Love Bites by Cari Quinn

mound.
    “What the hell?”
    “Luke pulled out at the last minute.” She shivered at the erotic memory of his warm fluid pumping onto her lower belly.
    Luke shrugged. “She’s your girl, right? Gotta show some respect.”
    Kellan only inclined his chin as he gave her front the same wipe-and-wash treatment. She sighed as she watched him clean her, tilting up her hips to give him more access. “Sometimes you boys take such wonderful care of me.”
    “Yeah, sometimes.” Luke teasingly laved her lower lip. “In between tantrums and arguments, you mean?”
    “Yeah, and almost draining me of blood and tying me to the bed without telling me where you’ve taken me.”
    She glanced around her surroundings, really seeing them for the first time. She’d looked at the room before, of course, but hadn’t really noted the details. Her incessant need to fuck these gorgeous men tended to dull the importance of categorizing the precise shade of the bedroom wallpaper.
    She bit her lip. It was puce, she decided, which went nicely with the pale cream curtains and heavy gold drapes. The huge king-sized bed had ornate posts that were gold, as well, and thin sheets of the same rich color pooled on the floor.
    And those sheets were stained with blood.
    Sydney swallowed again. Her throat was so dry. Look at the room , she told herself, only dimly aware that Kellan had stopped washing her.
    That the bedroom was bordered by the galley kitchen and spacious bathroom didn’t strike her as too odd, though she’d never encountered a floor plan quite like it before. No, what was odd was that she’d repeatedly screwed two men who claimed to be vampires. Well, Kellan claimed, and Lucas had yet to answer the question straight.
    “You live here together?”
    Lucas answered. “Yes.”
    “Just the two of you?”
    Kellan nodded. “You haven’t seen the rest of the place, but there’s a combination living room/game room at the front of the ranch and one more bathroom. Lucas’s bedroom is on the opposite side of the bathroom you were in.”
    “Interesting layout.”
    Lucas shrugged. “It fits our needs. We knew we didn’t need much of a kitchen, so we stationed it between the bedrooms.”
    “Why? You don’t eat, right?” Her lips curved. “Except for Kellan’s Pop-Tarts.”
    “No. But this is where we keep the cleaning supplies.” He swept a hand up at the cabinets he’d filled with his purchases. “Lots of cabinets here, and as you saw, the bathroom is mostly tub. No room for bottles of Pine-Sol and bleach.”
    “But why not just have cabinets then? Why have a kitchen at all, if you don’t use it?” She gestured at the freezer. “Why do you even need a refrigerator?”
    “We keep a supply of bagged blood for when we can’t get to a human source. And sometimes our…guests need to eat, so we keep food on hand.”
    “You don’t need to kill to feed.”
    “No. We’re not murderers, Sydney. We take what we need. If we take a small enough amount, the human won’t even know what happened. It’ll be like a blip on their radar, a lapse in consciousness. Rarely do we take enough that it’s necessary to wipe the memories from their minds.”
    “How do you do that?”
    “A vampire’s blood contains certain chemicals that react potently with human blood. The key is knowing how much to give, and when. During the brief moments after a transfusion of our blood, a human is held in our thrall and we have access to their thoughts and perceptions. Altering them can suppress their memories.”
    “You couldn’t wipe mine. Just like Alysia couldn’t wipe Luke’s.”
    “No. But I didn’t try too hard. The plan was to wait until our blood revived you from my bite, then try again.” He gave a thin smile. “You recuperated much faster than we anticipated.”
    “But still,” she pressed. “Have there been other women you couldn’t wipe?”
    “No,” he said again, casting his gaze briefly at Luke. “You are the only