He straightened, lifted the pentagram necklace, and brought it to his lips. He kissed thecenter of the circular de-sign,then replaced it, all the time gazing into my eyes.

I already ached for him and couldn't imagine being able to hold out much longer. My knees were barely functional.

He stepped away and studied me, the expression on his face a clear indication of the maelstrom of feelings and de-sires he couldn't hide.

He caressed my breasts again and said, "You are very lush and ripe for such a slender woman. In all my eight hun-dred years, yours are the most magnificent breasts I have ever seen. I shall never tire of touching them, of sucking them."

He demonstrated, as I fisted my hands in his hair.

After a few delicious seconds he kissed his way back to my lips.

Sliding his hands into the elastic waistband of my pyjama bottoms, he eased the material down my hips, leaving my white cotton bikini panties in place. He stroked and mas-saged me, running his hands up my back and down to the mounds of my ass, pulling my lower body tight against his hard, thick erection.I found my way back to the button on the waistband of his pants and successfully opened it. The zipper slid down easily and I quickly discovered that Devereux was an au natu-ralkinda guy.

That realization was outrageously arousing for me, and I enthusiasticallyshimmied his pants down his hips, releas-ing the unexpectedly large organ jutting out from a thatch of blond curls.

I had a momentary thought about the myth that a man's feet or hands are correlated with the size of his penis. In Devereux's case, his normal-sized artistic hands and average appearing feet gave no indication of what had been seques-tered away behind the zipper.

I sank to my knees, still pulling down the leather pants, and gently nudged him to sit on the edge of the bed. I raised my mouth to his, ran my tongue along his lips, then kissed him, while one hand stroked the warm, hard length of his throbbing penis. He moved rhythmically against my hand while he moaned softly.

I slid my finger up to the drops of liq-uid oozing from the opening,then stroked his length again.

We used our tongues to taste and explore each other. I felt his fangs extend as I carefully avoided their needle-sharp tips. Running my tongue up and down the length of his fangs seemed to have the same effect as my hand on his erection.

I pulled away from his lips, kissing my way down his chest and his stomach until I reached his hard length and took it in my mouth. His skin was velvety soft over the taut muscle.

He gasped and held my head between his hands, moving gently to show me what he liked. I used my lips and tongue to taste every part of him, to whip him into a greater frenzy of desire. I was a quick study and he soon cried out and lifted my head from his groin.

"If you continue to do that I cannot hold back, and I wish for us to share our first orgasm together while I am in-side you."

The crotch of my panties was already soaked with creamy desire and he lifted me up onto the bed as I kicked off the last clothing barrier between us.Both completely nude now, we knelt on the bed, facing each other, feasting our eyes.

His body was astoundingly magnificent. Long, lean, and muscular with smooth skin and perfect features.

The light blond hair that trailed down his abdomen to his crotch was soft and slightly darker than his long platinum mane. And rising out of that thatch of silk was an erection that belonged on a statue of a Greek god.Or a Celtic god. I never was sure what part of Europe Devereux came from.

We reached for each other at the same time and I palmed the mounds of his ass, exploring the firm muscles there as I pulled him tightly against me. We embraced and kissed passionately, taking the joining of our lips deeper and deeper until it felt as if we were one being-merged.

He spoke that strange, musical language in my mind, a soft melody of words and spaces. Even though I didn't under-stand what he was saying, the sounds felt right. As if my body remembered them in some mysterious way.

He gently turned me and guided me down onto the bed, bringing his mouth to my nipples again while his finger slid into the wet heat between my legs.

He whispered in my mind, "I love that you are so wet for me. You make me feel alive."

Using one fingertip in a feather-light movement, he ca-ressed my clitoris, making little circular motions which caused me to arch my body, spreading my legs wider, before he moved that clever finger up inside me.

He added a second finger, while still stroking me with his thumb.

A wave of something powerful built inside me and I made primal noises, instinctively moving my hips in time with the rhythm of his fingers.

I moaned and fisted my hands in his hair, lifting his head. "Devereux, please. I want you inside me."He raised his mouth from my nipple, brought his lips near mine and whispered, "Inside your body and your heart."

Eagerly, I reached down and guided his thickness into my opening, wrapping my legs around his waist at the same time to take him deeper.

If I hadn't been so wet his size might have been uncom-fortable, but under the circumstances, it was as if we were made for each other.One lock with a perfect key.

I don't know which one of us groaned louder, but he swal-lowed the sounds with his mouth on mine.

Still kissing, he thrust himself inside me.Long, slow, deep strokes. His controlled movements drove me mad with desire. I didn't know if all 800-year-old vampires had such skill in lovemaking, but this one certainly did. I'm not sure if I screamed or only wanted to.

Then he raised himself up, grabbed my hands and lifted them over my head, holding my wrists. His mesmerizing voice became lower-pitched and husky, sending waves of chills over my skin.

"Do you remember the moment in the club when you asked me to use my eyes to join with you? When we became one consciousness?"

I didn't want to talk. I wanted his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, his hips thrusting against me. But his de-scription of the passion that fired in me that night brought me back to the delicious memory and I had a body rush, caus-ing me to gasp. The muscles of my vagina tightened around him involuntarily and he reacted with a deeper thrust and an intake of breath.

He smiled, obviously aware of my memory and the men-tal chatter. Or maybe it was just because what we were doing felt very, very good.

"I will take that as a yes."I closed my eyes and mumbled something that could have been interpreted as an affirmative.

"Open your eyes, my love. Let me show you that every-thing before this moment was simply a small taste of what is possible."

I opened my eyes, connected with his and reality as I knew it faded away.

My world became the blue-green of his eyes.

A spinning, shining, universe of bodiless, yet extraor-dinarily physical, sensations.As if the pleasure volume on every nerve ending had been turned up while simultaneously having no awareness of being physical at all.

Floating in a stream of consciousness.

I hadn't done any experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs, so I didn't have actual experience to base anything on, but from what I'dread, I was in the middle of an altered state.The vampire version of an LSD trip.

Time had no meaning, so I didn't know how long we'd been there. His penis still moved inside me as we kissed wildly. It could have been hours.Or seconds.

Devereux and I communicated purely telepathically now, and as the orgasm built inside us, it was impossible to tell if the wave of pleasure had a specific starting place. Or, if we'd simply become the wave.

We'd fallen into each other's eyes and nothing else mat-tered.

Just as the peak of the orgasm began, Devereux pierced my neck with his fangs.I gasped, but there was no pain.Only intense, reverberating pleasure.

Pleasure that was off the scale.

I screamed as wave after wave of bliss washed over me. Every muscle in my body-I think it was my body-con-tracted in ecstasy.

Somewhere in the midst of my own release, I felt Devereux spasm inside me, his mouth still at my neck, his silky hair flowing across my breasts.

He brought his lips back to mine and kissed me with profound tenderness, our souls merged as completely as our bodies. I tasted the sweet, coppery tang of my own blood on his tongue and found myself savouring the experience. I sucked on his tongue and ran mine over his teeth, wanting to take in more of the salty essence.

It occurred to me briefly that enjoying the taste of blood probably wasn't a good thing, but I was still lost in the rap-ture of the moment.

A soft groan from Devereux brought me back to suffi-cient awareness to notice that I'd been sucking on his fang, which seemed to be as stimulating to him as my sucking on other things.

I felt his erection expand inside me, apparently ready to have another go, and I lifted my hips to take him deeper.

In another of his amazing, seamless movements, he raised himself to his knees, and held me by my ass, our bodies still attached at the crotch. We locked eyes as he pressed me back against the headboard, one of his hands still underneath me, and the other braced against the wall.

He pounded into me and I heard a voice repeating, "Yes, yes, yes," and discovered it was mine.I tightened my legs and arms around him, and he held me effortlessly, as if I weighed nothing. He'd told me that vampires possessed unnatural strength, but I hadn't had much personal evidence until then. I think he could have held me there, giving me one orgasm after another, until I cried for mercy.

Which I finally did.

I clung to him like a wet tissue as he emptied himself into me yet again, only then letting the resilient organ slide out of my vagina. Still straddling his lap, I snuggled into his warm arms and let myself be gently rocked.

He whispered lovely words, in English, French and what might have been Gaelic, and stroked my hair.

At some point I'd fallen asleep, because he swept his fin-ger gently across my cheek and said softly, "I must go, my love. The dawn approaches."

My eyes flew open and I noticed I was tucked into my bed, and Devereux was fully dressed.

He sat next to me and brushed a lock of hair away from my face.

"For eight hundred years I waited for this night. I am very much in love with you. I do not expect you to return my feelings right away. I understand that this is all new to you. I only ask that you give me a chance to win your heart."

He leaned over, brushed my lips with his and vanished.

I fell back asleep with the lyrics of Heart's classic "Magic Man" flowing through my mind.

Chapter 21.

The screeching of the alarm clock dragged me, kicking and screaming, back to the land of the living.

I groaned, rolled over and turned off the annoying siren.

I'd had the most amazing dream. Or to be more accu-rate, I was in the middle of it when the damn alarm went off. I knew I had to get up, but it was so tempting just to lie there and revel in the memories from the previous night and the remnants of the nocturnal fantasy.

In the dream I'd been with Devereux again, but this time we were outside, in the sunlight, on top of a beautiful moun-tain, surrounded by other peaks. I could actually feel the breeze blowing through my hair and across my body.Which was naked, by the way.

As was Devereux's.Yum.

The muscles of my vagina contracted as I remembered I.

Devereux, stretched out like an alabaster nature god in the vivid green grass, with me on top of him, riding that impres-sive erection, as we both screamed with pleasure.

It seemed so real.The sun shining on Devereux's pale skin, the feel of the grass on my knees and lower legs as I straddled him, a wafting of evergreen in the air.

After sharing another cosmic orgasm I collapsed on his firm chest and felt his arms close around me as his lips pas-sionately reclaimed mine. IThen, in another of his smooth moves, he flipped me over so I was on my back in the grass and he kissed his way down my body. Faster than I could see, he bent my knees, opened my legs, and began to lick my clitoris. His tongue was soft, relentless, and had honed in on the perfect spot. Impossibly, within seconds I felt another powerful wave of ecstasy build-ing. After he pushed me over the edge, he angled his mouth ever so slightly and gently sank his fangs into the soft lip next to my clit. There was a fleeting sting as his needle-sharp ca-nines pierced the tender skin and he began to suck, but that was quickly drowned out by the mother of all orgasms.

Waves of intense pleasure built, one upon the next, as I screamed words in a language I didn't know.

Just when I thought I would go mad if the sensations didn't stop, he ran his tongue over the tiny punctures, kissed me there and sat up, a wicked smile on his amazing face.

That's when I was rudely interrupted and forced to resur-face into consensus reality.

But, damn if it wasn't the best dream ever. Even thinking about it gave me a hot body rush.

I stuffed my newly reawakened libido with a sigh.

Back to the real world.

All it took was the simple act of sitting up to remind me that my physical body, as well as my dream body, had under-gone quite a workout only a few hours before.

That realization birthed a silly grin.

I guess it could have been the fact that, after two years, I'd been royally pleasured by the best lover I'd ever had.

Magnificently shagged.Awesomelyboinked .Spectacularly screwed.We'd surely broken the world record for the num-ber of orgasms a couple could have and still be alive to talk about it.Well, one of us was alive to talk about it, anyway.

I sat back against the very same headboard that had been witness to the athletic portion of the performance and sighed happily, still unable to stop smiling.

It occurred to me that I'd never asked Devereux where he went during the daylight hours. Did he sleep in a coffin? Maybe sleep was the wrong word. But he'd told me he dreams. So how could he dream if he didn't sleep? How could he dream if he just died when the sun came up?

Now that I was actually beginning to accept the ludicrous idea that not only did vampires exist, but I was having a mad, passionate, sexual relationship with the HeadPoobah , I real-ized I was very curious.

If I was going to counsel real vampires, I needed to ask lots more questions and get much better answers.

I needed to make sure I didn't simply shift from a total refusal to believe anything paranormal, to a complete accep-tance of any and all vampire weirdness. That was just too extreme for me and not in the least scientific.

I threw the covers back, heaved my legs over the side of the bed, stood and attempted to stretch. All the major muscle groups in my body ganged up on me at once and started whin-ing. If it hadn't been for the fact that I had a full client load for the next twelve hours, I'd have considered diving back into the bed and pulling the covers over my head. With any luck, I'd fall back asleep and have the mountain dream again.

But instead, I promised the complaining muscles a long, hot shower so I propelled myself in that direction.

I hoped I'd be able to wipe the goofy smile off my face when I got to my office. But, on the other hand, it might do my clients good to have their notions about me confounded, to help them realize that change really could happen. Even to me.Walking to the bathroom reminded me, again, what happened to muscles if you didn't use them. The area be-tween my legs was tender and sore, which was to be expected after considering the size of the object that'd been jammed in there.

I started the shower, adjusted the water temperature and stepped in. The soothing water flowed down my body, mi-raculously easing all the tight muscles while relaxing me into a boneless state. I washed my hair,then soaped the rest of me. The lathering came to an abrupt halt when I reached the area between my legs. Not only was it tender, but the soap caused a sudden, burning pain.

"Ow,dammit !When did this happen?"

Not sure who I was asking, I put the soap down and felt around the sore spot with my fingers. Beyond verifying that it was, indeed, uncomfortable, the examination didn't give me much additional information.

Finding wounds on my body that weren't supposed to be there had started to be a regular occurrence. It didn't take a psychic to figure out that the feeling ofdeja vu I experienced was because I'd been through this same routine just a few days earlier, thanks to Bryce.

I finished my shower, towelled off and grabbed a hand mirror from the top of the vanity.