The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,91
over her for the last me, li le red rivulets running over her shoulders and down her arms.
This me Harper didn't waste me moving the liquid over her derriere but immediately slid his free hand between her legs as he poured. Drina curled her fingers against the le surround of the tub and moaned. When the bo le was empty, and he retrieved his hand to turn and set the jug on the counter with the others, she turned and leaned weakly back against the cool les, glad to s ll be on her feet. She'd begun to worry her shaking legs would collapse under her by the end.
Harper turned back and eyed her, then stepped to the edge of the tub, caught her arm, and pulled her forward for a kiss that did li le to se le her excitement. His hands moved over her briefly as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, and then he broke the kiss and stepped back to begin removing his T-shirt.
"Going to scrub my back?" she asked huskily, sinking back against the le again as the T-shirt hit the floor.
"Your back, your front, your top, your bo om, and everything in between," he assured her, and reached for the waist of his joggers, only to pause as a knock sounded at the door.
"Drina?" Stephanie's voice called. "I'm sorry to bother you guys, but this is the only bathroom, and I really have to go."
Drina bit her lip as Harper closed his eyes on a sigh.
"You don't have to get out of the tub, Dree," Stephanie added now. "Just pull the shower curtain closed if you want. I don't mind. But I really, really have to go."
"One second, Steffie," Drina said finally when Harper bent to retrieve his T-shirt and quickly pulled it back on. He leaned forward then to kiss her again, a quick, hard one, and then tugged the shower curtain closed and turned to open the bathroom door.
"Sorry, Stephanie. Go right ahead," Harper said as he slid from the room.
Drina sat down in the tub with a li le thump, grateful to get off her shaking legs. She heard Stephanie enter and a rustle as the girl announced, "Teddy sent up some joggers and a T-shirt for you. I'm pu ng them on the counter."
"Thank you," Drina murmured, picking up the washcloth. She soaked it in the tomato juice in the tub and began to scrub herself as her nerve endings slowly began to calm.
"The tomato juice and stuff must have worked. It only smells a li le in here now, and I think that's from the sheet." Stephanie's words were accompanied by a rustling Drina supposed was the girl preparing to
"go."
"Yes, I think it worked. I can actually smell the tomato juice now, and I haven't been able to smell anything for hours," Drina said.
"Lucian s ll hasn't called Anders back," Stephanie announced, and Drina suspected the girl was just talking to try to hide the sounds as she relieved herself. "You don't think Lucian will make us go back to Toronto now that Casey Cottage is temporarily uninhabitable, do you?"
Drina heard the worry in the girl's voice and frowned, but the sugges on worried her as well. It would be harder to hide Stephanie's abili es - and trouble handling them - from Lucian if they were in Toronto . . . and Drina was worried about what he would do. She wanted to help the girl learn to block the voices and perhaps deal with the electricity and energy she claimed to feel around life mates, and had spent a good por on of her night in the kitchen considering how to do that. The problem was that it was the complete opposite of what new turns usually needed to learn, and she had no idea how to go about it. Realizing she shouldn't be thinking about this with the girl so close, Drina pushed the thought from her head, and said, "I don't know, swee e. But if so, I'll be with you. Don't worry. And it would probably only be temporary until Casey Cottage was habitable again."
"Right," Stephanie murmured. She was silent for a minute, and then said, "Sorry to interrupt your bath."
"You aren't interrupting," Drina said with amusement, scrubbing the tomato-soaked cloth over her leg.
"Yeah, but I mean, you probably want your privacy and stuff."
Drina chuckled at the sugges on. "Steffie, when I was young in Egypt, servants would help me with my bath.