(Lyrics)

"Whisper to me softly, three words upon my skin.

No one's near and listening so please, don't say goodbye.

Just hold me close and love me, press your lips to mine.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, feels so right. Feels so right."

I stretched up from where I had been resting my head on my husband Mike's chest and kissed him lightly. He gave a sigh that rumbled deep in that same chest and stroked my hair. I put my head back down and listened to him breathe. That breathing was a lot calmer and more relaxed than it had been just a few minutes ago. We had made love for what seemed like hours. It might have been, Mike loved nothing more than to take his time rousing me and bringing me to the edge and then keeping me from falling over. He drove me crazy and I loved it almost as much as I loved him.

I had been sexually active before I met Mike. Heck, I had been sexually active for nearly four hundred and fifty years. The first time was Seamus and I fumbling in a hay bale. The last time before Mike was a menage-a-tois with two female police officers. In between I had just about done everything and everyone, men and women, solo or in combinations. I had sex with other vampires, an African were-leopardess (in her human form), an American Indian skin-walker, even a ghost once. I think he was a ghost. But I had never had a lover like my Mike. And I never would need another one. I had everything and everyone I could ever want rolled up into one man.

"Mike?"

"Hmmm?"

"I love you."

He kissed the top of my head and his arm tightened around me. "I love you too Bridget."

(Lyrics)

"Lying here beside you I feel the echoes of your sighs.

Promise me you'll stay with me and keep me warm tonight.

So hold me close and love me, give my heart a smile.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, feels so right. Feels so right."

My heart. When I woke that morning in an unfamiliar bed I just figured it was just more of the "same old, same old". I did wonder why I was still in my underwear though. Then Mike appeared, as handsome as anyone I had ever seen and carrying coffee. I swear my withered, dried-up heart gave a thump when I realized he had spent the night on the couch rather than take advantage of me when I was drunk. I knew damned well he wanted me. The bulge in his jeans was amazing. He was so hard that when we made love I almost couldn't get those jeans off of him.

Not that I hadn't known other kind, polite and wonderful men over the centuries. But something was so different about him. I fell, and fell immediately, so hard that I fled from him, because I couldn't bear the thought of watching him grow old and die while I went on. But that same heart felt like it had been squeezed into a tiny cold ball by a vise of steel as I drove away from his apartment. I had craved the warmth of his body against my always cold one, wanting him with a passion that I could scarcely believe myself. He made me warm, and after centuries of darkness that was amazing. Even as I left, even as I held back the tears, I could feel his warmth.