Kari hesitated a moment, then went to sit beside Vega. The talk of blood and hunger had awakened something deep inside her. She could feel it stirring, gaining strength. The tips of her fangs brushed against her tongue.

She stared at Vega's neck, and licked her lips. "Won't it hurt you?"

Vega laughed softly. "Not at all. Quite the contrary, actually."

Kari looked at him, uncertain as to what she should do. In the movies, vampires usually bit their prey on the neck. She licked her lips as the urge to feed grew stronger. Should she just grab him and go for it?

"Okay," Vega said. "Here's a quick course in How to Be a Vampire 101. You can take blood from the neck, the wrist, or anywhere else you like. Of course, some places, like the inside of the thigh, are more intimate than others."

Vega's thigh was out of the question. Kari glanced at his throat. She could easily imagine Ana Luisa drinking from there. Feeding from his wrist seemed more impersonal.

As though reading her mind, Vega held out his left arm, palm up. "Go on," he coaxed.

She was reaching for him when someone knocked at the door.

Vega looked up with a frown, then swore softly. "It's Rourke."

"What's he doing here?" Kari asked. "You don't think Ana Luisa called him, do you?"

Vega shook his head as he rose from the sofa. "I doubt it."

"Did you?"

"When would I have had time to do that?" he muttered over his shoulder, and then opened the door.

"Where is she?" Rourke demanded.

"In the other room," Vega said. "Come on in."

With a curt nod, Rourke swept past Vega and stalked into the living room. He took one look at Karinna, at the hunger in her eyes, and knew why she had come here. Anger and jealousy rushed to the fore at the thought of her taking nourishment from another vampire.

"You will not feed off of him," he told Karinna brusquely.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Karinna said, knowing her extended fangs made a liar out of her.

"Don't you? You don't know how to feed on your own. You are too angry to ask for my help, so you came here, either to ask for his help or to ease your thirst." His eyes narrowed ominously. "If you need to feed, I will find prey for you, or you can drink from me. But not from him. Is that understood?"

"You're not the boss of me," Kari retorted, hating how childish her words sounded. "I don't have to do what you say."

"Okay," Vega said, stepping between them. "Just hold on a minute."

"You have nothing to do with this," Rourke said, his voice little more than a growl.

"Maybe not," Vega agreed. "But the two of you might want to cool off a little before you say anything you'll regret later."

Rourke glared at him. "Get out of my way. This is between me and my woman."

"Your woman?" Kari exclaimed as Vega distanced himself from the two of them. "Who said I was your woman?"

"Are you not?" Rourke asked, his voice suddenly filled with tenderness. "Were you not mine the moment you first saw the painting in the gallery? Were you not mine, as I was yours?"

Kari looked up at him, all her anger melting away before the love she saw shining in his eyes. Why was she fighting him? From the moment she had first laid eyes on him, she had been helpless to resist him. She had spent hours, days, weeks thinking of him, dreaming of him, wanting only to be with him, and now he was here. He had made her what he was and, in so doing, had ensured that they could be together forever. He had taken the sun from her, but he had replaced it with the never-ending warmth of his love.

"Karinna?"

The sound of his voice moved through her, sweeter than honey.

She looked at Vega and smiled. "Thank you for your offer, but it's no longer necessary."

With a sigh, she slipped her arm around Rourke's waist. "Come on," she said. "Let's go home. We have a lot to talk about."

Chapter 34

"So, tell me what it's like to be a full-fledged, card-carrying vampire," Kari said as they settled on the sofa in front of the fireplace. "Tell me everything."

Rourke slid his knuckles down her cheek. "It can be a good life, sweeting, if you look on the positive aspects instead of the negative."

Once, she would have doubted there was anything positive about being a vampire. Now, she knew differently. She had been a vampire for only a short time, yet she was already changing. She could feel it happening inside her, feel the power growing within her. All her senses were magnified. She felt wonderful, stronger physically and mentally than she ever had in her whole life. She had always been a little afraid of growing old, of being alone. She wouldn't have to worry about that now.

"So, refresh my memory," she said with an impish grin. "What are the positives?"

He laughed softly. "After the time we have spent together, I should think that you would know the good things better than most."

"Well, yeah, some of them, but I'm sure I still have a lot to learn, like how to turn into mist, and how to vanish into thin air, and all your other tricks."

He brushed a kiss over her lips. "And more than enough time to learn them all."

"You won't get tired of me, will you?" she asked, only half in jest.

"Perhaps," he mused, "in a thousand years or so."

"And what will we do for a thousand years?" Even as she asked the question, she couldn't imagine anyone living that long. What would the world be like in a thousand years? In five hundred? Would life as they now knew it even exist that far into the future?

His forefinger trailed down her cheek. "What would you like to do?"

"I'd like to travel," she said. "There's so much of the world I haven't seen. How about you? What would you like to do?"

"I would like to make love to you in every country and city in the world," he said with a roguish grin.

"Would you?" she asked, suddenly breathless as she pictured the two of them making love on the floor of a gondola in Venice, or wrapped in each other's arms at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

"Indeed." His smile grew wider. "It will be my pleasure to fulfill your every wish, your every dream and desire, no matter how large or how small. Starting here," he said, his voice suddenly low and husky with longing. "Starting now."

Impaled by the yearning in his eyes, Kari drew a deep breath and expelled it in a long, shuddering sigh. "Sounds good to me," she murmured, then grinned inwardly as she imagined buying a map of the world and sticking pins in to mark every place where they made love.

She linked her hands behind his neck as he swung her into his arms and carried her up to bed. After undressing her, he quickly stripped off his own clothing, then stretched out beside her and drew her into his arms. He made love to her ever so slowly, adoring every inch of her body, from her sweet, sensual lips to the curved arch of her instep. And all the while, he whispered words of love and affection, needing her to know that he loved her as no other, that he would always love her.

Kari surrendered herself, heart and body and soul, to Rourke's touch even as she began an intimate exploration of her own. Rourke's body was a study in masculine perfection, a feast for feminine eyes, a magnet for loving hands and questing fingers. She had waited years to meet the man of her dreams, she thought, as she willingly yielded her innocence to him, and it had been worth every minute. They had made love in dreams and it had been wonderful, but the reality far surpassed the illusion.

He carried her above and beyond mortal limits, pleasuring her in ways no human male ever could, and when she teetered on the brink of discovery, her whole body yearning for something that beckoned just out of reach, he swept her over the top. The world as she knew it shattered, exploding into a million rainbow-colored lights that she could see and touch and taste.

She felt as if she were floating above the earth, and when she looked down, she saw that she really was floating, not above the earth, but above the mattress. She should have been scared, or at least surprised, but she wasn't. Instead, she closed her eyes and enjoyed every nuance of the strange but exhilarating sensation.

When, at last, the world righted itself, she knew she would never be the same again, and then she was drifting, down, down, through rainbow-colored clouds, sated, complete.

When her breathing returned to normal, she opened her eyes to find Rourke gazing down at her. Was it her imagination, or did he look just a trifle smug?

Well, he had a right to, she thought. He had promised to fulfill her every desire, and he had delivered. Oh, my, had he delivered!

Propping herself up on one elbow, Kari leaned forward and licked his cheek, then raked her nails down over his chest and his hard, flat belly to that part of him that should have been exhausted but wasn't.

"You know," she murmured, "I'm not sure a thousand years will be long enough."