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"Who’s the freaking school nurse now?" I asked, feeling my cheeks warm at the mention of my period I didn’t want to even think why a vah was low as he leaned near again "Piqued, Delilah? I’ too analytical? I adht becoht too, but I don’t want your blood Hoas the taste test for you?"

"Quick and dirty, as I expected Grow up, Sanscouci" I knew ht-hundred-year-old va with revulsion"

I rolled ht? Like a dentist"

I was pleased, though As the lyrics in the classic Casablancawent, "a kiss is just a kiss" and that’s what I’d wanted to know Sansouci had enjoyed that moment on the level of a stolen sexual buzz, but didn’t find it an orgas on any remainder of the Brimstone Kiss effect to the man in the street Or vampire

At least not on the lips

"So this is what you do Kiss and run Tell me about the harem"

"They’re ordinary wo Old In between Maybe they were abused when children and need the edge of mock violence to feel alive Maybe they’ve lost someone who can never, ever come back Maybe they’re just too busy to meet and date and mate Maybe, Delilah, they just like et out of it?"

I was asking an existential question He wanted to take me down to brass tacks What does that mean, anyway? I was about to learn what it meant to Sansouci when he was ready to play me

"I’ll show you" He reached into the side pockets of his light cotton jacket and started laying itelass where their reflection"This is nized the first itee

"Dirty movies for the cell phone?" I asked

"No A vibrator, and not just any vibrator" As he picked it up the surface shi form in his hand "This is the Swiss arhty-six different shapes and functions"

I tried not to stare at it bug-eyed Huh? Call me an amateur I’d just achieved supine He pushed forward solad I hadn’t tried to be the A-student and sung out th or situation Second- the fifth

"A pair of chorus-girl earrings?" I gahen the sparkling pair of three-inch red-carpet shoulder-dusters hit the tabletop next

"We’re back to that naughty word again, Delilah Nipple clas They’d look hotter than hell with your current outfit I don’t suppose you’d?" He held theht like Whore of Babylon pasties

By now my cool white skin had overheated with a blush Heartland-naive sucked

"Yes," he said, a wicked spring-green sparkle in his eyes, "that’s the effect I’ for, but it’s called a flush Just how far down do your flushes go?"

"You’re teasingyour history out of you," I accused

And, I realized, it was also because little boys like to tors and snakes, that Sansouci’s display was an adult version of the saled chains of various lengths "Sos These offer myriad decorative and functional combinations with onboard equip for a tiround out "I hate that , and very telltale" Sansouci laughed as he swept his display off the table and back into his pockets "These are only the easily portableaccessories of my trade Care to know more?"

"No," I swore "I think I’d better leave"

"Not before you tell me your real story,’" Sansouci said softly "Your real reason for e’re here, your interrogating ain with one arm while his other hand lifted the hair off my nape My face was smothered in his jacket shoulder In an instant I was held ih the skull rocked after his sudden ht so," he murmured in my ear "You didn’t ask about this, and here I am an expert at your disposal, fearless reporter Señor Montoya’s been saularly"

"It’s just a hickey Hickeys," I ainst his jacket "I hate that word"

"Not just a hickey Hickeys" His thumb stroked the freshest one and I couldn’t stop a wince I jerked away, but he held ht

He whispered the next words intosyllable It was a taunt and an intinosis "Can’t deny it Broke the skin, Luscious"

I pushed off, fighting his custody, ry and anxious than before "As if you wouldn’t," I hissed back at hietsoverenthusiastic A bat bite in the Mexican desert spurred his first wet drea hiin"

"He doesn’t havefangs"

"Teeth enough to be interesting You let hio The silver familiar lay coldly around my neck I put my hand up to feel a bristly crown of thorns It had allowed hi my blood, but this was too ain," I told Sansouci, "and you’ll lose a body part"

"No desire to, now that I knohat I suspected is right This is serious, Delilah, and you know it That’s why you cozied up to me to pry out some facts of vampire life, so to speak You’re like any va--"

I belted him in the mouth before I could even think

The shock shut him up, and me too

Not very ladylike I didn’t approve os they didn’t like in forties uess

Sansouci felt his jaw "Bit ue You drew blood, Delilah How does that feel?"

"Annoying, like your behavior You’re the only vampire I--"

"Trust?"

"Don’t fool yourself The only one I know I can ask"

There was always Howard Hughes, but asking lecherous Uncle Howie about plain sex, not to mention vampire sex, ay too icky Warped, even Especially if he was my father At least I was convinced that Sansouci’s attitude toward Vida was far too neutral for hi to tell me the one piece of infor his head "I overstepped, but it was for your own good"

"The bastards always say that Ric is not a vampire"

"Let’s say not But you’re worried sick Va that Whatever happened, they didn’tturn him"