THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

they haven’t been able to separate that characteristic from the compulsion to gorge on human blood.”
    She goggled at him. “You mean every other bio-pharm company knows that vampires walk among us?”
    He laughed, a cold, cynical sound. “Ainsley, sweetheart, you don’t even want to know what they know and aren’t telling. You could keep Senate committees busy for years if they knew the whole of it.”
    “I can imagine.”
    She chewed her lower lip a moment, and all he could think was let me do that .
    “So, do they do it?”
    He shook his head, but the words didn’t realign to make any more sense. “Does who do what?”
    “Do vampires have sex? You’ve clarified they don’t procreate, which apparently is good because baby vamps are voracious, conscienceless blood leeches. But you didn’t say what they do about sex.”
    He cleared his throat. “They are more than capable of sex.”
    “With each other?”
    God, the woman’s curiosity was boundless. As was her temerity. “Very rarely.”
    She arched an eyebrow. “Why not?”
    “Mainly because it’s not very satisfying. Typically, vampires have no appetite for vampire blood.”
    This time her eyebrows soared. “And vampire sex involves the exchange of blood?”
    “Most definitely. But with human/vampire couplings, it’s one way, human to vampire. Otherwise, the vamps would have converted your ranks pretty swiftly.”
    She scoffed. “That’s presuming there are ranks of females just waiting to be bitten. ’Cuz speaking as a card-carrying member of the once-bitten, I can assure you the experience would not be high on the must-do list for most females.”
    “Ranks of females ?” He shook his head. “There you go again with the generalities. For your information, some male vampires prefer male partners. And female vampires take their share of partners, too, thank you, from both the male and female ranks. Basic sexual orientation isn’t altered by this mutation.”
    “I didn’t mean to—”
    He held up a hand to forestall her. “All I’m saying is that if every time a vampire had sex with a non-vampire, they opted to turn said partner, then the food supply would have been exhausted long ago. The vampire ranks would swell until there were no un-mutated humans left to feed them. Presumably, that’s why vampires have evolved in such a fashion as to not be sexually attracted to other vampires.”
    She grinned. “Securing the food supply. Smart.”
    “And again, for your information, it’s not an unpleasant experience for a woman. Or a man, for that matter, or so I’m told. Quite the opposite. It’s quite an extraordinary experience. So extraordinary, in fact, that certain people engage in relations only with vampires.”
    Her jaw dropped. “Vampire groupies?”
    He couldn’t suppress a smile at her expression. “If you want to call them that, I suppose it’s fair enough, at least in your view of the world. But I assure you, they have a very different view of themselves.”
    “What would you call them?”
    “Me?” He pushed his hair back. “I don’t know. Holy women?”
    Her eyes widened, fascinating written in their violet depths. “Holy women?”
    “Or men. Let’s not be sexist here.”
    “Wow.”
    “Think about it: why wouldn’t they be revered? They provide sustenance, comfort, pleasure, companionship, all at the same time.”
    “Why indeed? Shoot, I want me one of them.”
    That surprised a laugh out of him. “Sorry. You don’t qualify. Mutant variants only.”
    Her face got very still. Uh-oh.
    “What?” he said.
    “I was just thinking about what you said … does that mean there are circumstances when it’s safe to be bitten? When there’s no risk of infection ensuing?”
    Stupid, Bowen. Real stupid. What now?
    He decided to stick with the truth, or at least enough of it that the lie could be in the omission.
    “Absolutely.” He leaned back in his chair, the picture of relaxation. “The vampire controls the exchange. Obviously, in the sex situation, he — or she — wants to keep their partner not just alive and well, but uninfected. However, in your case—”
    “In my case, he was doing his damndest to drain the very last drop of my blood, so he probably wasn’t being too particular about whether or not he infected me.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. A sorry sonofabitch , that is. “Don’t think about it. Besides, I told you no harm would come to you, and I meant it.”
    She held his