He had come up for a kiss after spending an inhuman amount of time between my legs, and I was trying to figure out if you could actually die, yes die, by orgasm. It seemed likely. It also seemed like a great way to go.

Can you hear me now?

"Sinclair, we are not doing a cell phone commercial right now," I growled. "Now take that thing and stick it in me and let's worry about something else! Anything else!"

But you can . . . pausing for the thrust. I moaned when it went home, when he buried himself in me, when I could feel him everywhere... hear me.

"Yes," I groaned. "I hear you."

And when I think about how precious you are to me and how I nearly broke your sister's back when I saw her sword between your breasts, you can hear that, too?

Thrusting back now. It was weird, having a conversation like this. About this. But I was nothing if not adaptable.

"Yes, I hear you."

All right, then. I can live with this.

"It's nothing," I grumbled, "compared to what I have to put up with."

"I read your columns," he said, after.

I groaned and hid myself in the blankets. After a few seconds of digging, he found me and pulled me out. "Aha! I've been saying that in my head for over a minute, to no avail. So it really is only during-"

"I told you. Must we relive every fight, all the time? And I don't want to hear the editorial report on my columns."

"I liked them," he continued, ignoring my queenlike command. And was it my imagination, or was proof that I wasn't a constant telepath really cheering him up? "I thought they made much sense. They will, of course, cause a bit of a scandal among the older crowds-"

"They're not for the old guys. Those guys have already figured out all the rules. I gotta admit, I kind of get a kick out of writing them."

"Perhaps seeing the lighter side of the queen will appease some of the more, ah, some of the vampires who are more set in their ways. Particularly the European faction."

"I don't have any other side," I admitted. Then: "European faction?"

"Yes, that group of older vampires who was giving serious consideration to overthrowing you."

I sat up. "What?"

"Did you never wonder why I suddenly went to France last fall?"

"Well-yeah, but-at the time we were-I made it a point not to show too much interest in your activities because I was still mad at you for being a sneaky freak, and this is the sort of thing I've been talking about!"

"But I persuaded them not to revolt," he said, looking totally puzzled. "I fixed the problem for you."

"First of all, why can't they just mind their own business? They can worry about them, and I can worry about me. Jesus!"

"Because you killed two major vampires in three months, one of them the sitting power," he explained. "It was cause for concern."

"And second, whyyyyyyyy did you secretly go over there and then not say a word about why you were going and what happened when you got back? Instead it was all 'I miss you, Betsy, why won't you sleep with me?' "

"I did miss you," he pointed out. "And I was wondering why you wouldn't share my bed. Or vice versa," he added, looking down at my green flannel sheets.

"But this is the stuff I'm talking about!" I thrashed between my sheets like a landed bass. "You can't keep this shit from me!"

"But I fixed it," he said. Honest to God, he was completely bewildered. No doubt wondering why I wasn't on my knees fellating him out of pure gratitude. Men! "I fixed the problem. There was no need to bother you with any of it."

I fought not to choke the living shit out of him. "But it was my problem?"

"But when you didn't tell me about your sometime-telepathy-"

"That was a totally different thing! That was something I couldn't help, that I meant all along to tell you about, and eventually did, and understood why it was wrong to keep it from you, and we moved on!" I was stomping back and forth, wrapped in my comforter. "This was not sneaking off to Europe-"

"I never sneak," he said coolly.

"Oh, dude, you invented sneaking!"

"You knew where I was going. And you knew when I returned."

"Semantics! And here's a question, ladies and gentlemen-"

"Who are you talking to when you do that?"

"Why not bring me with? Huh? They were going to overthrow me, why not let me come over and plead my case?"

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I had either cornered him with my cementlike logic, or he didn't want to tell me he thought I'd fuck up the whole thing. Either way...

"Get out!"

"All right," he said mildly, climbing out of bed, "but you did state in your terms that I must move all the way in, or all the way-"

"I know what I said!" I kicked the duvet in a rage. "I don't care about that now! If I look at you another second I'll-I'll kick you in the gonads! Now get lost!"

He got lost.