"Not any of the times?"
"None. It's not like I've had tons of sex, though. I pretty much gave it up after I realized what was going on. I mean, what's the use? Just when I start getting into it, whammo! I'm taken off and return to find my body either apparently fulfilled and no longer interested, or tense and frustrated, while my boyfriend is snoring away."
"I see."
"I've only had three boyfriends," I said, compelled for some reason to make it absolutely clear I wasn't a thrill-seeking trollop. "But I tried everything I could think of to stay there for the whole thing, and never had any luck."
"Perhaps the fault lies with them, not you," Paen said, his eyes back on the road as we drove.
"What do you mean?"
"Were your partners mortal?"
"Yes. One was a Diviner, but he was mortal all right. He died last year in a plane crash."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"So was I. He was a nice guy. Not a great Diviner, but a nice guy. But what do my boyfriends being mortal have to do with me drifting away during the fun time?"
He shot me a silver-eyed look that was completely unreadable. "You have immortal blood. Perhaps you would have better luck with a man who shared that trait."
My jaw dropped for a moment before I had enough wits about me to snap it back. "Are you offering yourself as a potential partner?"
There was a pause. "In the interests of scientific understanding, yes, I would be willing to undertake that role."
He noticed the surprised look on my face.
"I don't normally proposition women in this manner, but I will admit to being physically attracted to you, and believe that you feel likewise."
"Oh, really." We were deep in the heart of the country now, heading into a rural area with patches of forest and wilderness, so there were no streetlights. The only light illuminating Paen's face was that from the dashboard, but it was enough for me to eye his profile. It was just as handsome as the rest of his face.
His jaw tightened. "I see. I have misread your interest in me, then. I apologize for—"
"No!" I interrupted, not wanting him to misunderstand. "That 'oh, really?' wasn't challenging your statement about me being attracted to you—I am—but more just… well, annoyed."
"Annoyed?" A slight frown wrinkled his forehead. "Are you always annoyed when someone tells you he finds you attractive?"
"Of course not, but you have to admit that someone telling you they want to go to bed with you purely in the interests of science sounds a bit condescending. I mean, sheesh, talk about martyring yourself…"
His lips thinned. "I didn't intend for you to take my offer that way. I am a man. I find you an attractive woman, and since you apparently reciprocate that feeling, you are not presently dating anyone—" He paused and gave me a quick glance.
"Nope, not dating," I said.
"—and as you appear to be of legal age—"
"Thirty-four in September."
"—then I assumed I could express my interest without you taking offense."
"Oh, I'm not offended," I said, smiling. He was so cute when he was in a snit. "Just surprised."
He said nothing.
"Tempting as your offer is, I hasten to point out that you are immortal, and I just did do the astral thing, so the answer to what I would do with you is pretty evident."
"Not necessarily. I was feeding, not attempting to arouse you. It would be different if I were to focus my attention on bringing you pleasure."
I digested that morsel for a moment and admitted that he could well be right. "We just met, Paen. Yes, the physical thing is there, but we haven't known each other for more than a couple of hours at most. I've never been one for casual relationships. In fact, I was madly in love with all three of my boyfriends before we ever got physical."
"Perhaps that's the trouble," he said, still not looking at me.
"What, having an emotional commitment with my boyfriends before having sex with them?"
"Yes. Sex is a bodily function no different from any other bodily function. You need air, you breathe. You need sexual pleasure, you have sex. It's that simple."
I gawked. "You are really screwed up, aren't you? We're talking serious commitment issues here, the kind that you see on Montel."
"You don't have to be committed to a hamburger to gain sustenance from it, do you?"
"No, of course not, but—"
"Why should something so simple as sex be any different?" he asked, his eyes all but lighting up the inside of the car. "I have no doubts that were you willing. I would be able to provide you with sexual pleasure without any messy emotional issues becoming involved."
" 'Messy emotional issues,'" I repeated, aghast. "Is that what being in love is to you? Messy?"
"Yes. Love for a sexual partner serves no real purpose. It is unnecessary."
"Thus speaks a man who has never been in love," I said. "Are you sure you're a Dark One and not a Vulcan or something?"
"On the contrary, I love my parents and brothers," he answered, ignoring my Vulcan quip.
"That's splitting hairs, and you know it. Love in a relationship is a wonderful thing, Paen. Sex can be nice on its own—or so I've been told; I've never been present to feel it for myself—but sex without love is empty. Shallow. Meaningless."
He snorted. "Why do women have to sugarcoat everything?"
"How's this for sugarcoating—what you're talking about is the difference between fucking and lovemaking."
"You say that like there's something wrong with fucking."
"Of course there's nothing wrong with it. Even people deeply in love can indulge in it. But one is pure physical pleasure, while the other has a deeper meaning. Lovemaking is more than just sex—the pleasure received from it comes not just from sexual stimulation, but from sharing something profound with a person who is more than just a casual acquaintance. Lovemaking is just that—making something, creating a bond, forming a loving relationship."
He shot me an annoyed look. "You are using a woman's typical arguments. Until you've tried it my way, you can't make a statement like that."
"The same could be said for you making generalizations against love. Boy, you are so lucky I'm not in love with you. You'd have some serious shaping up to do."
"That is a moot point. You are not in love with me, nor I you, but I would be quite willing to show you the pleasure I could give you sexually."
"You're still saying you want to screw me?"
A muscle in his jaw twitched. "I wasn't going to put it quite so crudely, but yes. I want you in a sexual sense."
"Why?"
"Why?" he asked, confused.
"Yes, why do you want me? That is, what about me is attractive to you?"
The annoyance that flared in his eyes had me smiling to myself. "You intrigue me. I find you stimulating, both physically and mentally. And… er… you smell nice."
"I smell nice?" I tipped my head to the side to sniff myself.
His eyes flickered my way for a moment. "Yes. You smell like a woman, untainted by harsh chemical scents. You smell like a sun-warmed field of wild-flowers."
"Wow," I said, momentarily rendered speechless by his comment. "That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me."
"Your scent permeates the air around you," he added.
"I take it back—that just makes me sound like I have gas." I did another covert sniff of myself, but didn't notice any sun-warmed wildflower smell being emitted from any part of me.
"On the contrary, your natural scent is very pleasing. Very arousing. That's why I want you, and that is why I offered what I did."
I sat wordless for another few minutes before finally saying, "All right."
He slowed the car down to a stop right in the middle of a windswept stretch of road. "All right? You wish to have sex?"
"Well, not right this second, but yes, I will go to bed with you. You can do your best with me. But when it ends up being a hollow experience and my mind goes drifting off
on its own, I'm going to let you know."
"I accept your terms," he said, setting off again.
"The only reason I'm doing this is because I have a point to prove to you," I said, which was mostly true. I still didn't really understand why I was willing to do this; I wasn't like Clare, falling in love with a new man every week. It took months for my emotions to ripen to a point where I found a man sexually stimulating.
But there was just something about him, something that seemed to call out to me, something that needed me…
"As I have with you."
"There's no way that sex without affection can possibly be better than sex with it. And although I can't show you that for yourself, I can certainly prove to you that your way is not going to work for me."
His lips quirked upward. "I have no doubt that there will be little difficulty in showing you the delights in a wholly physical relationship unencumbered by any emotional expectations beyond that of sexual satisfaction."
"In your dreams," I muttered to myself, half annoyed with his arrogant attitude, half aroused just by the thought of sleeping with him.
"We'll explore fantasy role-playing later," he said, and I spent a long time after that wondering just what his grin meant.
Chapter 4
The remainder of the drive to Paen's home was anti-climactic (literally, but we won't go there). I was momentarily surprised to see that the castle I had astrally visited was his.
"It's just like I saw when I was floating around," I said as he drove across a long causeway that connected a tiny little island with land. "I had no idea you lived in a castle. Wow. It's really impressive. It's… er… not haunted or anything, is it?"
"Haunted?" Paen frowned. "Why do you think it would be haunted?"
"Aren't most castles?"
"Mine isn't."
"Oh. How old is it?"
He spent the time it took us to circle around the castle to a parking area at the back to give me a quick history of the place. By the time he escorted me into the main building, I knew it was approximately six hundred years old, had been inherited by his father via his grandmother's mortal family, and although it was beset with a dampness issue that no amount of modern technology could seem to fix, it housed nothing more extraordinary than a family of vampires.
Which, I suppose, was pretty extraordinary when you considered it.
"How many people does it take to keep up a castle?" I asked as he walked me through a huge hall.
"We have a day staff of four—two inside, and two outdoors."
"Ah. And nighttime?"
"None of the staff remains after dark," he answered, shooting me an unreadable look.
"Oh, right. That's when you guys do your thing." I stopped for a moment and looked at Paen. He turned back to see what was keeping me. "Do you miss the daylight?"
A tiny little frown wrinkled his brow. "Miss it? What do you mean?"
"Well, you're up at night rather than day. I wondered if you missed it."
"I am up no later than noon each day," he answered, looking oddly hurt. "I keep late hours, yes, but I assure you that I don't spend my life in darkness."
"Oh. I thought all vamps were nighttime only. So you don't miss being able to go outside in the sun? You don't… you know, brood about being a Dark One, not being able to do things other people can do?"
"Good lord, no. I don't brood about anything. I am perfectly happy being what and who I am," he said, giving me a mildly annoyed look. "To do otherwise would be a waste of time."
"But… you have no soul," I said, following him through a door. "I may not have been around any Dark Ones before, but even I can tell there's something missing in you. It's like your insides are made of ice. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Not at all. I may lack a soul, but I have not allowed that to hinder me in any way," he said, turning to wave a hand around the room. "You said you wanted to see the house. This is the library. My father is seldom home to use it, so it's really my room."
"It's lovely. Very comfortable," I said, looking around. It was a typical room of its sort—floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining two walls, dark leather furniture gathered around a fireplace, long, heavy (assumedly light-inhibiting) curtains framing huge windows and a pair of French doors, and a familiar desk lurking at the opposite end of the room—familiar because this was the room my brain had zipped off to while Paen was snacking on me.
It was interesting that I had been sent to this place earlier. "Can you guys disappear?"
Paen just stared at me.
"Is that a no?" I asked.
"Yes, it's a no. Dark Ones are more or less human, Samantha. We have some integral differences, but despite popular lore, we don't shape-shift, we can't fly, and we are not able to disappear into nothing."
"Hmm. Then who was that man at your desk? The bad one, the one who creeped me out so much?"
He looked startled for a moment. "What man?"
"The one I saw while you were sucking down Vintage Sam. There was a man at your desk, poking around in things. I assumed it was his own. He seemed to hear me, though, and then I could have sworn he saw me, which is impossible. He seemed threatening somehow. I'm so glad you pulled me back before he had time to…"
"To what?" Paen asked, quickly examining his desk.
"I don't know. Something bad." I moved closer to the desk, looking hard at it like it would spill whatever secrets it kept.
"Why would someone want to harm you?"
"No idea. I haven't been in the business long enough to have jealous rivals, and we just got our first and second cases today, so it's not a pissy client or something. What are you doing?"
"Looking to see if anything has been disturbed," Paen said, checking the computer. "I don't see anything missing."
"Maybe he didn't find what he came for," I suggested.
"That, or he was looking for information rather than an object," Paen answered, tidying up some papers. "We won't know that unless you see the man again. Unless you can…" He waved a hand over the table, one eyebrow cocked in question.
I held out my hands over the table, but didn't get the slightest inkling of anything untoward. "Sorry. That's not really my forte."
He grunted a noncommittal response as he shoved some papers into a leather attache. I used the moment to get a better look around the room. I wandered down a line of bookcases, noting a few empty shelves. "Is this the room where the statue had been kept?"
"No."
I waited a moment for Paen to elucidate, but he just shucked his coat, held out a hand for my jacket, then went back to the desk to check the answering machine for messages.
"All righty," I said, looking around the room again, trying to orient myself. "Where was it kept? If you take me there, maybe I can pick up some information about it."
He stopped frowning at the answering machine and frowned at me instead. "That's what you're here to do—find it. I have no idea where it was kept."
"Why do I think there's more to this statue thing than you're telling me?" I asked, taking a seat on a chair next to his desk. "You don't know what it looks like, don't know when it was stolen from your family's castle, don't even know where it was kept… Nope. Not adding up. Why don't you tell me the whole story?"
He stood silent for a moment. I don't know if I can trust you.
Of course you can. I'm eminently trustworthy, just ask anyone. Besides, we're going to sleep together. Even you, Mr. No Emotional Commitment, must have some level of trust you are willing to grant to a sexual partner.
Paen's jaw slackened for a moment as a look of absolute surprise filled his lovely silver eyes. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?" Talk to you without actually speaking aloud?
He stared at me as if I was an escapee from a freak show. "Yes."
"I'm not quite sure," I said, shrugging. "I could hear you, so I figured the reverse might be possible if I thought at you. Evidently it is. Are Dark Ones usually telepathic like that?"
His
eyes widened for a moment before narrowing. "No, they are not. Not without some connection, usually a close blood relationship."
"Oh, so you can talk to Finn that way?"
"My brothers, yes. But not others," he answered, moving behind the desk. I got the distinct feeling he was uneasy, as if he was avoiding something. "About the statue—it has been demanded as payment to the demon lord Oriens. I have five days to find it, or a horrible penalty will be placed upon my family."
"What penalty?" I asked, feeling nosy, but needing to know everything there was to know about the statue and its history.
He toyed with a pen for a moment. "My mother's soul will be forfeited."
"Ouch. OK, so we need to find this statue in five days. That's an impossibly short amount of time to find anything, but I'll give it my utmost attention." I rubbed my chin as I thought. "Does anyone in your family know anything about it?"
"Assumedly my parents do, but they are on a research trip in an uninhabited forest in Bolivia, and thus are out of communication for the next month or so."
"Can't you do the brain thing with them?"
"No." His lips got a wry twist to them for a few seconds. "When I was a child I could, but now I can only do the brain thing, as you call it, with my brothers."
"Hmm." I rubbed my chin some more. "Can they do it with your parents?"
"Not anymore. Like me, they lost the ability when they reached adulthood."
"Huh. Weird. I'd have thought once you had it, you had it forever."
Paen made an exasperated tsking noise. "I appreciate you wishing to know all that there is to know about my family and our relationship to the statue, but shouldn't you get on with finding it? That is your job."
"Yes, but as I told you before, I'm not a Diviner. It's not just a matter of me consulting the higher spirits and asking where the statue is now."
"You may not be a Diviner, but you have elf blood, and you are talented in finding objects—or so you said."
"Hey now, no slurs," I said, getting up to pace the length of the room. "I am good at finding things. Better even than my mother, and she's nothing to sneeze at in the locating department. But every little bit of information I can get helps narrow down the search. Since you don't know anything else… well, we'll just do this logically."
Even Vampires Get The Blues do-4 Page 6
