And man do I wanna get flung.

Ryu wiped off one of the plates with his napkin, setting it down above my head to place our freshly filled champagne glasses on it. Then he lay down next to me and placed a hand on my belly.

“The food baby’s kicking,” I commented, nervously.

“Hmm?” he inquired. He had his head propped up on his hand, his weight on his elbow, so that he hovered above me disconcertingly. You shouldn’t have lain down, my brain scolded. Oh yes, you should, my lady bits buzzed.

“My food baby. You know, when you eat too much…” My voice trailed off when I saw the look in his eyes. Ryu didn’t want to hear about food babies. He wanted to kiss me. Which he proceeded to do.

His lips were hot against mine, but not as hot as the hand that had slipped under my thin knit sweater to stroke down my side. That hand gripped my hip, pulling me toward him, and his kiss deepened. His tongue flicked over my lips, seeking entry, and I felt a frisson as my own lips grazed a very sharp fang.

I froze, suddenly overcome by anxiety. I’d only been with one man in my life, and that had been years ago. Thinking of Jason, I felt my cold sliver shift inside of me. I’d wanted the opportunity to move on for so long. But now, confronted with a living, breathing—not to mention insanely hot—man who knew about my life and didn’t run away, I felt my nerves as keenly as my lust. Not least because Ryu wasn’t actually human; he was a vampire. Did vampires have sex like we did? Would he bite me? Did we need a condom? Or three, if we included his fangs?

Ryu’s golden eyes opened, and he looked deep into mine. His hand emerged from underneath my sweater. He stroked it down to cover my belly and gave me one more gentle kiss before he asked, “Jane, my lovely, what do you do to relax?”

I stared at him for a moment, slightly startled. “I swim,” I answered finally.

He sighed. “I thought you’d say that.” And then I knew what was coming. That old chestnut—skinny-dipping.

Ryu stood and stripped off quickly. I caught a glimpse of solidly muscled thighs and a high, tight derriere before he ran off down the beach, hollering, “C’mon, Jane!” at the top of his lungs.

I knew that nudity on cold beaches led to gratuitous amounts of warming afterward, but it was too tempting to resist. Besides, the sea was my domain.

I pulled off my green Converse and matching sweater, and then off came the rest. Ryu was already splashing through the shallows when I caught up; then I flashed past him and out into the arms of my sea.

We swam for what felt like hours, although it must only have been about forty minutes. Not since my mother had left had I swum with another person the way I did that night. The sea was achingly cold and fairly rough, but Ryu could just about keep up with me. We splashed and played like otters: I’d let him catch me and kiss me, before I’d slip away again. When he looked like he was getting tired, I’d allow him to capture me for a little while longer, surreptitiously supporting him a bit while he took a breather. “How can you swim so well?” I hollered at him at one point, the waves loud in our ears.

“We’re strong,” he shouted back, running a hand over my backside. That’s not resting, I thought, and dove away.

Adding to the excitement of tonight’s swim was that I recognized, for the first time, what I was doing when I was in the ocean. That slight tingle, like static energy, I’d felt when the others had used their power was now coming from me. And for every burst of energy I used to hold Ryu up or to propel me away from him, the sea refilled it. I was drawing from her strength the way a fetus draws from its mother. Yet, conversely, I’d never felt so powerful, so in control, in my life.

When I could see that Ryu had had enough, I headed back toward the beach. I started walking to the blanket, still illuminated by the soft pink light, when I was picked up from behind. Ryu was carrying me, like Rhett carried Scarlett, I thought. Except that Rhett and Scarlett weren’t dripping wet and naked.

I looked up at his handsome face as he smiled down hungrily at me, his fangs sparkling in the moonlight. I probably should have been freaked out by them, yet I felt entirely safe in his arms. His fangs marked him as different, making him closer to me somehow. We were both far from normal, and neither of us cared. This sense of security, coupled with the excitement of the evening and the feeling of power and authority I’d had swimming just now, wiped away all my previous doubts.

“Are you cold?” he murmured, as he lowered me to the blanket.

“No,” I whispered, all trace of anxiety gone.

“Well, I am,” he said, pulling me on top of him and wrapping us both in the blanket.

This time it was I who kissed him. I straddled his thighs, leaning down into his lips as his arms wrapped around me. I went into the kiss slowly, unsure of how to circumnavigate his prickly bits. But he was a good teacher, and pretty soon I was French kissing a vampire as if I’d been doing it all my life. Most of the basics seemed to translate. And when I sucked gently at his tongue as it entered my mouth, I heard him groan, and my heart thrilled at the sound. My lips trailed over his cheek, to his ear, where it explored a bit, and then traced down his jaw to his neck. He tasted like my sea, and I licked his skin ardently, loving the taste and texture of his salty clavicles under my tongue.

I also took a second to take a gander at his body. It was everything first impressions had promised. His shoulders were very broad and elegantly muscled, his hairless chesticles crowned by the sweetest looking little nipples. Mmm, nipples, my own body purred.

He moaned and tightened his arms around me as I worked my way down to one of those pretty pink nubbins. I sucked, gently at first, but more roughly as he responded by whispering my name. It all seemed a bit too much for him when I started to make my way over to his other nipple, and he only let me latch on for a split second before he buried his hands in my hair and pulled my face up toward his.

He held me to him to kiss me aggressively, his very extended fangs difficult to avoid, and I had a feeling my lips were going to be a bit sliced and diced when this was all over. There was no discomfort, however. Only the pleasure of his mouth on mine, transmitting to me his desire.

In the meantime, he’d had enough of being submissive. With preternatural strength, Ryu gently flipped us over so that he was on top. I felt something hot and hard against my thigh as he kissed me thoroughly, and I knew I’d had one question answered. Then his hands, and then his mouth, were at my breasts. His fingers massaged one while his lips locked on the other. I arched my back, my turn to moan, as his hand wandered from my breast to my stomach and down between my legs.

I spread my thighs as he shifted between them. I put one arm behind my head as a pillow and used the other to run my fingers through his hair as he began to kiss his way south, following the trail his hand had just blazed. I wasn’t much good at map reading, but I knew when my own compass registered that he’d hit home. I couldn’t help but press down on his head as his tongue lapped hungrily at the center of my pleasure, and he responded by squeezing my hips with his hands.

I nearly cried out with frustration when he moved back up my body to kiss me, letting me taste myself on his lips. Then he knelt upright between my thighs, holding onto my right hand. He put his thumb back on my sweet spot and looked me in the eyes while he gently licked at my wrist, kissing and nipping right where my pulse beat under my skin. Right over my old scars.

“I want to bite you, here, on your wrist,” he said, his voice husky with passion. “I promise it won’t hurt; that you’ll enjoy it. Do you trust me, Jane?”

My stomach tensed as his clever fingers drove me toward orgasm and then stopped, backing off just enough to let me come down slightly before driving me forward again. Which was patently unfair, under such circumstances, since I would have agreed to just about anything he asked. That said, I also wanted him as a vampire. His swimming with me, like he did, had convinced me I wanted all of him, including those fangs. I nodded, incapable of speech, as I moaned my assent. He smiled, kissed my palm, and then went back to gently licking the rough skin of my wrist.

I could feel my pleasure building, and I put my fingers over his own to adjust the pace of his thumb. “Ryu,” I warned, “I’m coming,” just as I came. I cried out, arching my back, but his eyes never left mine.

And then he bit down, hard.

There was the slightest suggestion of pain, but it was quickly overwhelmed by both my powerful orgasm and a secondary sensation of pleasure coming from my wrist. It felt like my own climax, but somehow both fainter and edgier, and it pulsed with each powerful draw of his mouth. His teeth were only locked on my flesh for a minute before he let go, licking gently at the wound as the pain faded utterly.

“Wow,” I said, pulling my wrist down to look at it as he bent over to nuzzle my breasts. I inspected his handiwork; while my skin was still crisscrossed with ragged scars, they were nothing new. Ryu had completely healed me of his bite.

“Told you you’d be saying that often,” Ryu reminded my cleavage, before he kissed up my body to my mouth. His eyes bore into mine as his hands shifted my hips for better access.