surprised her that he was so completely okay with the idea.
“Most males don’t like the idea of my fangs, uh, piercing them,” she said carefully. “They seem to think it’s emasculating. Well, the Kindred males do, anyway. The humans I dated just don’t like being bitten.” She sighed.
“So you bite them then? The males you’ve been with?” Raak raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, no!” Kara said hastily. “I mean, I’ve never actually been with anyone like that. I mean, uh…” She trailed off, feeling mortified. Had she just admitted she was a virgin to the big Unbondable? How could she make an already embarrassing situation worse like that?
But again, Raak seemed unfazed by her admission.
“I didn’t think you had been, baby girl,” he said easily.
Kara was a little irritated by his nonchalant attitude. Was she that easy to read?
“So it’s that obvious I’m a virgin?” she demanded, putting a hand on her hip—which caused the top of the blanket she was clutching to her chest to fall down. Kara gave a little shriek and tugged it back up again, but not before flashing Raak with one bare breast.
He shot her that white grin of his.
“Oh yeah, baby girl—it is. But not just because of the innocent way you act—because of your gorgeous pale blue eyes. You’re a Blood Kindred female. So the minute you make love with some lucky male, your eye color is going to get darker and change for good, right?”
“That’s right.” Kara nodded, feeling foolish. Of course the color of her eyes proclaimed to anyone who saw her that she was innocent. For a moment she wondered what color her eyes would be if she made love with Raak. The big Unbondable had such black eyes—well, except for the silver ring around their outer edge. Would her eyes turn a much darker shade—maybe midnight blue? That would be really obvious…
Then she gave herself a mental shake. There was no way she could even think of doing such a thing with Raak. He was Unbondable, after all and if she let him change the color of her eyes without forming a lifelong soul-bond with him, well…she didn’t like to think of her parents’ reaction.
Still, when she looked at the strong cords of his neck, her fangs ached to pierce his flesh…
“What are you thinking, baby girl?” Raak asked in a low voice. “You wanna bite me?”
“Yes!” The word was out before Kara could call it back. Then she put a hand over her mouth feeling mortified. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that—shouldn’t have admitted it.”
“Why? Because biting is sexual?” Raak’s eyes had gone half-lidded as he looked at her.
“Well…yes.” Kara could hardly look at the heat smoldering in his dark eyes. “But I’m not…not going to do that with you,” she added defiantly.
“Because I’m an Unbondable, right?” he rumbled. “Your mom and dad wouldn’t be too happy if you came home with different colored eyes and no mate to show for it.”
“Exactly.” Kara looked down at her hands.
“But if you don’t bite someone—some willing male—then how are your fangs ever going to go down, baby girl?” he asked reasonably.
“I don’t know.” Kara shook her head. “They’ve never…never gotten so long and sharp like this before. I guess…” She picked aimlessly at the blanket. “I guess I’ll just have to learn to live with it.”
“No you don’t—you can bite me.”
“No, I can’t,” Kara said instantly. “I can’t just—”
“Shhh…” Raak lifted her chin gently. “Look at me, baby girl—it doesn’t have to lead to sex,” he rumbled softly.
“It…it doesn’t?” Kara met his eyes cautiously. “But how can it not? I mean, the sexual energy generated when you’re biting someone, at least when a male is biting a female—I don’t know how it’s going to be for me…”
“We’ll find another way to deal with that,” Raak told her. “But I give you my word, Kara—you can bite me and I swear I won’t try to take you—won’t make love to you tonight, no matter how much I might want to.”
The word of an Unbondable…how much is that worth? whispered a skeptical little voice in the back of Kara’s head. But that was just what everyone else believed about Raak’s people—not what she believed about him, she told herself. So far he had been nothing but honorable. He had saved her from getting her fangs pulled and now he was offering to let her use them on him—offering to let her do what she’d been itching to do for the past three years at