"I wanted to get a book. I wasn't sleepy," she explained sheepishly.
"Milton?" Asher asked, studying her. She didn't appear irritated with him. What was she really doing here? Did she want a kiss, or was it truly a book she was after? Could she not sleep because she was thinking of him—as he had been of her, much to his discontent.
"Dante."
She grinned impishly. He found himself grinning reluctantly back.
Asher stood up and walked over to the bookshelf, and pulled down a thick black volume. He strode over and handed it to her. "Dante," he said.
"Thank you."
Jane looked uncomfortable and out of her depth. Asher decided to admit something that had been plaguing him. "Oh, you were correct. I looked up that quote and it was Milton."
Her eyes widened in surprise. "I didn't know earls knew how to apologize."
He smiled at her wickedly. "I'll let you in on a little secret. We earls only apologize late at night, when we are alone with a lady who intrigues us."
"Then you must be saying it three hundred and sixty nights a year."
Asher laughed. "Touché."
The earl's warm laughter and the smile in his eyes disconcerted Jane. She immediately turned her attention to the floor, where she just happened to notice a piece of fur stuck on the front left foot of the green brocade settee. Absentmindedly she remarked, "It sure is hard to get good help these days."
"What?" Asher asked, looking confused.
Glancing up, she felt her blush deepen. "Nothing." Ninny! Birdbrain! she berated herself silently. She should be batting her eyelashes or hanging on his arm. She was a total disaster at seduction. She should have had some training in the amorous arts. Instead her lessons had consisted of learning how to kill two vampires with one stone, and to never attack two vampires with one stake—or was that to never attack one vampire with two stakes? Jane sometimes got the rules confused. There were so very many, and they were so very varied. Who would have thought that the training manual for undead-slaying was over twelve hundred pages of dead weight, all in small print?
"I take it you avoided any marching spider armies," Asher said, unable to resist.
Jane shook her head ruefully. Her temper fit had long passed. "I apologize for being such a… ninny."
He smiled. "I find you rather adorable."
She frowned slightly, silently begging, Don't let him be charming now. No, not now! She didn't want to hurt Asher; she'd rather kiss him silly and do those other things people did in the dark behind closed doors. But what choice did she have?
The earl moved closer, stopping but a few scant inches away. His nostrils flaring, he breathed in her unique scent—the scent of jasmine and misty woods in the rural mountains of Germany. He could hear the rapid beating of her heart, sense her blood pulsing just beneath the skin of her neck.
His hunger had grown ravenous. In point of fact, he thought of drinking from her with a growling anticipation, somehow sensing that she would be good to the last drop. Just like that Swiss miss he had sampled while touring the Alps several years ago. Perhaps even better, if his pulse rate was any indication.
He couldn't seem to take his eyes off her. The flickering flames in the nearby stone hearth highlighted her figure, revealing her rounded hips and full, rather remarkable breasts.
"When you were kissed before, by your legion of men, did you enjoy it?" he asked, his hunger changing slightly. He wanted her desperately. He needed her desperately. He was aching to sink himself into her—and not his teeth. He hadn't felt lust this strong since he was a mere stripling of a vampire, one hundred and one years of age.
"It was nice," Jane said shyly.
"Nice?" Asher repeated, shaking his head to clear away the lust. He scolded himself silently. He couldn't take her virginity—but he could take a taste of her breasts and neck.
"Oh, Jane, I can do so much better than nice," he boasted, pulling her swiftly into his arms, bending his head and kissing her passionately. Her lips were very soft, and he savored their sweetness.
He could hear the blood rushing through her veins. As a child his mother had scolded him not to play with his food. As a fully functional adult, playing with his food remained half the fun. And what fun this morsel would be!
He deepened the kiss, and she opened her mouth to him. He used his tongue to ravish it thoroughly. She tasted wonderful, like golden honey after the bees had feasted on orange blossoms in the late spring. Her smell was almost as good, reminding him of hot, sultry nights and sweet kisses beneath the moonlight.
He had always enjoyed kissing and extended foreplay. But kissing Jane was an elevation to a primal experience of raw lust that he had never before experienced. He wanted to rip off her clothes and plunge into her wet, hot body. Yet, at the same time, he wanted to simply wrap her in his arms and hold on tight.
Waiting to exhale, Jane savored her first kiss. She tasted the dark depths of the earl's mouth, the sweetness and the tart tang like apple cider wine. It was a heady experience, like a walk in the clouds. Asher's kiss was better than brandy, better than strawberries with fresh clotted cream, better than chocolate and even better than spotting the yellow-bellied sapsucker. She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, running her fingers through the silky smoothness of his burnished hair as he yanked down her gown, revealing her breasts.
"Amazing," Asher mumbled. Awe-inspiring, he thought.
She was so lost to passion that she sighed wistfully into his mouth, and she felt her toes curl up in her slippers.
Hearing her sigh, Asher moved from licking her breasts to her neck, taking tiny nibbles as his muscles began to clench. Blood rushed to his groin, his cock growing heavy and hot. Jane's neck was glorious, was heaven on earth. This little virginal friend of Clair's had fired his blood to a feverish pitch. He didn't understand it, but at the moment he didn't really care.
The earl's cold breath on her neck drew Jane back to her senses. Regretfully she fingered the stake in her pocket. Still she hesitated, hating herself and her heritage. Her mind was screaming no, her heart was screaming no, but she could see her father in her mind's eye shouting, "Yes!" and berating her for un-Van Helsing-like hesitation.
Gathering resolve and duty around her like a cold, wet blanket, Jane removed the stake and lifted it high behind Asher's back. She would plunge it down and end his undead life on the count of three.
In her head, she counted: "One… two… four." No, three, she thought. I should say "three." Yet again she hesitated, for Asher continued to explore her neck with tiny, heavenly kisses.
She wouldn't do this—couldn't do this—to Asher, Clair or herself, she decided, starting to lower the stake. She didn't know what she would do about her father and his threats, but this just wasn't going to work. Maybe she could smuggle her stuff to Clair's. But on the next full moon, would Ian eat her birds? She could smuggle them to Dr. Frankenstein, but would he add unseemly appendages to them?
Her heart bruised, she lowered her stake a bit more. Deep in her heart she knew that the man savoring her neck couldn't be the depraved, drooling Count Dracul of legend.
At that precise moment, Jane felt a prick of fangs on her neck: the true kiss of a vampire on a Van Helsing! Curses, what sacrilege!
Frightened and guilt-ridden, her father's words flowing through her mind like a flash flood, Jane steeled herself. "One small stab for man, one giant stab for mankind," she gasped.
His fangs pierced her skin, gently breaking it, and apprehension gave way to panic. Instinctively she struck—and just in the nick of time to save herself from a wicked love bite.