Isaac frowned. “What do you mean?”
“This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot, even before Cybele brought up the Blood Kiss,” Abby admitted. She reached over and began to trace his bottom lip slowly with a teasing fingertip. “You’re very careful whenever you feed from me. I’ve never gotten the sense that I was in any danger of being drained dry, not like that first time when your vampy powers took over my mind and I couldn’t move or scream to, literally, save my life. I imagine you’ve always been careful whenever you feed. Practice makes perfect, after all, so tonight, why don’t we try a milder version of the Blood Kiss? You can nibble on my lip while we sit just like this on the couch, and we’ll kiss with just my blood flowing this first time. You know that I find you feeding from me pleasurable. You make sure of that, so this’ll be exciting for me, too. Eventually, we can work up to intermingling our blood, and then share a Blood Kiss and more while we’re making love.”
“You make it all sound so logical,” Isaac said quietly, his tongue darting out to lick her fingertip in a slow, sensual flick, “but logic never applies to anything a vampire does.”
Abby leaned forward and replaced her finger with her lips for a soft kiss. “I want to do this for us.”
“You want to do this for me,” he corrected as he slowly, finally, reached up to touch her, gently cupping her face with his hands.
Abby smiled and turned to kiss one palm. “No, I want to do this for us,” she repeated firmly. “I want us to experience everything a relationship between a human and a vampire entails. You said so yourself. There are countless other human and vampire couples out there. Hell, I’ve even met one.”
“Valerio and Ellie are different,” he said, caressing one of her cheeks with his thumb affectionately. “He’s had centuries longer than me to hone his control.”
She reached over and pressed her index finger against the seal of his lips insistently until he parted them, allowing her to poke at his eye teeth until they elongated into fangs in reaction. Then before he could think to stop her, Abby deliberately pricked her finger on one of his razor-sharp fangs.
Isaac sucked in a sharp breath, and the veins of glowing red instantly appeared in his eyes as they zeroed in on her bleeding fingertip. His hands tightened slightly on her face, but the action didn’t feel threatening.
Keeping her eyes fixed on his face, Abby very deliberately smeared her blood onto both lips. “Kiss me,” she offered, “when you feel you can.”
His eyes lifted to meet her gaze. Even through eyes that still gave her heart a jolt every time she saw them, she could still see Isaac and not the vampire looking back at her.
It seemed they sat there, frozen, staring at each other for a small eternity before the ends of Isaac’s lips quirked up sexily, and he leaned in slowly to take her blood-stained lips with his own. The kiss started out slow, just a few, normal brushes of his lips, no doubt smearing her blood onto his own. In the process, the coppery and salty tang of her blood also made it onto her tongue as she closed her eyes and allowed him complete control of the kiss. The taste only served to heighten her anticipation of what could be in the future.
Then Abby felt the first silky, wet swipe of his tongue across her bottom lip, and suddenly the only thing keeping her body from collapsing against him with all the grace of a wet noodle was the firm grip of his hands on either side of her face. Her whole body shuddered as that tongue licked at her top lip, and soon her mouth was filled with more of that metallic taste as his tongue abruptly plunged inside and began to slide against her own in that wet, sensual dance she loved.
Their kiss became a frenzy of tangled tongues and gasps as Isaac’s lips continued to devour her mouth. Then without warning, he pulled away from her throbbing lips with a final lick to lap up the last smear of blood, making Abby cry out in dismay. However, she could still feel his warm exhales teasing her kiss-sensitive lips, and she opened her eyes, relieved that he wasn’t pulling away from her altogether.
Isaac was breathing as heavily as she was, his pupils blown wide with lust. “Your blood mixed with the taste of your lips was as delicious as I imagined,” he whispered. “I’d like another taste.”