

"Not really. Mostly I noticed that you noticed," Stephanie responded with amusement. Drina rolled her eyes with disgust. This being easily read business was going to become a serious pain in the arse at this rate, she decided.

"You played it cool, though," Stephanie praised her. "He didn't even have an inkling you were drooling inside."

"I wasn't drooling," Drina assured her dryly.

"Oh, yeah. You were," Stephanie said on a laugh.

Drina sighed. "All right, maybe a li le inside." She shrugged. "What can I say? It's been half a millenniun since I've even noticed a man's chest."

Actually, it had been longer than that, she realized and hoped to God her hymen hadn't grown back in the intervening years.

"Oh my God! That doesn't happen, right?"

Drina blinked at that horrified exclamation and glanced at Stephanie with confusion. "What?"

"The nanos don't . . . like . . . fix your hymen a er it's been broken so that every me you have sex it's like the first time?" she asked with a bone-deep horror that left Drina gaping.

"Good Lord, no!" she assured her. "Where on earth would you get an idea like that?"

Stephanie sagged with relief, and then explained, "You were just thinking you hoped yours hadn't grown back."

"Oh, I - That was - I was just having a sarcas c, self-depreca ng minute in my head. Gees." She closed her eyes briefly, opened them again, and said solemnly, "Girl, you have to stay out of my head."

"I'm not in your head," Stephanie said wearily. "You're talking into mine."

Drina frowned, pretty sure she wasn't trying to talk into her head.

"So why don't they?" Stephanie asked suddenly, a frown tugging at her lips.

"Why don't who what?" Drina asked, confused again.

"Why don't nanos repair the hymen when it's broken?" she explained. "I thought their job was to keep us perfect and all."

"Not perfect. No one is perfect," Drina assured her. "They're programmed to keep us at our peak, the best we each can be as inpiduals."

Stephanie waved that away impa ently. "Right, but if you break a bone, they fix it. Why wouldn't they fix the hymen if it was broke?"

"Well - " Drina paused, her brain blank, and then shook her head helplessly. "I don't know. Maybe the nanos don't think the hymen is something that needs fixing. Or maybe the scien sts didn't think to include the hymen as part of the anatomy when they programmed them," she suggested, and then grimaced, and added dryly, "I'm just glad as heck that they don't repair it."

"I know," Stephanie groaned. "That would be vile."

"Hmm." Drina nodded and gave a li le shudder at the thought, but then glanced at her sharply. "Have you had sex?"

"No, of course, not." Stephanie flushed with embarrassment.

"Then why so horrified at the thought of the nanos replacing the hymen?" she asked, eyeing her narrowly.

Stephanie snorted. "I read. It's not supposed to be fun to lose your virginity."

Drina relaxed and shrugged. "It's different for different people. For some it's painful, for others not so much, for some there's blood and others not. It may be all right for you," she said reassuringly, and