Chapter 28

When he woke in the morning, Rob saw that neither of them had moved during the night. He was still on his side, with Elaina on hers facing him. Her nipple was still at his lips, and he saw that the skin was pruned. He smiled a little, thinking of why that might be.

As he watched, Elaina rolled to her back and stretched. She slowly opened her eyes and blinked, then turned her face to him. Her beautiful leaf-green eyes gazed lovingly into his, and his heart melted. She smiled and her eyes smiled with her.

She sat up and stretched some more, raising her arms up over her head. Her breasts lifted and her nipples, slightly erect, pointed to the ceiling. When he reached for the nearest, she slapped his hand and shook a finger at him.

"I can feel where you suckled me all night. I need to dry out before you play with it anymore," she admonished.

She climbed out of bed and sauntered toward the door, stopping to stretch one more time, looking like a cheetah ready to hunt and clearly showing off for Rob. His expression of appreciation was silent and obvious beneath the sheets. Elaina looked at it consideringly with a finger on her lips.

"What do you say to staying in this weekend, just the two of us?" she inquired of him. "Okay," she said laughingly at the comical look of lust that crossed his face, "I can see the idea appeals. What I meant was, I would like to try fasting in small increments."

Rob's erection flagged even as his interest in her thoughts was piqued. Neither had noticed, what with being distracted by the matter before them. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, joining her at the door.

"What did you have in mind, exactly?" His eyes sparkled with interest.

"The day I ... hurt you..." he scoffed at her and waved it off, " ... I had been without for four days. The hunger was pretty intense, but I had it under control. The last hunt before that was less than satisfying. He was anemic and I didn't get much from it."

"Anemic? That matters?" he asked curiously.

He put his hand on her back to guide her from the room. She moved without thinking.

"Sure. The blood was low on iron and oxygen. It didn't feed me as well, sort of like if you tried to live on cotton candy. It tastes fine but offers nothing." She shrugged.

"What if the ... donor ... is drunk or high?"

They'd reached the bathroom by then, and he stood at the commode. Elaina looked at herself in the mirror, casting a laughing look toward the sound of rushing water.

"Doesn't matter. The only blood that I can't handle is dead blood. Five minutes in a dead body and the blood is useless to me. I can't drink it and it makes me gag." She turned on the tap and rinsed her hands.

Rob had finished at the toilet and was reaching for his toothbrush. He saw there were two now: his manly-man red one and her heavy duty purple one. She slapped his hand and pointed to the running water. Smirking like a little boy, he rinsed his hands.

"So, no scavenging corpses," he stated, oblivious to her shudder of revulsion. He squeezed out a dollop of toothpaste and started scrubbing. After a rinse and spit, he dropped his brush back in the holder and wiped his mouth with his hand.

"How come your toothbrush is so ... robust?" he asked quizzically.

"My fangs tend to cut up smaller brushes. I go through a lot of them," she answered. She reached for hers and went through the same routine, throwing water on her face when she was done.

"So," she said, continuing the original conversation, "Four days after a weak feeding and I lost control."

"I wouldn't say that," Rob rebutted. "I think the situation was very emotionally charged and we both lost control. Besides, I liked it. I could have done without the distress it caused you, but look..." he turned to display his back, " ... no scars. Not a single mark on me. And you certainly did not traumatize me." He took her face in his hands and peered into her eyes.

"You have to accept, as I have, that sometimes things happen. Whatever it is, we'll fix it together."

He took her hand and pulled her to the kitchen. Towels had started appearing on the chairs after the first couple of times Rob's scrotum had hit the cold vinyl on the mornings they stayed naked. Rob had her sit, then went to fix coffee for himself and boil water for her. He spotted a silver mesh ball and held it up to Elaina by its chain.

"It's my tea infuser. It makes better tea than the bagged variety."

That's when he noticed an array of colorful tea boxes beside his coffee canister. He shrugged it off, glad she was taking care of herself as well as him. He placed the infuser on the counter.

He turned and leaned back, wincing when the cold marble countertop pressed against his buttocks.

"So the 'thirst' wasn't bad that day, right?" he asked. She nodded. "And if it weren't for the steamy sex, you might not have been so savage." He grinned on "savage," giving the word some heat. She smiled, just a little, at his enthusiasm.

"I think we can discard that time as useless to the experiment," he finished. "Too many variables. As good as I was, it may have been pure lust that drove you. It was my back, after all, and not my neck." She laughed out loud at his conceit, then allowed as he was probably right.

The tea kettle whistled and she got up to attend to it. Rob grabbed a cup from the miniperk and doctored it up, getting out of her way. He sat at the table and watched as she went through the arcane ritual of preparing tea. He admitted to himself that it certainly smelled better than the store-bought stuff, then wondered if it was his heightened senses causing him to think that. He took a deep whiff of his coffee and decided it was the tea.

After cleaning the infuser, Elaina returned to the table, cradling her mug in her hands.

"You're going to have to teach me how to use that thing," he said, "For those times I make tea for you, or when my mother visits." She nodded.

"Here's my idea," she said, blowing on her tea. "I go the weekend, right through to Sunday night, without feeding." She gave him the hairy eyeball. "And no stabbing your tongue on my fangs, either."

"Okay."

"The rest of the weekend, we test our other boundaries," she said waggling her eyebrows. He waggled his right back. "And we need to see how long you can go without passing out while you have your senses 'spun up.'" She paused to sip at her tea.

"Whatever made you think to call it that, anyway?" she asked inquisitively.

He frowned in concentration. "I think I read it in a science fiction book. Something about spinning up dynamos to provided power to telepaths and teleports. I'm not sure, it's been a while."

"Well, it seems to fit and it gives us a handle on it." She cocked her head at him. "Are you hungry right now?"

"As a matter of fact, I could use a bite." He grinned at his unintentional pun and she dropped her head and sighed.

Looking back up, she ordered, "Spin up now. Tell me how it feels."

The reaction was nearly instantaneous, and everything in the room came into sharp focus. He could smell the heat of her flesh, although he noticed she wasn't as aroused as he thought she would be. He could even smell a box of teabags in the cabinet, noting they were stale and bland. He resolved to dispose of it the first chance he got.

"There's that scent again!" Elaina exclaimed. "That could get you killed if you encounter another vampire."

"Maybe I smell like you," he soothed. "If they're in your territory, they're sure to know your scent."

She bobbed her head in mild agreement. She shelved the thought for another time.

"I'm beginning to feel the warning signs," he said, feeling his eyelids grow heavy. She called "Stop!" and he spun down. He sagged for a moment then perked up.

"It feels like I've got a reserve. If I stop fast enough, it doesn't leave me tapped out," he announced.

"Good," she said decisively. "But it didn't last very long. Let's get you fed and see where we go from there."

"What about you?" he asked.

"We'll see how that goes as time progresses. I'll just have to monitor myself along the way."

She opened the refrigerator to see what she had to work with and grunted in dissatisfaction. "You're going to have to go shopping. There's really not much here." She opened the freezer and grunted again. "I'll make a list. You'll have to go alone: I can't risk a supermarket during the day."

He nodded his acceptance and went to get dressed. While in the bedroom, he called for a town car, and when he explained his requirements he was told they had a shopping service. When he asked how that worked, the agent explained the concept of a personal shopper.