Ch. 16
James and I enjoyed the very late breakfast he was able to scare up in his kitchen. Apparently, he occasionally had human and weres for guests and carried a limited supply of food. After the long night and morning of activities, I was voracious. He was right; he was a surprisingly good cook and made me a huge breakfast of eggs, toast and bacon. I ate it all.
Stephen hadn’t been wrong about how James and Henry fed. James sipped on a travel coffee mug while he sat with me at the table for breakfast. “What is that?” I asked without thinking.
He looked down his nose over the table. “You know what it is.”
“Oh,” I felt stupid. “I know what it is. I was thinking about who it is.” From the look on his face, I was guessing I was starting to make him mad. Stumbling, I tried to clarify before it got worse, “What I mean is, does it bother you? Having to drink blood knowing it’s from people?”
“At first it did, when I didn’t have control, and sometimes, it didn’t end well.”
Gulping, I realized I had tried to avoid thinking about that part of James. Seeing him as a monster.
“After a while, I was able to streamline the process and occasionally I would take a partner who would willingly feed me.” He saw me thinking about that one and moved on before I could think very hard about it. “That was never my preferred method. I don’t like to mix sex and blood like some do. It was merely a necessity of the time. Now that we have the option of the blood bank, I choose to keep my pleasure separate from my feeding.”
Funny, I hadn’t realized how much of my knowledge of vampires was wrong. Knowing that sex didn’t equal blood loss took away a ton of my reservations about dreaming of more with James.
James looked at the clock on the dining room wall and pushed his chair back. “I’d better get you back soon so you have time to change before you have to meet your parents.”
“Yes, I would like to clean up a bit.” It was strange how unselfconscious I was with him; I felt at home here with him. Whoa, too fast. Well, either way, it was good to be comfortable with him since we were still going to have to work together for the next few weeks at least. After that, I wasn’t sure how things would end.