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ONCE THE GOLDEN glow of the Las Vegas Strip was unfolding like a fan on the horizon, I checked in with my landlord on my hands-free cell phone

Actually, I checked in with his butler He was the one who’d fret about my whereabouts

I didn’t even need to worry about waking him up, because he was one of the celebrity zombies known as a CinSims You really can’t wake up Willia other classics, since the actor has been dead for decades and his various acting personas have been grafted onto conteas entertainment locations

What does it say when the only person orries about your well-being like a father you can always count on isn’t actually a real person?

Quicksilver and Ric listened hard to my end of the conversation

"Godfrey? Yes, we’ve stayed out really late, but we’re safe and sound" …

"Master Quicksilver will be fine Ric has a smart house but Quick is smarter, so we can always use the extra security" …

"Yes, we’re heading to Ric’s place Master Quicksilver and I are doing an overnight Tell your boss I’ll check in with hi" …

"After breakfast, Godfrey, yes" …

"Indeed We are being ‘deliciously scandalous’ and will ‘enjoy ourselves’ Yes, ne, but certainly Brimstone Kisses"

I winked at Ric as the phone’s ultraviolet glow faded with my conversation

"Brimstone Kiss" Ric mused "That’s the Inferno Bar cocktail you whipped up for the Hu to ply him with booze to save redients?"

"If you have OJ in the fridge and orange brandy on hand, I can mix up a Brimstone Kiss"

"Brandy? Nope You’ll just have to rely on my homemade brews and kisses"

By then we’d arrived and Ric’s garage door was opening at Dolly’s approach as its interior light went on Luckily, Ric’s Vette was a space saver Dolly could glide her three thousand-plus pounds right in She’s a big girl and proud of it

Ric and I were entering the connecting courtyard before the systeered behind to ensure nothing even as low and slender as a rattlesnake had slipped in unnoticed

I loved thesplash of its copper fountain recycling water to the lush foliage It felt so Old Mexico Ric loved the stucco wall niches between cli blossoms and rich scent, where he could back me into the dark for butterfly and brimstone kisses

Quicksilver whined impatiently and then lapped noisily at the fountain pool He was big enough to sound like a herd of thirty water buffalo

"I bet he’s jealous," Ric said, turning to stare at the wolfish lapper

Quick stared back and stopped drinking, wearing his innocent-dog look

"Why don’t we leave hiested

I walked over to Quick, who proazed at me with his li the silver medallions on his collar, now all sliced in half, like theroll his eyes? Mine did I took that as a yes

Ric and I walked through the heavy hacienda-style wooden front door as it opened for us Ric’s house e’s invisible helpers, but he had high tech

"I don’t see any ritzy liquor cabinets," I h the di roo on liquid silver"

"You actually like sharing a bit ofyour one silver iris ?"

In the dark living rooraspmy velvety,What’s not to like about you saving my life if the only side effect is a cool silver eye I can cover with a contact lens?"

"Maybe your eye doesn’t reflect an aspect of my silver talents Maybe the color was leached from your eye, rather than added I didn’t even know I had any silver as"

"Delilah, querida I really don’t care about the why and wherefore of ht now What I don’t know is how Christophe’s rescue party kept their hands off you in this thing Mmm, that warm velvety black stretchy stuff eoose bu back"

I felt like such a fraud for not telling Ric I ht him back from the dead with the leftovers of Snow’s Brimstone Kiss, not my own determined CPR

"I’m … not used to such blatant booty calls"

Ric laughed, a rich and wonderful sound I thought I’d never hear again only a few days ago "Shy Delilah," he crooned "Don’t you know that’s eveninto the lighted bathrooirl, but then we’ll go into the dark bedroo to make love to you in that suit like you’ve never had it before"

"But Ric, I’ve only ever … had … you before"

"Maybe not like this We’ve both got the silver ured out how to use it soether"

"Who knohat the silver eye will do for, or against, you I don’t think sex is going to prove anything"

"Aw, Del, sex proves everything Our connection hite-hot fro skeletons in Sunset Park … What should I call that co-ed dowsing moment? A sensual shudder?"

"Nicely put," I adht We’d had it all froht

I sed "This could be dangerous My silver talents, your quicksilver eye We could … spontaneously combust"

"Yeah, baby"

"You’re killing the mood with that word"

"Sí, Señorita Palopulse there

The sweet spot for teenage boys and vampires

I twisted rip I didn’t want to play va myself to tease the site of the vampire bat bite that had introduced Ric to puberty in the Mexican desert had hway for the real Millennium Revelation vampires to nearly suck hi, even if it had been a basic foreplay move since cave days

"I’m back now, Delilah," Ric reo never went , for sure," I teased "You really want me to strip you?"

It wasn’t like I’d never been there before, but I’d never been the doer, mostly the do-ee Convent school and a squeairl

I knew once we hit the bathroo to blush Pale skin is -up, but this hat I’d wanted so desperately, Ric alive and vital again Why did I always find it easier tome over every hurdle in ?

No wonder Quicksilver had wanted to get lost, fast For the first tiy sex life, ht runs of his TMS TooRic was a good ice-breaker The racing-style suit Velcroed open at the extremities and then down from the mandarin-collared neck to the, us braced and arh, low, and center Men can be so out there

I smiled as he turned hisno trace of the ugly elts my tear-salted kisses had ser traced the Catherine’s wheel of strokes thinner than barbed wire, each touch evoking his audible purrs of pleasure

I’d done this

My silver talents and whatever reered on my lips had made the site of untold old pain into a new erotic zone