Fresh Blood by Jennifer Colgan

and
drank in her perfection with his eyes. Satisfied with his own
resolve, he dragged the blankets over her, tucked her in and walked
away.
    Tomorrow, when she regained control of her
senses, he’d tell her all about it in excruciating detail and thus
begin her punishment.
     
    * * * *
     
    Erica floated in a sea of sensations. Ribbons
of colored sound carried her high up to a cool mountain peak and
down to a warm ocean of golden sand. She felt wonderful, but
uncertain as well. She remembered tasting the color red, candy
sweet and tempting on Vera’s sumptuous lips. She’d never been
kissed by a woman before, never would have imagined that it could
excite her.
    Erica abandoned the troubling thought and
concentrated on her dreamscape. The horizon stretched forever
toward a blue sky filled with buttery clouds.
    Elena looked down on her from those clouds
and for an instant Erica tasted death. She cried out and reached
for her sister. As she did, Elena’s face shattered and fell to
earth, making a sound like hail on glass.
    She woke to that sound.
    Oh God. What had she done?
    She turned to look at the window and the
movement caused her head to throb. Sunlight peeked in around the
drawn shade but the thrumming sound continued. So where was it in
coming from?
    The shower. She clutched the blankets to her
body and shivered when she realized she was naked beneath them. Her
dress lay neatly over the bedroom chair, her shoes and stockings
sat on the floor beneath it along with her garter and black thong
underwear. Her careful chignon hung around her shoulders and her
mouth and eyes felt gritty.
    Whoever was in the shower was whistling.
    She cringed.
    Then it came back to her in a flood of
disturbing memories. The odd hangover cleared and her stomach,
which moments before had been threatening to rebel, now rumbled for
food.
    She remembered only vague details from the
night before and though her recollection was fuzzy, it didn’t
include undressing herself. Max Hart had some explaining to do.
    She threw off the blankets and hurried across
the room to retrieve her bathrobe from its place behind the door.
She looked in the mirror and smoothed her hair, then checked
quickly for new bite marks before she closed her robe. Other than
the spot on her neck that he’d drank from the night before, her
skin remained flawless. Lucky for him, she thought.
    “Max!” Standing before the bathroom door, she
yelled once as loudly as possible, which only made the throbbing
pain in her head resume with a vengeance. When Max didn’t answer,
she pounded on the door. “Get out here, now!”
    She waited a beat and stepped back when the
bathroom door flew open. He wore only a towel, draped around his
neck.
    Their eyes locked for a moment, and Erica
managed to hold her comments in check while he slid the towel off
his shoulders and wrapped it around his waist.
    “I see you’re up.” He greeted her with a
raised eyebrow.
    “You too.” She smirked and for a moment, the
self-conscious look on his face made her forget her anger. Only for
a moment. “What the hell did you do to me last night?”
    His eyes darkened and he tilted his head.
“Not half as much as I wanted to.”
    Erica swallowed. She felt flushed and she was
suddenly aware of the fact that she wore nothing beneath her thin
cotton robe.
    “What was in my drink last night?” she
demanded stepping back as he left the bathroom. He headed for the
living room and she followed him, clutching her robe around
her.
    “Some vampires use a combination of herbs to
relax their feeders. Normally it isn’t that potent but you must
have gotten an extra large dose. You’re lucky I got back to you
when I did.”
    “You shouldn’t have left me alone.”
    “I didn’t have a choice. Benton Carlisle is a
powerful vampire. I had to go with him. And while I was gone you
were supposed to be following the other rules.”
    “Well, I tried.”
    “Not very hard by the looks of it.”
    Erica crossed her arms