“Fine. Here goes. Annette said you were basically a raging pervert who liked your women in minimums of twos, humans especially because of their warm bodies, you’ve fucked more women than the population of this state, I’d never hold your interest... ” I paused to take another breath. “You sounded bored in bed with me earlier, I’d never be able to handle what you really liked to do, you tell half the women you fuck that you’re in love with them, you’d have tossed me out years ago if I hadn’t left you first... oh, and that she was the one you munched on a couple months ago.”
“I am going to flog Annette fleshless for this.” Bones’ voice was low and furious. “If I were you, I’d have killed her. Bloody hell.”
He snatched open the door. “Rodney, take them back and leave Annette here!”
He didn’t bother waiting for a response before slamming it closed again. I heard Rodney’s mumbled acceptance and then the sounds of them leaving.
“Is it true?” I asked. “You’re pissed at her, but is that because she lied to me? Or because she told me the truth?”
His eyes closed for a second. “I’m sorry to be having this conversation under these circumstances, Kitten, but I had no intention of concealing my past from you. The short answer to what Annette told you is yes, I have been with many women. Many. Human and otherwise.”
Many. Again, that wasn’t unexpected considering his age, former profession, and drop-dead gorgeous—literally!—looks. But I needed a little more clarification than the word many.
“Usually in bunches? Thousands? Tens of thousands?”
Bones came to the bed and knelt next to where I sat.
“Let me explain how I was after I was changed into a vampire. For a few years, I brooded over the fate Ian forced on me, but eventually I figured I may as well have a grand time being dead. Back then I had a talent for exactly one thing, and that was shagging. If the girl fancied feminine company also while we were in bed, I certainly didn’t object. Then as the years passed, I began meting out death to those I thought deserved it. Later I started making an income from it. Soon killing became the other thing I excelled at, and between the two, I thought I was as happy as I had any right to be.
“My life went on like this, and yes, Annette was frequently one of the women I shagged, either alone or accompanied. Then one day a friend of mine asked me to find his daughter’s murderer, and I traced her killer and his operation to a bar in Ohio. There I met you, and I fell in love. You can’t imagine what that was like after centuries of... emptiness. I hadn’t thought I was capable of falling in love, but at last I felt like I had something to give other than a good shag or killing a bloke for someone. And now my trusted friend Annette has sought to rip that away from me by taunting you with things in my past, hoping it would destroy your feelings for me.”
We had never discussed how Bones became a hit man, or very much at all about his early years. Despite our months together, I realized we’d spent most of our time chasing the bad guys and very little time talking about who we were, or who we had been. It wasn’t hard to imagine the type of life Bones had described, either. I couldn’t relate to all the sex, but for the past four and a half years, I’d had little to offer people but my ability to kill as well. And at the end of the day, that was a very lonely feeling.
“Don’t judge her so harshly, Bones. Annette loves you; that’s why she did what she did. I don’t like your extensive sexual history, but I can handle it—if it’s in your past. But I will never participate in a threesome, foursome, fivesome, whatever. If that’s what you’re hoping I’ll eventually get into... then we have a problem.”
“Except for that one instance I truly regret with Annette, I didn’t touch another woman while we were apart, because I don’t want anyone but you. And as far as telling other women I loved them, when I was a whore, I used to tell all my clients I loved them. Almost part of the job, as it were. That’s why I’d said it before to Annette, but not since I was human have I said it to anyone but you.”
The truth was in his eyes, and it took the sting out of discovering everything, and everyone, that had come before me.
“Well, then... okay.”
“Okay?” Bones pulled me onto the floor with him until our faces were level.
“Yeah,” I said softly, touching his face. “Okay.”
When he kissed me this time, I didn’t flinch. I coiled myself around him.
Bones drew back after a long moment. “I still have to deal with Annette. You might look leniently on her, but she violated my trust, and I cannot dismiss that. Annette!” he suddenly called out. “Get up here!”
I shrugged, an idea I normally wouldn’t have considered threading its way into my head.
“Do it your way, but I suggest another one. You could go ahead and beat her bloody, or... you could give me such loud, screaming orgasms that the sound of them blisters her ears. If you have any former-whore-turned-promiscuous-vampire tricks you’ve been holding back, well, bring them on. I only have one stipulation: You’d better outperform any service you gave to her or anyone else, because if I don’t wake up tomorrow red in the face from embarrassment at what you did to me, I’ll be disappointed.”
Annette opened the door without knocking. Bones rose and gave her a frightening look.