Robert shrugged. “It was hot when I checked last. Perhaps you should check again. Perhaps it is hotter than you think.”

Nikola, about to remove his dressing gown and bend over the tub to do just that, paused and slid a glance over to where the footman was watching him with a hopeful expression. He sighed. He didn’t mind being the subject of unrequited lust, but he preferred that the luster be of the female gender. It just made things easier that way. “Leave that can of water, and you may go.”

“But, monseigneur—the water, she is not the way you desire.”

“Robert—”

“I will fetch you more water, very hot water, steaming water that will make little beads of moisture appear on your chest.”

Robert—”

“No, monseigneur!” Robert held up a hand to stop his protest. “It is no trouble. You must have the water most hot so that it slides across your belly just like the, how you say it, slithering of a tongue.”

Nikola took a deep breath, picked up the tall metal can of by-now-lukewarm water, and emptied it into the tub. “This is fine. You may leave.”

“But—”

“You may leave!”

Robert, pouting a little at the stern command, minced on his exceptionally high heels around the screen that protected the tub from drafts, and on to the door. He sniffed, but exited the room without further incident.

Nikola divested himself of his velvet dressing gown—the castle was always chilly, especially in the evening—and got into the tub, busily washing himself while he thought of Io, and how he was going to get her to seduce him again.

A brief flurry of cold air alerted him to the fact that someone had come into the room. He sighed to himself, about to tell Robert that he had no need of any further services, especially those of an intimate nature, when a hesitant voice spoke. “Nikola?”

“Iolanthe?”

“Listen, I wanted to talk to you really quickly—” She came around the end of the screen and stopped, her eyes huge. “Oh! You’re having a bath! I had one a little bit ago. You have really weird tubs, but at least the water was nice and hot. Um. Nikola, you’re naked.”

“Yes. I am also wet.”

Her eyes widened even more as her gaze flickered between his face and his chest, and knees. “So you are. You don’t fit in your tub. Your legs are all scrunched up. Why don’t you get a bigger tub, one you can sit in properly?”

“That would take an inordinate amount of time and water to fill. Did you desire something in particular, or did you just wish to see me at my bath? Is this an attempt at seduction? Because if it is, you must first allow me to get out of the tub, since there isn’t room in it for both of us.”

“No, no, I don’t want to seduce you—” She stammered a little before swallowing. “I…er… I wanted to talk.”

“About what?” Casually, he rose from the tub. Nikola was not an overly modest man, but he was very aware of her gaze as it crawled across his naked flesh when he reached for the bath linen to dry himself.

She just stared at him for a few seconds, her eyes now moving from his groin to his chest and back to his face. “Um…what?”

He took in her flustered expression, and decided to make things easier for her. “Is it my penis?”

“Huh?” She looked at the object in question.

He gestured toward it. “You seem to be looking at it quite a bit. And yet, you’ve seen it before. Does it, for some reason I am unable to fathom, now startle you?”

“No!” She stared at his groin in fascination as his arousal at her inspection of his body quickly became apparent.

“Ah. Then I must assume you wish to caress it, and perhaps take it in your hands as you did earlier this morning. Dare I hope that you might wish to indulge in that most wicked of all practices, and use your mouth instead?”

“No! I don’t want to touch you or give you a hand or blow job. I don’t give a hoot about your penis.”

“Then why are you still staring at it?”

“I’m not,” she said mendaciously, her gaze locked on his nether parts. Her fingers twitched.

“Io.”

“Hmm?”

“I wish to make love to you, and feed from you, and then possibly make love to you again, because the way you are staring at me makes me think I would be able to achieve a second bout of lovemaking immediately following the first, not that I’ve successfully done so in the past, but if there was a woman who could ensure such a thing is possible, you are that woman.”

“Too many words,” she said, and as he was half expecting, she lunged at him, flinging herself with wild abandon that he wholeheartedly appreciated.

He was ready for her, though, and backed up with her in his arms until he bumped into the bed. He allowed her to push him down onto his back, his hands busily divesting her of one of Imogen’s gowns that had obviously been lent to her.

“I have never, ever felt this way about a man,” she murmured as she swept her hands up his chest, her fingers tracing out all the muscles in his arms and upper torso. “My god, you’re really ripped. Like, work-out-at-the-gym sort of ripped. I didn’t think people in the past could have a six-pack, but you actually do have one. You must do a lot of physical stuff.”

“I ride,” he answered, pulling off the gown and her chemise, leaving her in the odd matching short stays and undergarment that hid all her warm, delectable secrets from him. “I hunt when needed. Imogen likes to go for walks, and many times, I accompany her. I taught my son swordplay, and he and I spent many months working on his technique. How do you remove the stays?”

“The what, now?” She bent down to swirl her tongue around his nipple. He saw stars for a few seconds.

“Your stays. The ones confining your breasts.”

“It’s called a bra, and it unhooks in the back. Nikola, this is wrong.”

“No, you’re right, it does unhook in the back.” He pulled the stays off her, his hands immediately filled with her sublime little breasts. Just enough to fill each palm, he thought with satisfaction as he rubbed his thumbs gently over the little brown nipples.

She moaned, and arched back, thrusting her breasts into his hands. Not that, this is wrong. Us. Together. And the fact that damn you, you’re right, I do want to seduce you. Again. My god, I must be insane, but I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a man.

“That’s quite sane, I assure you, since I feel the same way about you.” He pulled her down to a kiss that scorched his mouth, the feeling of those pert little breasts pressing against his chest enough to fill his mind with hunger—for both her blood and her body. He slid his hands over her hips to the undergarment. It had no hooks on the back of it, so he assumed it simply slid off her legs. He pulled her upward, peeling the abbreviated garment from her body, reveling in the heat of her as she grasped his hips with her knees.

“I really did intend to just talk to you,” she moaned again as he pulled her forward enough to take the tip of one of those tempting breasts into his mouth, laving his tongue over it. Her fingernails stung his shoulders as she clutched him, her head thrown back, her chest heaving in time with his mouth as he paid homage to first one, then the second breast. “Just talk, that’s all. I didn’t intend to jump you again, but dammit, Nikola, you were naked! Wet and naked! That’s more than any woman can bear! Oh dear god, do my left boob again, please.”

He obliged her, ignoring the drawing sensation in his privates, aware he was perilously close to spilling his seed again, but determined to give her the time she needed to make up her mind once and for all.

“I meant what I said—I really don’t do this with guys I’ve just met,” she told him as she slid down his body, rising up and grasping his penis with a firm hand that made him twitch with anticipation. “It just doesn’t happen! I’m not programmed that way. Although really, when you think about it, you’re not like any other man, are you? So it makes sense that I’m reacting to you in a way that I’ve never done before. Because I’ve never met a vampire before. That makes sense, right?”

He didn’t have the slightest idea what she was babbling about, but he was happy to agree with her, since it appeared that she had, at last, worked out in her mind the fact that they were meant to indulge in all the things they both had been thinking. “It makes perfect sense. I am unique. As are you. I have never met a woman from the future. Therefore, it is a sound conclusion that you should impale yourself on me at this exact moment, and I will happily lose myself in your heat.”

“It sounds a bit crazy when I explain it,” she continued on, “but it feels right.”

“It feels very right.” He gave a little lurch upward and moaned in happiness at the resulting sensation of her hands around him.

“This is just one of those situations where common sense doesn’t apply, I think. I don’t suppose you have any condoms?”

He frowned at her, automatically reaching for his notebook, but it was across the room.

“Never mind, I’m on the pill, although if I go home with some sort of weirdo eighteenth-century STD, I will personally geld you. Are you ready?”

She held him poised at the entrance to her gates of paradise. He could only nod; his penis was so hard at that point, it could probably have been used to hew stone.

“OK, but just so you realize that I don’t normally do this.” Her eyes closed in rapture as she sank down on him, enveloping him with warmth and heat the likes of which he’d never experienced.

A thousand velvety muscles seemed to ripple around him as she moved, easing him into her heat, allowing the invasion of him in a way that once again had him seeing stars.

“My god,” she panted as she moved gingerly on him, slowly making her way down his length until her pubic bone rested against his. “This is…man, you’re just there, aren’t you? It’s like…wow. It feels so good.”