Suddenly a lot of things that had been going on since they had returned from Chicago made sense to her, and she sat up straight. "This is why you've been playing knights in shining armor with Phil four nights a week. You think he's going to come after you for real."

"In this case, ma belle, I have come to him." He stood, still holding her in his arms. "Richard may have convinced Lucan not to assassinate me, but he may yet use any opportunity he can take to torment me. When he broke into La Fontaine, somehow he must have seen you. Later he made it clear to me that he wanted you." He nudged open the door to the master bedroom and carried her inside.

Alex tried to process all this. "Why didn't you tell me about this before we came here?"

"We had real concerns to deal with, Alexandra. My oldest enemy in the world may wish to seduce you, but that does not mean he will." Michael placed her on the net-draped bed and shrugged out of his jacket. "If by chance he does manage to have a private moment alone with you, simply remember what he did to your nurse. To take his revenge on me, he would not hesitate to do the same—or worse—to you."

"Meanwhile, you're giving him a jardin and treating him like one of the old vampire family." Her head was starting to hurt, so she pushed herself off the bed and began walking the floor. "You're not going to take him out, either, are you?"

"If I kill Lucan, Richard will be seriously displeased." Michael began unbuttoning his shirt, and the scent of fullblown roses filled the room. "He might even decide to kill me. It is ironic; Lucan has always been jealous of the attention and favor Richard has shown me, but he is the one the high lord truly considers his surrogate son."

Alex watched him undress down to his black silk boxers and reach for the lighter, more casual clothes Phillipe had left on the edge of the bed. She breathed in his scent and felt the edginess inside her recede a few inches. "You going somewhere?"

"No, but I must make a few phone calls and do some computer work," he said as he shook the folds out of his khaki trousers. "If you are tired from the journey, you should sleep."

Alex wasn't the one in need of rest. Ever since they'd returned from Chicago, Michael had been completely wrapped up in reorganizing the American jardins and establishing diplomatic relations or whatever with Darkyn clans in Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America. They'd barely had time to exchange a couple of words, much less relax together.

Relaxation—that was what he needed. And she knew one way to give him a little.

"It's nighttime. I'm a vampire. I'm not tired." She crossed the room and locked the door, and then took the trousers from him. She threw them aside before resting her hands flat on his bare chest. The scent of lavender blended with the unseen roses enveloping them. "I'm thirsty."

"There is blood." He watched as she slid down the front of him to go down on her knees. "Unless you wish something else."

She moved her hands up his thighs, over the silk of his boxers, and tucked her thumbs under the waistband.

"I don't want to keep you from your phone calls." She eased the boxers down, freeing the rising, thickened shaft of his penis. "Very long."

He groaned as her breath touched him. "I do not think you will."

"It's okay, though, isn't it?" She tipped her head back. "I mean, I am really thirsty."

Michael threaded his long fingers through her curls. "Then open your mouth for me, Alexandra." The golden rim around his turquoise irises expanded even as the black pupils in their centers contracted to slits. He curled his free hand around his cock. "One time when we did this, you left me standing hard and naked in the rain."

"I remember." Alex took the smooth, plum-shaped head between her lips, closing them around the base and sucking lightly before releasing it. "You never called in that IOU."

"This is true." His fingers curled into a fist, urging her mouth to him. "Take me there again, ma belle."

Alexandra had never minded performing oral sex on a lover, but she had never found it particularly physically arousing for herself. In the past she had enjoyed the feeling of power it gave her to set aside her own satisfaction while she devoted herself to her lover's pleasure. What she liked most was observing the effect what she did had on her partner. Yet as Michael filled her mouth, for the first time the slick friction created an altogether unfamiliar blend of heat and sensation. It moved from the sensitive surfaces of her lips and tongue down her throat and infused her breasts, making them swell and her nipples tighten.

This is new.

She looked up at Michael as she rubbed his shaft with her tongue and sucked. His gaze was fixed on her face, and the sight of his cock between her lips and the feel of her mouth must have excited him, because his fangs appeared, and she could feel him getting harder.

"Let me in," he murmured, thrusting a little farther inside. "Yes, ma belle, like that. Your tongue feels like velvet on me."

Now she groaned around his cock. The need was expanding over her, making her clit as erect and hard as her nipples, reducing her to a triangle of throbbing, aching points desperately in need of attention. She gripped his thighs, digging her fingernails into the tight, hard muscles there. No, this is for him. I can get off later.

"Touch your pretty breasts for me, Alexandra," he urged as he thrust gently in and out of her tugging mouth. "I want to see your hands on them."

Was he reading her mind? Alex didn't know, didn't care. Gratefully she cupped her breasts, massaging the painfully hard nipples under her palms, and willed her own fangs not to emerge. Now was simply not the time to have two sharp points pop out into her mouth.

"Suck harder, chérie," Michael said, his voice as deep and slow as the movements of his cock. "Take me in. As much as you can. Like that, oui." He started muttering in French, gliding in and out of her, and then he jerked himself out of her mouth.

Before Alex could do more than whimper, she was flat on her back on the bed, with Michael climbing on top of her. He inverted their positions so that the damp head of his penis was nudging her lips even as he grasped her knees to tug her legs open to his mouth.

His tongue pushed into the top of her labia and flattened against her exposed clit, which he rubbed with his tongue back and forth in a slow, continuous massage. The effect was like throwing jet fuel on a bonfire.

Alex couldn't scream; his cock was pushing deep inside her mouth again. The tips of her fangs extruded and she was terribly afraid the sharp points would lacerate him, but she couldn't let go. She needed to suck on him as much as she needed to feel him kissing her between the legs. That wasn't all he was doing, either. She could feel two of his fingers rimming the slickness of her vagina, and then working slowly into it, penetrating her. She prayed she could hold on to her self-control as she fought the snowballing need to come under his mouth.

Michael decided matters for them both by pushing the entire length of his cock into her mouth at the same time he thrust three fingers into her and sank his fangs into her labia.

Alex shook as she came in waves, writhing on his fingers, vibrating under his mouth, and then semen and blood jetted into her mouth, cool and dark and thrilling. She had bitten him, too, and swallowed everything he pumped into her, enjoying the way his body jerked atop hers while his mouth and fingers never stopped working her until she careened into a second wet, pulsing climax.

It might have gone on forever, Alex thought, and neither of them would have cared.

At last Michael lifted his head and gently drew himself from her clinging lips. She caught him and held him long enough to see the twin punctures on the head of his penis closing before she released him.

They'd bitten each other a few times during sex, but not like that. Not where it could do real damage. She reached down and gently touched the wetness between her legs. She was healing a little faster now, not as quickly as Michael and the other Darkyn, but enough to know that the puncture wounds from his teeth had already stopped bleeding and would close in a few minutes.

Her lover turned to lie beside her, gazing into her face with the visible pride and pleasure of a Darkyn male who had satisfied and had been satisfied on several levels.

"Go ahead." Marvel of marvels, they'd done all that to each other and yet she wasn't even winded. "Be full of yourself."

"I am full of you." He bent over to give her a slow, lingering kiss, and she tasted herself on his lips.

Alex was still human enough to be slightly revolted by what they'd done. Blood and sex was still a bizarre mix to her, and what she'd done invoked visions of Lorena Bobbitt. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"You can hurt me that way anytime you wish." Michael saw her expression and smiled. "Non, I am well. Just when I think I know all about you, ma belle." He cupped her breast and played with her nipple. "You surprise me."

"I have no idea where that came from," she assured him. "All I had in mind was a quick, relaxing blow job for you, to show my appreciation for not leaving me behind in New Orleans with a babysitter. Then there were fangs and orgasms and blood all over the place."

"We have not had much time together of late." He nuzzled her ear. "I should have warned you that it causes certain needs to arise."

The man was usually a walking erection, but he was right: It had been a while for them. "I never noticed."

"Not only the human desires." He chuckled and pulled her against him. "A Darkyn lord and his sygkenis cannot deny each other blood or sex for too long. They share too close a bond. When they do, the passion between them can become uncontrollable."

Alex could have turned that into another interrogation about the Darkyn, but her fangs had begun aching again, as had several other parts of her body.

She let her hand wander down the front of him. "How uncontrollable?" He became rock-hard again the moment she touched him. "I see. I'd say this is a problem that calls for immediate attention by your personal physician, seigneur. How important were those phone calls?"