Hot Blooded

demand. Grace looked up from her buttons to find him watching. She stilled her
hands, knowing they were shaking.
    "Yeah, well, you're good." She glanced around for her underwear, didn't spot
them, and grabbed her pants instead, stepping into them quickly. "But I'm sure
you know that."
    "I may have heard it a time or two," he admitted. Though she didn't look up,
she could hear the smile in his voice. "But I like knowing you loved it as much
as I did."
    "Probably more." She mentally cursed the admission the moment she made it.
    Lance moved closer. Grace edged away. He began to stalk her in that
long-legged, graceful, pacing-tiger stride. "In that case, why don't we
both
have seconds?"
    Her belt buckle rattled nervously as she zipped her pants. "Not without a
condom."
    "That would rather defeat the purpose."
    "That's the idea."
    Instead of answering, Lance reached out and gently slipped the rubber band
off the tail of her braid. "Doesn't it make your head hurt, having your hair all
wrapped up so tight?" Long fingers ran through her hair, loosening it, gently
massaging her scalp.
    His touch felt so good she found herself struggling to maintain her
resistance. "I don't want the Gift, Lance."
    "Why not?" Those fingers stroked and rubbed. "Judging from what I've seen,
you'd like saving the world. And being immortal is not exactly a hardship."
    "Maybe, but I've also seen the High Court in action. I don't want anything to
do with them."
    "That's understandable," he said, circling his thumb into a knot of muscle
he'd found at the base of her skull. "Sometimes I don't want anything to do with
them, either. But we have managed to keep the world from blowing up a time or
two. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the time the Chinese were set to nuke the
Americans, that incident last year when Al Qaeda got its hands on those vials of
Russian smallpox…"
    Startled, she frowned. "Smallpox? And when were the Chinese going to—?"
    "Oh, that sort of thing happens all the time." His matter-of-fact tone made
his words all the more chilling. "The human race is by turn stupid, careless,
murderous and suicidal, and it takes the High Court all the muscle and skill we
can summon to keep it from self-destructing." Gently, he turned her to look up
into his eyes. "Morgana says we need you, Grace."
    For just a second, she wavered.
    Then she remembered a beloved face gone gaunt and skeletal against a mound of
pillows. "The way you didn't need my mother?"
    He winced. "Majae have a lot of power. We have to be careful about who we
give it to. Given what happened with Clarice, I'd think you'd understand that."
    "My mother wasn't like Clarice." Pulling away, Grace stalked to the
butcher-block island where the dishes he'd prepared stood. "Mom kowtowed to
Morgana her entire life, hoping for the Gift. Even married the guy Grandmother
picked out, though God knows she didn't love him. Why would she? He was an
abusive bastard and a drug addict. Being Latent was the only thing he had going
for him."
    "Morgana probably thought they'd produce Gift-worthy offspring." She glanced
up to see Lance watching her, his sherry eyes warm with sympathy. "Which they
did."
    For something to do, Grace started filling the china plate sitting beside the
food. "Yeah, well, he wasn't father material in any other way. He sure ran out
on us in a hurry. Remember Mrs. Lacey's house? I wasn't kidding when I said it
brought back my childhood. Sometimes in the winter we slept in the kitchen with
the stove on and the door open because Mom couldn't afford fuel oil. It's a
wonder we didn't burn the place down around our ears."
    When she looked up, Lance was staring at her, appalled. "I didn't know,
Grace. I would have—"
    "It wasn't your business, Lance. It was Morgana's if it was anyone's, but
she'd cut Mom off because of her drug addiction."
    "You had nothing to do with that. And you were a child. If it was that bad,
Morgana should have taken you away."
    "I didn't want her to." She banged the spoon hard against her plate. "Morgana
would not have been an improvement. At least my mother loved me; dear
Grandmother just loved saving the world."
    "Aren't you selling her a little short? After all, Morgana did arrange for
Janae to get into Sanctuary after she developed ovarian cancer. And she did take
you in."
    "Yeah, but then she ignored me about half the time. You were the only one who
gave a damn what happened to me." Picking up a knife,