Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

her.”
    “Dangerous? How could she be dangerous, unless sex is poisonous?”
    “Just take my word for it. She’s dangerous.”
    He stared with a half-smile of incredulity on his face. “What’s happening here?” he asked. “Are you and your sister playing some sort of game with me?”
    “No, no, absolutely not.”
    “I remember how the two of you teased the guys at Dante’s,” he continued, the suspicion lingering. “You’re kidding me, aren’t you? I mean about deliberately getting suspended just so you’d have an opportunity now to see me?”
    “No. I’m telling you the truth. I… my father is very strict about my socializing.”
    “Huh? Wait a minute. Your father is strict about your socializing, but he let you and your sister go to Dante’s?” He shook his head. “You’re not making any sense now, Lorelei. In fact, you’re scaring me a little. You sound wacky.”
    “I know,” I said. “I don’t mean to sound that way.”
    He laughed. “C’mon,” he said, leaning toward me and bringing his lips close to mine again.
    “Wait,” I said. “Let me explain. The night you saw me at Dante’s really was the first night I was ever out without my father.”
    He studied my face to see if I was kidding him, and then he sat back. “You certainly didn’t act like any girl out for the first time, at least any girl I’ve ever met or seen,” he said.
    “I had a good instructor that night,” I said.
    He squinted. “And who was that?”
    “My sister,” I said.
    “Well, why was your father so lenient with her and not with you?”
    “It’s complicated,” I said. I paused. Every word I uttered now had to be well thought out first. “I’m adopted.”
    “Adopted? You didn’t tell me that. You told me your mother had died.”
    “That’s why I was adopted. I don’t reveal that. I don’t like the effect it has on other girls and boys.”
    “Oh.” He thought a moment and then smiled. “I didn’t think you and your sister looked that much alike, but now that you’ve mentioned it, why does your being adopted make any difference in the way your father treats you as compared with Ava?”
    “There were promises made,” I said. I thought that was safe and somewhat logical even though a bit cryptic.
    “Oh, so your father did know your mother?”
    “Yes, he knew her.”
    “Well, what about your real father, then? Where was he at the time?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He nodded. “I see. This is a little complicated.” He was thoughtful again.
    I hated making all this up, but I saw no other way. “I’m all right with it. I love my father very much, and he’s very devoted to me, to all of us.”
    “That’s good. Maybe if your father met me, he would see I’m a decent guy and—”
    “No,” I said, perhaps too quickly and vehemently.“No,” I added softly. “Not yet. For now, I’d like to keep everything as it is.”
    “Okay. Whatever you say. I’ll do whatever you want, as long as I can be with you, Lorelei. Besides,” he said, smiling again, “we’re wasting precious time.”
    He leaned in to kiss me again. His lips moved off mine, to my cheeks, my chin, and my neck. Any girl doing this for the first time had to feel anxious and even a little afraid. She wouldn’t want to seem cold and awkward, so innocent and unsophisticated that she would make a fool of herself. I was sure that just as I was caught in an emotional tug of war for my own special reasons, any girl would be pulled in opposite directions.
    One half of her would want to test her own passions, discover whatever wonderful surprises her body had waiting for her. She could read about it, imagine herself as a character in a romance novel or in a movie, but to feel a boy’s lips actually on hers, moving over her body, his hands touching her in places never touched by anyone other than herself, in short, to enter her private space, her private places, and stir whatever wonderful part of her had been in waiting since she first felt she had stepped into maturity, was impossible to dismiss or belittle. Could a girl really ever be a woman without bringing all that to life?
    But there was also that second part of a girl, the part that resisted, that pulled her back, that system of alarms her parents, her teachers, and other adults planted in her mind and heart, those warnings that told her not to go too far, not to surrender herself too quickly and risk losing all those years of joy that lay ahead. How confusing it