“Abby—you know I don’t dare do anything involving blood while we’re making love.”
She pushed her back against his arms firmly until he reluctantly released her. She then took him by the arm and led him over to the couch, pushing him to sit down before she moved to straddle his lap. It always amused her when she was able to manhandle him into doing anything, knowing that she was only able to move him at all because he allowed it. The sense of power it gave her knowing that such an incredible being chose to surrender to her whims was exhilarating, especially after the way her last boyfriend had left her feeling so hurt and powerless after their messy breakup.
His eyes flashed briefly with lust and just a tinge of the veins of red that always threaded through his dark eyes when his vampire nature surfaced. However, his hands stayed at his sides as though he didn’t trust himself to touch her right then, even when she bent down and kissed him hard.
“All the same, I’d like to hear what a Blood Kiss is. Then we’ll talk about it.”
Isaac sighed. “If you knew how close my control is to snapping whenever I’m aroused and anywhere near you, you wouldn’t be so curious to try it. Is a Blood Kiss an incredible experience? Yes, it is. I won’t lie to you about that. However, it’s the very reason why I’m no longer human.”
Abby gasped. It was the last thing she had expected him to say. No wonder Cybele hadn’t wanted to tell her about it. Speaking of another vampire’s turning without their permission was one of the few taboo things within vampire society. The gravity of it was reinforced by the very fact that even Cybele, whose tongue knew no bounds, would respect that unspoken rule.
“You never have told me the name of your Sire,” Abby said softly.
“That’s because that vampire has no importance in my life. I’m what’s known as a ‘Blood-Orphan,’ a newly changed vampire who has either been abandoned by their Sire or whose Sire was killed before they could learn much of anything about our vampire society. I was abandoned, a mistake. I was just supposed to be her meal for the night. However, the Blood Kiss we indulged in went a little too far, but it was enough to start the change in me. To save her own skin, she was forced to complete it. If I had died, she would’ve had to face Ryker’s judgment, or worse, our king’s.”
“So a Blood Kiss is…what? Is that just another way of saying a ‘feeding’?”
Isaac was suddenly staring at her mouth. “A Blood Kiss is exactly what it sounds like. Not a feeding, but an exchange of blood while kissing, an intermingling. A nip on a lip or a fang piercing a tongue, it doesn’t matter as long as both partners are bleeding while they kiss. As Cybele said, anything combining blood and sex is quite a pleasurable experience for a vampire, and the tasting of vampire blood for a human is a pleasure without comparison even without adding anything sexual into the equation.”
Abby wiggled a bit on his lap, making both his breath and that stare sharpen. She was starting to feel lightheaded again.
“I know you don’t like to talk about anything to do with turning a human,” she said, sounding a bit breathless, “but did your Sire drain too much blood from you and then—I don’t know—something injected from her fangs or in her saliva started to take over your body like a virus?”
“Her blood,” Isaac replied reluctantly, tearing his gaze away from her mouth to lock eyes with her. “A human tasting a little vampire blood will only enthrall them for a few hours, depending on how much they’ve drunk. It’s what allows us to drink from the unwary, to give them false memories of a night of pleasure or simply make them believe they drank themselves into oblivion.”
“You said you never slept with any of your clients. Is that what you did? Give them a taste of your blood, drink from them, and then send them on their way making them think they’d had the time of their lives?”
“I’ve never given a Blood Kiss to a human,” he said firmly, “for the very reason why I have never fed from you while we were intimate. I don’t trust my control. You experienced that loss of control, firsthand, and it almost cost you your life. If we were to try it, and you accidentally drank too much of my blood…” His expression turned stricken. “I would rather burn in the sun than be forced to turn you without your consent because I was too lost in lust to stop.”
“We’ve made love countless times since without you accidentally biting me again,” Abby argued. “You have a lot more control than you think.”
He closed his eyes and groaned. “It’s a struggle not to sink my teeth into your soft, soft flesh every. Single. Time. The urge to taste your blood never goes away, Abby. I may seem like I’m in total control, but the truth is, I’m always walking on a knife’s edge. Sooner or later, one of us will be cut if I lean too far to the side.”
“So, we’ll just make sure that I do the leaning—at least in the beginning.”