The Accidental Vampire(63)

Victor suddenly jumped away from her like a rat abandoning ship.

Without his support, her trembling legs gave out and Elvi fell to her knees on the

kitchen floor, a mass of confusion and frustration.

"There you are, Victor."

Elvi heard Edward Kenric's voice through her own panting and immediately

understood that the thundering had been his jogging lightly down the stairs. She also

understood why Victor was now standing wide‐eyed at the end of the counter, a guilty

look on his face. They'd nearly been caught misbehaving in the kitchen. Actually, they

still might be caught, Elvi realized, when she spotted her torn panties lying on the floor

next to the spilled bag of blood a few feet away.

If Edward came around the counter…

"I have a question for you," Kenric continued and much to her horror his voice was

moving along the counter toward the end.

Panicking, she scrambled forward on all fours to snatch up her panties.

"Have you—Oh, Elvi."

She'd just stuffed her panties in the pocket of her robe, tied it closed, and snatched up

the paper towel she'd dropped earlier when Edward came around the counter to join

Victor.

"Hello, Edward." Forcing an innocent smile, Elvi began to swipe at the drying blood on

the floor, then paused to snatch up the empty blood bag and toss it up and—she

hoped—into the sink, before continuing to clean up the mess on the floor as if that's

what she'd been doing all along.

"I didn't realize you were here as well. Can I help you with that?" he asked, moving

closer.

"No, no. It's almost done. You go on and talk to Victor. Take him out on the deck if you

want privacy," she encouraged. "I'll be done here in just a moment."

"If you're sure," he said politely, then turned to Victor and said, "If you wouldn't

mind?"

Victor hesitated, then gave in to the inevitable and led the way out onto the deck.

Elvi sagged where she knelt, feeling as wrung out as a dishcloth. She only allowed

herself a moment's respite, however, then quickly finished wiping up the blood on the

floor. Once done, she stood and threw out the paper towel, then grabbed the empty

blood bag from the sink and tossed it as well before moving to the refrigerator to

collect a fresh bag of blood for herself. It was the reason she'd been headed

downstairs in the first place, but she'd allowed herself to be distracted.

Her gaze slid to the counter where she'd almost had her first orgasm as a… well… not

dead person.

Elvi took her bag with her and fled the kitchen. Now that the passion had passed she

was embarrassed and unsure how to act with Victor. Dear Lord, she barely knew the

man and had nearly had sex with him right there on the kitchen counter for anyone to

walk in and catch them at it. What was the matter with her?

What's wrong with us? Elvi corrected silently as she moved past Mabel's room and

heard the sounds coming from inside. She felt a moment's envy and had a brief flash in

her mind of her and Victor making love in her… coffin, she ended the thought with a

grimace as she recalled she didn't yet have a bed, then pushed the image away with a

shake of the head.

For God's sake she—and Mabel—were both sixty‐two‐year‐old women, practically

senior citizens, both of whom had lived sedate, conservative lives. They were small‐

town girls who'd married their childhood sweethearts. She'd had no other lover other

than her husband and knew the same was true of Mabel, and yet here they were

acting like a couple of tramps.

Elvi managed not to roll her eyes at her own thoughts. She knew it was an old‐

fashioned term and that her thinking, too, was old‐fashioned. But that was what she

was, an old‐fashioned, small‐town girl who suddenly found herself behaving

completely out of character.

Worse yet, while Elvi was aware she should be grateful that Edward had interrupted

before things had gone any further, she really wished the annoying man had just stuck

to his damned room and not interrupted at all. She'd had a taste of the delights Victor

could show her and wanted more.

"Damn," Elvi muttered. She never should have come down for a bag of blood before

retiring. And what had happened to the " I'm not ready to date?" feelings that had first

attacked her on hearing these men were here. Now she didn't care about dating, she

wanted to sleep with one of them. She supposed that was a good thing at least. There

was only one she was interested in sleeping with.

A passionate scream drew her gaze back over her shoulder to Mabel's door as she slid

into her own room. Elvi wished she could talk to the woman, but, of course, that was

impossible right now. It looked like she would just have to wait until DJ left. In the