Carpathian 17 - Dark Celebration

displeasure, kept her brain patterns the same, a woman using the restroom.
    Still, the ancient paced outside the door.
    With a sigh of regret, when he was certain she had taken enough for a true exchange, Manolito closed the wound, tidied her and placed memories of using the bathroom. It easy enough to disappear, scattering his molecules throughout the room so that when MaryAnn opened the door and Nicolae peered in, there was nothing to see—no way to detect him.
    "Are you all right?" Nicolae asked.
    MaryAnn pressed her hand against her aching breast. Strangely, she felt flushed—more than that, in a heightened sexual state. She took a slow, deep breath and let it out. "I'm fine, Nicolae. Here are the towels." Had she been daydreaming? For a moment, she couldn't remember going into the bathroom. She thought only of a man touching her skin, sliding his mouth down her throat to her breast. She wanted to open her blouse and look at her skin, touch her body, feel hands on her. But Nicolae was already striding down the hall, casting small suspicious glances over his shoulder, and remembering he could read her thoughts, she hastily followed him forcing inane chatter about Christmas trees.

Chapter 15
    "Natalya, just what are you doing with that hairspray and lighter?" Vikirnoff Von Shrieder demanded. He peered out the kitchen window to the silent sparkling white world surrounding them. "There aren't any vampires around, are there?"
    "Don't be silly. I've learned to call down the lightning when I'm fighting a vampire. I needed a flame thingie for the crème brûlée. See, it says so right here on the recipe."
    Natalya bent forward to reread the card she had on the low-tiled counter.
    "Give it up. The silly recipe isn't worth the amount of time you have put into it."
    Vikirnoff came up behind her and circled her waist with his arms, drawing her back up against him.
    "I thought you always wanted June Cleaver cooking in the kitchen with her little apron on," Natalya teased.
    "It was you who mentioned June Cleaver, but I do like the apron," he admitted, kissing his way down the side of her face. His hands burrowed under the thin material stretching to cover her breasts. "If you wore this all the time, I might consider trying out one of these strange concoctions you seem to be attempting to whip up."
    He nibbled on the back of her neck and let his hands slide down her flat stomach to the junction of her legs beneath the short apron. His palm caressed the short curls, and moved up to cover the birthmark in the shape of a dragon. The pads of his fingers traced the familiar shape, and then moved on around her hips to her firm bare buttocks. " Ainaak enyém , you do not have a single stitch on beneath this apron."
    She leaned forward just a little more to peer at the recipe and frown at her concoction.
    The action brought her enticing derrière brushing the front of his body, sending a small electrical charge right through his groin. "I don't think anyone who cooks actually wears clothes. It's too messy. I changed three times and gave it up."
    His hands continued their journey, shaping her hips and running over her bottom to slide over her thighs. He felt her shiver of awareness—of answering excitement. "So humans stand in the kitchen stark naked and cook." Once more his hands moved, widening her stance, caressing the inside of her thighs, going higher so his knuckles could brush back and forth across her sensitive core.
    "I'm certain of it," Natalya said. "I've discovered their secret." She closed her eyes to absorb the feel of his hands on her bare skin.
    His mouth nuzzled her neck, tongue stroking caresses over her pulse, teeth teasing and nipping. "I will ask Slavica's husband if that is why he spends so much time in the kitchen with her. I wondered what they did together in that big room with so many counters."
    His teeth sank deep, locking them together, his larger body bending hers forward, pinning her against the low counter and his body. His clothes were gone and his body already hard and aggressive, his fingers pushing slowly, seductively into her body so that she gasped and pushed back against him, already wet and welcoming for him. Already hot.
    He loved her ready response and the way her body began to ride his hand eagerly.
    His hands went to her hips, holding her still, preventing all movement, so she waited for his attentions, unable to bring any pleasure to herself.
    "You started this," Natalya complained.
    He