Dante was immediately off the bed, undoing and pushing his pants down.
“Where are the condoms?” she asked as he raised one foot and started to push the black denim off of it.
Turning, she opened the bed table drawer to see if there might be any there. There weren’t and she turned back to ask if they might be in his wallet, or one of the other drawers, but paused when she saw that he had frozen, standing exactly as she’d last seen him, on one foot, bent over to push the cloth off. Except for the confusion on his face, he looked like a stork.
“You do have a condom?” Mary asked with a frown.
Dante shook his head, his expression blank.
“But you said you did.” Mary said with accusation, and then her eyebrows drew together and she added, “At least, you nodded.”
“Did I?” he frowned now too, obviously trying to recall, then relaxed and smiled faintly. “I nodded that I understood. But I was going to explain that we do not need them, and then got distracted.”
Mary recalled him starting to say, “We,” and then pausing on a groan. She’d then asked, “We what?” But she couldn’t remember whether he’d said anything then or not. She’d been a bit distracted by what he was doing. Apparently they both had been.
Taking a deep breath to try to ease some of the excitement still rushing through her body, she said, “What do you mean we do not need one? Of course we do, Dante. You said I can get pregnant now and we agreed we were not ready for that.”
“Yes, but no,” he said at once and she blinked in confusion. Fortunately, he continued, “I mean, yes you no doubt can get pregnant now, but no, you probably will not.”
“Probably?” Mary asked grimly, arching one eyebrow.
Dante frowned slightly, and straightened, setting his foot back on the ground. His black jeans were still pooled around his ankles as he explain earnestly, “Mary, your body is still going through the turn, which has no doubt suffered something of a setback thanks to the accident. It is not likely it could support a child just now.”
“It’s not likely?” she asked archly.
Grimacing, he sat down on the side of the bed, and took her hand. “For an immortal woman to become pregnant, she has to take in a lot of blood. More than she usually would need to take in. Otherwise the nanos will see the fetus as a threat to their getting the blood they need and will abort it.”
“I’ve been taking in an awful lot of blood,” she pointed out.
“Yes, yes,” Dante agreed waving the issue away with one hand in the same moment. “But that will all be taken up to finish the turn and repair the damage from the accident,” he explained. “It is highly unlikely that you could get pregnant right now.”
“Highly unlikely,” she said slowly, and then raised one eyebrow and asked, “But not impossible?”
“Well . . .” Dante hesitated, and then his shoulders drooped. “You are going to insist on a condom.”
“Yes,” she said dryly.
“Right,” Dante muttered and stood to pull his pants up, then headed for the door, muttering, “I shall be back directly.”
Mary lay back on the bed with a sigh. If someone had told her that birth control would be an issue for her at sixty-two, she would have laughed in their face. “Who knew?” she muttered with disgust.
Sixteen
Dante hurried up the hall and then jogged downstairs, wracking his brain for a way to get condoms. Buying them was the obvious answer, but while it was only 7:30 in the evening and most stores would be open right now, the Enforcer House was in the country, a good fifteen minutes from the nearest store. He really didn’t want to wait that long to get back to Mary.
Perhaps one of the men would have condoms, he thought and grimaced even as the possibility struck him. That just wasn’t likely. Certainly Russell and Francis wouldn’t have them. And Mortimer and his life mate Samantha were apparently hoping to get pregnant, so they wouldn’t have them. Hell, most immortals wouldn’t. They knew all they had to do to guard against pregnancy was not overindulge in blood. But Mary wasn’t willing to take that chance because she had to take in so much blood just now. He understood, but it was frustrating as hell.
Maybe Mortimer kept condoms on hand for guests who stayed at the Enforcer House, Dante thought suddenly. The man had recently taken to ensuring they had most things an unexpected guest might need: everything from clothes in various sizes to shoes, extra vehicles—even brand-new toothbrushes and toothpaste still in their packaging. Condoms might also be on that list, Dante thought hopefully, as he stepped off the stairs and turned into the kitchen.