Conversion (Page 19)

I thought about his analogy and tried to forget that in his scenario-I was dessert. "Well, I guess that would depend on how hungry I was. If I was starving, I probably wouldn’t stop."

"I would never sample you if I were starving. I wouldn’t come near you if I were anywhere close to starving." He completely sat up on the bed with me.

We were having a frank conversation, so I decided to just be frank. "You wouldn’t just attack me and take it?"

He was shaking his head before I’d even finished my question. "I would never take it without permission. No…only if you wanted me to taste you." He looked down and his cheeks flushed with color. "I would actually love that. It’s really quite…intimate. You may enjoy it too."

"I don’t think so, Teren," I said very slowly. "Would you feed on anyone else, if I always told you no?" I found that I couldn’t meet his eye when I asked, and I had to stare at my fingers tracing patterns in the silky sheets.

His hand came up and he gently grabbed my chin, making me look up at him. "No. I would never do that…ever. You’re the only one I want to drink from."

That comment actually pleased me, which made me shake my head in bewilderment. "This conversation just got creepy."

He laughed and relaxed back down to the pillows. "Just? I thought it was creepy ages ago, but I just kept going with it."

"Shut up." I smiled and laid down on him, putting my head on his shoulder and draping my arm over his chest. "Would my blood be sweet to you?"

He grinned as I looked up at him. "Like the finest wine."

"Hmmm…that’s oddly flattering. Still pretty creepy, but flattering."

He laughed again and kissed my temple. "I do love you."

"I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing you say that." I nestled deeper into his shoulder and let out a happy-with-life sigh.

"Well, you have as long as you like to listen."

Spike stirred from his resting place at our feet and stood up on the bed. He shook out his long coat and then lightly stepped in-between Teren and me and settled back down. We both laughed as we were forced apart from each other by his size. Spike licked my cheek and rested his head on my shoulder, almost protectively.

"Hey, boy, I missed you." I scratched him behind his ears. He thumped his tail and I could have sworn he smiled.

Teren sat up on the other side of him. "You missed the dog? Did you miss me?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Maybe…a little."

He leaned over Spike to kiss me. "It seemed more than a little last night."

I grinned and pulled him down to me, making Spike scoot out of our way. "Okay…maybe a lot. Maybe I was miserable. Maybe I cried all the time. Maybe I told off my boss. And maybe I even got wasted and danced inappropriately with my friend’s boyfriend. Maybe…"

Teren raised his eyebrows at me. "Wow, you were busy. I just sulked a lot." He cupped my face in his strong hands. "I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you everything right away. I was so afraid you’d leave me."

I blinked back the darn tears again, although a couple may have made it past my defenses. "I’m not going anywhere. I missed you so much." I brought him to my lips and proceeded to show him, again, just how much I’d missed him.

Closer to lunchtime, I was lounging in the kitchen, wearing my boyfriend’s just long enough dress shirt. Dressed only in gray lounge pants, Teren was making us a late breakfast of bacon and eggs.

I was very happy.

I came up behind him and slipped my arms around his trim waist. He smiled and turning towards me, popped half a piece of bacon in my mouth. He popped the other half, and I kissed his bare shoulder and hugged him tight, while he flipped my eggs. When he was done, he made up a plate for me (he must have picked that habit up from his mom), and set me at the table with a kiss on the head. He made us both cappuccinos and then joined me at his stylish kitchen table.

I held his hand while we ate, and periodically kissed his wrist as I gazed into his pale eyes. I couldn’t help it. I almost felt like I was the vampire-I just wanted to devour him. And I definitely never wanted to let him go again. Which left one little situation we hadn’t discussed yet. As he swept away our plates and made more coffee, I wondered how to bring it up to him.

This is what I came up with…

"Your parents will be thrilled that we’re back together."

He set my coffee in front of me and sat back down. "Yeah, they’d be downright euphoric if they knew what we just did." He grinned. "Twice."

I laughed and shook my head. "That’s just so wrong on so many levels."

He took a sip of coffee then shook his head. "Tell me about it. I never thought they’d go so far as to discuss my sex life over dinner, while meeting my girlfriend for the first time."

"I never imagined upsetting any parent because I wasn’t…copulating like a bunny with their son."

He laughed at my turn-of-phrase. "God, I know." Closing his eyes, he shook his head again. "They can be mortifying." He opened them and looked at me, a little embarrassed. "I’m so sorry about that. I think they’re getting a little desperate."

I sipped my coffee and then grinned at him. "You think? They asked me if I was attracted to you. Like I’m not the one usually ripping your clothes off."

He let out a hearty laugh. "Yeah, well, I didn’t feel the need to mention that to them."

"Thank you for that." I took a long draw of coffee while I watched him laugh. "So…they want an heir?"

He stopped laughing and set the coffee that he had just been about to sip, down on the table. His expression serious, he smoothly said, "Being with me doesn’t mean that you have to get pregnant in the next six months."

"But if it’s going to happen, it has to be before you die."

He averted his eyes. "That’s what they believe, because that’s how it worked for them. I don’t think it works the same for me."

I blinked. "Why not?"

Teren blushed and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "Because…I’m a guy." He shrugged his shoulders, like that one statement answered everything.

I blinked again, not really understanding his argument. "So…"

He sighed. "Women have to be alive for a baby to grow inside them. Obviously, a dead body can’t grow a life, can’t provide the necessary nourishment." He looked down at his pants with an odd twist to his lips. "My…contribution just kind of hangs out and waits for the opportunity."

I couldn’t help it-my happiness that we were in this mess together and the oddity of the situation, culminating in that last look at his pants-I started laughing. I started belly laughing. Tears were streaming down my face.

He looked at me, offended, like I was emasculating him. "It’s not funny."

I managed to spit out around chuckles, "Your family is irked at you, because you haven’t knocked up some poor girl yet. That’s kind of funny."

He smiled then and finally laughed with me. "I suppose it is, in a way."

Eventually our laughter died down and I grabbed his hand. "Honey, I think your family is right."

"What?" he asked, curious.

"I think once your body is effectively dead, what swimmers you have will die, or at least they won’t be viable for long. There’s a lot going on in the male system. It takes quite a bit of hormones and nutrients to make and keep active baby-makers, and I don’t know for sure, but I think you’ll be shooting blanks afterwards."

"Anything else, Doctor?" he asked, keeping his features as blank as possible.

"It’s just an opinion." I suppressed another laugh and shrugged my shoulders.

Shaking his head in amusement, he rolled his eyes. "I’m glad everyone is so interested in my reproductive system."

I spat up the last of the coffee that I had just swallowed and Teren softly chuckled into his cup. Collecting myself, I waited until he was taking a sip of his coffee before I responded. "Maybe you should just give them what they want?"

I was vastly rewarded. He spat up his coffee and stared at me open-mouthed. Still feeling on a high from just being back together with him, I stood up and straddled him in his chair. That made him smile, and he set down his coffee and rubbed his warm hands on my thighs. I gazed into his pale eyes and imagined for a second having a black-haired, blue-eyed, fanged child with him. It was an interesting thought, but it was all happening so fast…

"Why haven’t you yet, since you know how important it is to them?" I asked in a quiet voice, not sure if I wanted an answer to that question.

He sighed and his hands stroked the outside of my bare thighs. "Now you sound like them." He gave me an exasperated look as he asked, "Who exactly am I having this vampire child with?"

I raised an eyebrow at him as I laced my arms around his neck. "Surely, you’ve been with other girls before?"

Amused, he gave me a wry look. "I am twenty-five…yes."

"Well, one of those girls."

He was already shaking his head though. "I’m not bringing someone into this…situation unknowingly."

I blinked and pulled back to examine him. "I’m the only one you’ve ever told?"

He shook his head again as his hands slid up to my hips. "No. You’re just the only one who hasn’t run away…for long at least." He laughed and I smiled at his attractive, happy face. "There was even this one girl who tried to stake me-with a stiletto no less." He rubbed his bare chest. "That hurt a bit."

I laughed, then bent over to kiss his old injury. "How very Single White Female of her. What happened to these girls?" I tried to picture some woman trying to heel him to death, and the image made me obscenely happy.

"Great-Gran hunted them down-"

I cut him off by partially standing from his lap. "Oh my God! She ate them?" I had a momentary second of panic at the thought of that wild, black-haired beauty tracking me, if my reaction had been a little more extreme at his parents’ place.

Teren pulled my h*ps back down onto his lap. "No, can I finish? She tranced them, made them forget…although, she probably did nibble a bit first." He furrowed his brow as he considered that possibility.

I ignored the nibbling part and focused on the more pertinent part of the sentence. "She what? She like…hypnotized them?"

He shrugged. "Sort of, yeah."

"Wow…can you do that?" I could see numerous instances where that little trick would come in handy-cutting in front of people in long grocery lines, dealing with the DMV, sneaking us into Hollywood movie premiers. He burst my bubble pretty quickly though.

"No, it’s a full blown vampire thing. She’s the only one of us that can do it."

"Oh, too bad…" No way was I going to ask her to hypno someone for me.

Teren laughed once. "Why, you want your mind erased? Something you want to forget?" He twisted his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Maybe your dirty dancing with that guy…" His tone was a little disgruntled.

I bit my lip, wishing I hadn’t mentioned that. "No…well, actually, yeah, I would like to forget that but no, I was thinking that’d be a handy trick." Excited, I leaned over his arms on his chest. "I mean for speeding tickets alone…"