"I can almost feel your gaze on me," he murmured, heat winding into his loins as he sent his bath-warmed blood there at last.

"If you expected me not to look, Mencheres, you underestimate yourself." Her voice was husky, lingering over the syllables in his name like she was caressing them. He moved closer, pressing his body against her knees until she either had to edge away from him or open them.

Kira parted her legs, careless of the water that soaked her as he brought his body flush against hers, savoring her moan as their skins met. She slipped her arms around his neck, her fingers separating his hair into several thick strands while she stared into his eyes.

"Not going to decide to stop halfway through again, are you?"

He dropped his mouth to her ear, licking the tender shell once before replying.

"I was separated from my wife for over nine centuries and forbidden by law from lying with anyone else. After her death, no one tempted me enough . . . until you." A noise of astonishment escaped her as Kira drew back to look at him. "You haven't had sex in over nine hundred years?" She swallowed. "If you're trying to say you want to take things slow, wait until we get to know each other better - "

He laughed, pulling her down into the tub with him. "No. I'm warning you that I will show you no mercy."

He kissed her with all of the pent-up hunger that had been raging in him for the better part of a mill ennium. Kira's arms tightened around him, the taste of her mouth intoxicating, the caress of her tongue a sensual extravagance. Water sloshed from the tub as he pulled her dress off and flung it aside. Her bra and underwear were likewise discarded, until nothing interrupted the sleek smoothness of her flesh along his.

She moaned as she ran her hands down his body. He slid his mouth from hers, kissing that beautiful jawline before moving down to the full ness of her br**sts. He filled his mouth with each of them in turn, sucking on her ni**les until Kira's gasps became cries, and her nails raked down his back. Her touches became more frantic, and she curled her legs around his waist. The feel of her wrapped around was him magnificent, each luscious twist of her body inflaming, but he wouldn't rush this moment. He wanted to explore her more fully first.

He caressed her br**sts as his head dipped below the water. That tight adornment of curls teased his mouth before his tongue parted her depths. Lust mounted with unbearable intensity at his first taste of her. Her slick softness was addictive, urging him to flick his tongue faster, deeper, until more of her honey flavored his mouth, and her cries had an urgent, rhythmic edge. Her pleasure only heightened his overpowering, aching need, tightening everything inside him with ravenous demand. He had to be inside her.

Had to -

Mencheres shot from the tub with a snarl, only their centuries-long friendship stopping him from striking out with lethal force at the vampire who intruded. Gorgon stood in the bathroom doorway, his expression grim.

"If it weren't life or death, believe me, I wouldn't interrupt, but you need to see this. Now.

"

If Kira could still have blushed, her cheeks would have been fire-engine red. Staying in the bathroom and never setting eyes on Gorgon again sounded like a good plan to her, but the words "life and death" made it impossible for her to cater to her embarrassment.

Mencheres had closed the bathroom door with a muttered apology when he stalked out to see whatever it was Gorgon interrupted them for, so she had a private moment to gather her shattered equilibrium - and a towel - before she followed him.

"I tried to call," Gorgon was saying as he went over to Mencheres's computer, of all things. "Bones did, too. He phoned me after he couldn't reach you. When I hung up with him, I ran back from town as fast as I could."

Mencheres stood with his arms crossed, still naked, water dripping onto the carpet beneath him. Kira noticed he had a tattoo on his back of a symbol she didn't recognize, but she didn't take the time to admire it with her attention fixed on what Gorgon was doing.

"You can't tell me what it is that's so urgent while you are preparing the computer?" Mencheres growled.

"That strip club from the other night was torched," Gorgon said while his fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard. "Those three vampires are dead, plus several humans as well. But that's not the real problem."

"Was Jennifer one of the humans killed? Jennifer Jackson?" Kira asked, taken aback by how coolly Gorgon described the deaths.

"It'd be better if she had been," Gorgon muttered.

Kira gasped at his reply. Mencheres drew her into the circle of his arms, his wet hair falling across her shoulders, mouth lightly brushing her temple.

"This news, while important, could have waited," he said to Gorgon in a hard tone.

Gorgon glanced up after a few more rapid taps of his fingers. "This can't." The site for a Chicago news channel filled the laptop screen, video segment from the eleven o'clock news in the center of the page. Kira's eyes widened at the frozen image with the headline of VAMPIRE ROLE-PLAYING RESPONSIBLE FOR ARSON? It wasn't the headline that stunned her. It was seeing herself in the image, her head back, Mencheres's mouth latched onto her throat.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

Gorgon clicked play, and the news anchor's voice flowed out, talking about the grisly scene of burned bodies that firefighters found when they responded to the call.

Surprisingly, the arson had happened the day before yesterday, not this past evening, but what had been discovered in time to make the eleven o'clock news was the security footage. The only set recovered from the scene, damaged, but some viewable segments still remaining.

" . . . don't have the names of the participants involved," the news anchor droned on in a professionally somber voice. "Police are still in the process of seeking their identities, but as you can see, there seems to be a bizarre imitation of a vampire - that's right, I said vampire - ritual taking place. Let's watch the footage, Robert." Mencheres's grip on Kira tightened as she watched, speechless, while her death took place on-screen. When she saw Mencheres pull her necklace off and use it to cut open his own throat, her hand convulsively closed over her cross. He must have replaced the chain, she thought, feeling numb. She'd never even noticed a time when her necklace wasn't on her, but she'd been dazed from bloodlust that first day . . .

"You will regret this," Mencheres said on-screen to Radje after she'd finished slurping from his neck, and her body was motionless.

The Law Guardian folded his arms. "You threaten me?"