“He’s just lucky he didn’t have it in his room,” I said, getting a vision of a head swollen to the size of a beach ball.
“Indeed. Remainders earn their money.”
“Yet my father offered the service for free. Didn’t that make anyone suspicious?”
“Yes. But Antonio was not the type to turn down a good deal. After your father came to work for him, he developed the theory that he was using the leftover magic to feed his ghosts.”
I shook my head. “Ghosts require human energy. Some old charm wouldn’t do them any more good than it would you or me.” Less, really. It wasn’t like they needed to grow hair or lose weight or whiten their teeth.
“Then it remains a mystery, I’m afraid.”
Like everything else about my parents. I sighed and contemplated my almost-empty plate. I couldn’t possibly eat another thing. Except maybe that one last rib . . .
“You met him, didn’t you?” I asked, slathering on the sauce.
Mircea nodded. “Antonio sent him to court a few times as his representative.” His lips quirked. “I think because his manners were somewhat more refined than those of most of Antonio’s stable.”
“You mean he didn’t drink straight out of the bottle?”
“Or use the tablecloth for a napkin. Or lick the butter knife. Or drink from the finger bowl, and then complain that the tea tasted just like hot water.”
I blinked. “Who did that?”
“Alphonse.”
“Ah.” I grinned, thinking of Tony’s second, a seven-foot hunk of muscle who was great with the guns and the knives and the things that went boom. Not so much with the dainty table manners. “What was my father like?”
Mircea thought about it for a moment. “Somewhat reserved, as might have been expected. But articulate, wellread, even amusing at times. I tried to steal him away from Antonio, but he said he liked the good air in New Jersey!”
I nodded. Tony had business interests in Jersey. My father must have worked in some of them. “He was probably afraid you’d do a background check.”
“Probably. I have employed mages on a number of occasions who were at odds with the Silver Circle, whose punishments are often out of proportion to the crime. But the Black . . . no. I do not deal with them.”
I drank wine and didn’t comment. I didn’t want to think about what my father might have done as a member of the world’s most organized bunch of evil mages. I didn’t know why I was curious about the damn man at all. Maybe just because, while I knew a little about my mother, he was almost a total blank.
For years, all I’d known was that he’d been Tony’s “favorite human” until he refused to hand me over. Tony had been so incensed by this “betrayal,” as he saw it, that killing him hadn’t been enough. He’d had a mage construct a trap for my father’s soul, capturing it at the point of death. Tony had used it for years afterward as a paperweight—and as a subtle reminder to anyone else who thought about crossing him.
But as far as memories went, I had almost nothing—just the vague impression of a pair of strong arms tossing me into the air as a child. I couldn’t even picture him in my head. “What did he look like?” I asked, pushing a fry around because I was too stuffed to do anything else with it.
“It is odd, now that you mention it,” Mircea said.
“What is?”
“He was slightly swarthy, handsome enough, with dark hair and eyes.”
“Why is that odd?”
He shrugged. “Merely that, having seen your mother, I would have expected him to have been a blond.”
Chapter Fifteen
I gave up pretending to eat a few minutes later. There was a cart with dessert—chocolate hazelnut sponge cake, crème brûlée and pavlova with raspberries and kiwi. But by the time I finished the ribs and the fries and most of a bottle of wine, I couldn’t walk that far. I kind of doubted I could walk at all. I flopped onto my back and stared at the ceiling, lost in a food haze.
It was glorious.
Mircea leaned over to refill my wineglass, and a section of his bare chest showed under the robe, along with a hint of a dusky nipple. It’s a good thing I’m too stuffed to move, I thought hazily. I would so have jumped that.
He laughed, and I looked up and met amused, dark eyes. “What?”
He started to say something and then stopped himself. “You have sauce everywhere,” he said instead.
“Of course I do. I had ribs.”
“And apparently enjoyed them.”
I sighed. “They were really, really good.”
He reached over, picked up my hand. And before I could ask what he was doing, a pink tongue flicked out and—
And he licked my fingers clean.
“You’re right,” he told me. “It’s delicious.”
“Don’t do that,” I said, as he nipped the mound below my thumb.
“Why not?”
“Because it feels too good.”
Mircea just smiled. And then he did it again.
Bastard.
The firelight gleamed on dark hair and wine-reddened lips. The robe had come apart some more, showing off most of a hard chest and a thigh thick with muscle. And I was tired of fighting.
I tugged him over.
His bent his head and I raised mine. A warm sigh caressed my face for a moment before our lips met. I made a soft sound and pulled him closer.
He kissed me slowly, leisurely, like a man who knows he has all night and intends to use it. It felt . . . strange. My life wasn’t about slow these days. It was all hurry, hurry, hurry and go, go, go, constantly full speed ahead because something was always about to go fantastically wrong.
But slow could be nice.
Slow could be very nice, I decided, as his tongue slid over mine, liquid and warm, a patient, gentle seduction that matched the lingering caress of his hands. His hair fell around my face, gleaming with a few strands of red where the firelight shone through it. My fingers ran though the thick mass—like silk, just like silk—and down the long line of his back.
I sighed, tension I hadn’t even known I had leaving my body.
“How is the date going?” he asked, nuzzling my neck.
“It’s . . . trending up.”
He laughed and slid a knee between my legs.
“You should go around like that all the time,” I told him sincerely, sliding my hands up his chest. God, he felt good. Warm, sleek skin over hard, hard muscle, nipples already peaked under my hands. I let my mouth close over one, my tongue circling it gently, and he made a sound of appreciation deep in his chest.
“I might shock a few people.”
“And make a lot more very happy. Of course, then I might have to beat the women off you with a stick.” I kissed my way over to the other nipple, which was looking sad and unattended and not half so rosy. “But, then, according to Marco, I may have to do that anyway.”
“Marco talks too much.”
“Marco doesn’t talk enough. I couldn’t get anything out of him about my competition.”
“You don’t have competition.”
I rolled us over for better access, and rested my chin on the hard surface of his chest. “You’re telling me you don’t have any mistresses?”
“Not at the present.”
I frowned.
“That was evidently not the right answer,” he said ruefully.
I kissed my way down his body, consciously keeping my nails out of his skin. It was a bit of a struggle. “How many have there been? And don’t tell me you forget,” I added, as he got that look on his face. The one that said he was wondering how big of a lie he could get away with.
“I haven’t forgotten a single one, I assure you,” he said, and then he winced.
And, okay, my nails might have sunk in just a little there.
“So you’re not going to give me a number.”
He suddenly rolled me onto my back again and nuzzled my neck. “Numbers are meaningless. Particularly when they are in t
he past.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
“Even Ming-de?”
“I never admitted Ming-de.”
“Hmm.” He’d never denied it, either. And then he cleverly got out of the argument by the underhanded trick of sitting back on his heels and starting to strip off the robe.
The white terry cloth had made his skin look darker than normal, a deep, rich caramel, but I didn’t miss it. Not with the fire painting intriguing shadows on a body that was already intriguing enough. It gilded his muscles, cast a very incongruous halo around that dark head and licked at the smug smile hovering about his lips.
He took longer undressing than strictly necessary, because he was a bastard and a tease and because he clearly did not have a problem with nudity. I kind of suspected that Mircea liked nudity. Of course, if I had a body like that, I probably would, too.
I must have said that last aloud, because he grinned as he crawled back over me. “If you had a body like mine, we would have a problem.”
“You don’t like men?” I asked, running my hands up hard-muscled arms.
“I like them well enough, just not in my bed,” he said, nibbling on my lower lip.
“Have you tried it?”
“I didn’t need to try it, dulceață,” he said, kissing his way downward. “I know what I like. I have always been very clear on that point.”
I was, too, and Mircea pretty much hit every button, with smooth lips and rough fingers and cool, cool hair that he deliberately dragged across my body as he worked his way down. The silken caress followed the warmer, more insistent one, making me crazy, making me writhe, lighting up nerves I hadn’t even known I had. Until I arched up—in pain, because his mouth had fastened over the livid bruise below my belly button.
“That hurts,” I protested, as he sucked at the already tortured flesh.
“Not for long.”
And sure enough, the size of the mark began to fade as I watched, the edges dissipating like a cloud in a windstorm, the color thinning and then breaking apart and then disappearing altogether, letting the clear, pale skin show through. I suddenly noticed that a lot of my other scrapes and scratches had vanished as well, soothed away by the healing ability that was one of Mircea’s gifts as a master.
“Doesn’t that take a lot of power?” I asked, amazed.
He smiled, licking the last of the bruise away. “I have it to burn tonight.”
“Because of those creatures.”
He nodded. “It pleases me that their blood should heal you, since they were the reason you require it in the first place.”
And, okay, yes. Healing had its place and it was nice of him to make the effort and I was suitably grateful not to be hobbling around like a ninety-year-old for the next week. But at the moment, I’d have been a lot more grateful if he would just move that talented mouth a few more inches south....
He must have read my mind. Because the next moment, rough hands slid up my inner thighs, silky hair cascaded over my stomach, and a warm, wet tongue went to work. Along with lips and teeth and God knew what else, but whatever was happening definitely wasn’t normal. Because it suddenly felt like there were maybe a few extra tongues down there, which my brain kept telling my body was clearly impossible, and my body told it to get bent, because it was busy arching and writhing and thrashing and screaming. And then it didn’t matter anyway, because the next instant my brain stuttered and short-circuited and all but blew out the top of my head.
Maybe I passed out or maybe I just lost a few minutes there. Either way, I came around to find him just barely stroking, too light to give any friction at all, too light to do more than tease. And I writhed anyway, every tiny movement sweet torture, shuddering down nerves still raw with pleasure.
He looked up at me teasingly. “How about now?”
“What?”
“The date.”
It took me a moment to even realize what the hell he was talking about. “Oh . . . it’s fair . . . I guess,” I said, trying for joking, but mostly sounding breathless.
“Fair.” Dark eyes narrowed. “I’ll have to try a little harder, then, won’t I?”
I stared at him. I thought a little harder might just kill me.
And then I was sure it would, when the bastard moved on—to my thigh.
“What—what are you doing?” I gasped. I wanted him in me. I wanted him in me now.
“Healing you,” he said innocently, mouthing a completely inconsequential bruise.
“It can wait!”
“No, no. I like to be thorough.”
I noticed, I thought grimly, as he licked away a tiny, almost-not-there scratch on my knee. I started to reach for him, hot and aching and desperate. But then rough fingers slipped over the skin of my outer thighs, smoothed up to my buttocks, and then back down to tease the softness behind my knees.
And, God, he knew how I loved that.
He did it again and I sighed and gave up, because clearly Mircea was going to take his time whether I liked it or not. Although I couldn’t imagine what he thought he was doing—
Nibbling on my foot? It would have been more surprising, except that Mircea liked feet the way I liked long, beautiful hair. In a quasi-fetishy sort of way that we didn’t talk about, but that I indulged by doing a lot more pedicuretype things than I ever had before dating him.
Of course, he usually preferred the objects of his affection encased in silk stockings, the old-fashioned kind with the seam up the back, which he kept sending me in alarming quantities. Or useless wisps of leather, preferably beaded and be-crystalled to within an inch of their life. Or those weird satin mules with the marabou feathers that I drew the line at because I kept tripping over them.
Not cracked and bruised and torn and battered.
Not that that seemed to be slowing him down any.
He licked the underside of the big toe, curling his tongue all the way around it, and I made a small sound. Teasing, dark eyes regarded me from over pink skin and chipped polish. “How did you manage to get barbecue sauce on your toes?”
“I didn’t,” I said indignantly.
He just laughed. “You taste good.”
I would have answered, but he’d started mouthing the mound below the toes and I forgot how. I laid my head back instead and stared at the ceiling, trying not to go completely out of my mind as he took his sweet time. Halfway through, I decided that if I survived this, I was going to kill him. It wouldn’t be easy, him being a master vamp and all, but I would find a way.
He licked a long swath up my instep and I shivered helplessly. “Are you cold?” he asked innocently.
“Mircea, seriously—”
I broke off because he’d started sucking on my heel. Which should have been no big deal, but which, for some reason, felt positively sinful. Who the hell knew that a heel could be an erogenous zone?
“Anything can be, if you never get a chance to see it,” he murmured.
“People see feet all the time.”
“Today. But they even swathed the piano legs in Victoria’s London.”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“Humans rarely do,” he told me, and bit down.
I made a sound that was absolutely not a whimper, but might have been edging that way. Because the sensation had shot straight to an area that definitely was an erogenous zone. And that had already been pretty damn stimulated.
“Mircea, I swear to God—”
“All done,” he told me, releasing my foot. I sagged in relief.
And then he grabbed the other one.
And that was it.
I let the pink, silky-skinned foot he’d left me with come to rest on that taut chest. Mircea paused what he was doing to look at me narrowly, which I took as a good sign. Getting his attention hadn’t been so hard, after all. Let’s see if I could keep it.
I let my foot caress a flat little nipple, rubbing it to a peak between my toes, and then sliding down a ridge
d stomach to a hard thigh. Mircea hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even moved. I smiled.
My toes slid lower, across satiny skin and crisp hair to a velvety hardness that jumped eagerly under my touch. I felt a little clumsy—I wasn’t nearly as dexterous as with my hands—but my foot was surprisingly sensitive. I hadn’t expected to feel . . . quite so much. My own breath picked up a little as I went exploring, sliding my toes slowly up and down that rigid column. And I guess I must have gotten something right, because it swelled impossibly bigger under my touch.
“That isn’t . . .” He stopped and licked his lips. “That isn’t going to work.”
I laughed. “Yeah. That was convincing.”
Particularly since Mircea could put a halt to this at any time. Unlike a human male, a vampire has perfect blood control. He could have willed all that lovely hardness away, could have refused to play. But that would have been admitting defeat, something that his stiff-necked pride, the kind he liked to pretend wasn’t there, would never permit. So I gently fondled the superb length of him, so thick, so silky soft, so good against my skin.
And sighed.
“This isn’t going to get you anywhere, either,” I was informed tightly.
“That’s okay.” I ran a single digit over the smooth head, watching it blush like a girl in pleasure. “I’m pretty comfortable where I am.”
Mircea shuddered at the implicit threat, that I could keep this up all night. But I honestly thought I could. It was fascinating, what something so simple did to him, reversing who was in charge with amazing speed. I experimented, putting a foot on his chest and giving a little push. He fell back with almost no resistance at all, allowing me to crawl up his body.
Okay, then.
“That wasn’t fair,” he said hoarsely.
“Like you didn’t use power on me earlier? And stay still.”
“Give me a reason,” he challenged, smoothing a hand over my curls.
I didn’t need to be asked twice. My lips covered the sensitive tip of him, and he suddenly looked like maybe he was having trouble focusing. Been there, I thought cynically, only it was usually me losing my train of thought around him, instead of vice versa. I decided I liked vice versa, and twirled my tongue around the head.