"I'm an elf. I'm a visual person. I like looking at you."
"You're human," he said, marching over to me and pulling me up against his naked body. "You're also one of the sexiest women I've ever met, bobbed ears and all. Now take off your clothes before I rip them off."
"Oooh. Aggression. Dominance," I said, my breath catching as my hands slid up his ribs. He was warm, hard, and male. My senses went into overload as I rubbed myself against him, stroking all that lovely flesh.
"Does it arouse you?" he asked, nibbling a path up my neck toward my ears, his hands moving down my sides, around to my butt.
"Not really—oh dear god!"
I've had boyfriends who've done a little earlobe nibbling before my mind took its usual coital walk, but never has anyone ventured beyond earlobe territory to the rest of my ears. When Paen bit gently down on the top of my ear, I just about passed out from the bolt of arousal that zapped through me. My legs literally shook from the tremors of pleasure that were coursing down from the touch of his mouth. "Rip them off!"
"Hmm?" Paen asked as he nibbled the top arch of my ear. My knees buckled.
"Rip my clothes off! Right now!"
He pulled back a little to look at me. "You want me to rip your clothes off?"
"Yes! Right now! Rip them off, then ear me again!"
"I thought you didn't find aggression and dominance—"
I slapped a hand over his mouth. "Too much talking, not enough action."
"Very well," he mumbled under my hand. "But I want you to remember that the destruction of your clothes was your idea."
In the end, he didn't rip my clothes off, although he did help me out of them in a time that would do a quick-change artist proud.
"There, I'm naked. Now do my ears again!" I demanded, lunging at him as I kicked off my underwear.
He chuckled as I turned my head for maximum ear position. "Changed your mind about ears being sexy, have you?"
"You have no idea," I said, quivering as his hot breath touched my ears. Something occurred to me then. As his tongue swept a long stroke up the side of my ear to the top, I sent him the sensations of sheer, utter arousal that he was generating, alongside a hunger that I hadn't known existed in me. For a moment I could feel an answering hunger in him, and then gently I was closed out, as if a door had shut between us.
Stop doing that!
"I thought you liked this?" he asked, nipping my ear. Every bone in my body turned to pudding.
I do. I mean stop shutting me out of your mind. It's not fair. I'm willing to let you into mine. I just want you to feel what I'm feeling. I want to know what it is that I do to you, too. Why won't you let me in?
He stopped nibbling long enough to take one of my hands, place it on his belly, and slide it down the intriguing trail of hair that led to points south. "Does that answer the question of what you do to me?" he asked as my fingers closed around his erection.
Only partially, I answered, wanting more from him, but unable to express what I wanted without sounding like an idiot. I wanted to tell him that I needed some sort of emotional attachment, but I knew what his answer to that would be. And since I had agreed to his ground rules, I couldn't change them now.
I'd just have to make him realize how shallow sex was without anything behind it, my inner elf decided. The human in me wanted to point out that most men were completely and utterly happy with nothing but a physical relationship, but I squelched that thought. Paen wasn't most men. He was different, in more ways than the obvious. He was so… needy. He needed someone to show him how much more there could be to life.
"I'm going to lick you from head to toe," he mumbled against my neck, his voice thick with desire as he backed me the couple of steps to the bed. "Then reverse the route until I end back at those tasty little ears of yours."
"Sounds like a plan to me," I agreed, grabbing a foil packet from my nightstand drawer before beating back the mosquito netting and getting into the bed—without allowing his mouth to break contact with my skin—as gracefully as possible.
One eyebrow twitched at the sight of the foil packet.
"For later," I said, pulling him down onto me.
"We don't need that," he said, his tongue making a swipe across the top of my ear. I shivered with ecstasy and rubbed my hips against his erection. "You're immortal."
"No, I'm half elf. That means I have approximately double a human life span, but I can still get diseases. Not to mention pregnant. And since I'd like to avoid both at this time, we'll just have to do this my way."
"If you insist," he said, pausing to suck his breath in when I trailed both hands down his sides to find the proof of his interest again.
"No more ears. I'm on the verge of an orgasm now, and I don't think I could stand much more," I told him as his head dipped toward mine.
"As you like. No. No more of that right now, either," he answered, plucking my hands from his crotch.
"Am I too rough?" I asked, worried for a moment that my (relative) inexperience was causing me to do things wrong.
"Not at all, but tonight is for you. I want to give you pleasure, and if you keep touching me that way, it'll all be over and I'll just go to sleep."
"You're a vampire!" I said, nipping his shoulder. "You're supposed to be above that sort of mortal behavior."
"I'm also male," he said with a grin that made my toes curl. "Let me do it my way this once. Let me give you pleasure."
"You can try, but no promises I'll be here to enjoy it."
His head dipped again and he took one of my suddenly impudent nipples in his mouth. "We'll see."
Streaks of pleasure blossomed in all sorts of interesting spots, making my body hum with interest.
Unfortunately, my brain had other ideas. The feeling of disassociation washed slowly over me, a feeling that I knew would end with me drifting off while my body enjoyed the benefits of Paen's attention.
"No!" I yelled, desperately trying to grab his head to anchor myself. My hands drifted bonelessly to the bed despite my efforts to fight the lethargy that filled me. "No, dammit, not this time! Paen, stop! It's not working… god damn it all!"
My being floated gently out of my body, hanging over the figures on my bed for a moment, just long enough for me to appreciate the fact that Paen might be a vampire, but he had the nicest ass I'd ever seen on a man. While I sobbed in silent, impotent rage at being taken away against my will, I drifted out of the room and into our living room.
Which was in the process of being burgled.
"Paen!" I shrieked, trying to grab the doorframe as I drifted through the room toward another. I dog-paddled wildly to get myself back into the living room, somehow managing to keep myself from being sucked into the tiny kitchen. "Clare! Burglars! Help! Someone! Oh, this is just fine and dandy. Son of a poodle, what are you?"
A glimmer of light from a streetlamp that peeked in through the blinds touched on the dark figure of a man as he moved around the bookcase where we stuffed bills and assorted items of a sundry nature. At first I had thought it was someone intent on robbing us, but the light revealed that this man evidently had six arms. As I watched, he flitted from one object in the room to the next, examining everything almost soundlessly—almost, because each time he moved an item to look at it, there was a soft pattering sound.
"Look, I don't know what you are, but I don't want you here. So leave and… hey!"
A loud groan audible from Clare's room caused the whatever-it-was to pause for a moment before it started toward her bedroom door. I lunged toward the figure, but it passed right through me, sending me spinning toward the other side of the room in a cold eddy of air. I screamed silently in sheer frustration at my helpless state. "Stop it! You can't go in there! Clare! Something's coming in! God damn it! Paen! PAEN!" Paen!