Free Sex and the Single Vampire by Katie MacAlister

distance between us before I threw myself on him and kissed the fangs right out of his head.
    When I turned back to him he was leaning against the wall, one long finger rubbing against the lovely curve of his lower lip. My mind rebelled for a moment and flashed glorious Technicolor, wide-screen memories of what it felt like to have those lips caressing mine. I told my mental projectionist to take the evening off, and started checking out Christian’s ion levels.
    “Why do you wear the clothing of a man?”
    I ignored the question and switched on the thermal-imaging recorder.
    “I do not want my woman to ape masculine habits. Women should be feminine, soft, giving. It is your role in life, yet you are none of those things.”
    “Which is probably why it’s a good thing I’m not your woman,” I answered, giving more orders to my mind to stop imagining what it would be like to be with him. He might be sexy as hell, but he was also domineering and arrogant, two traits that can be very dangerous.
    “I said that you were not my Beloved; I said nothing about you
not
being my woman.”
    I shivered at the undertone of dark promise in hisvoice. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that vampires could seduce with their voices alone—of that I had no doubt. I clicked on the digital voice recorder. Maybe someone back at the UPRA offices could analyze his voice and see what made it so beautiful and evocative. “So were you born this way, or did another vampire snack on you and turn you?”
    “You are also too independent and obstinate, and you lack self-confidence.”
    I ground my teeth and turned on the EMF counter, making notes of the readings. I would not let him goad me into—
Hey!
I squinted my eyes at him in the meanest possible manner. “Obstinate? Lacking self-confidence? Well, aren’t you just full of the insults?”
    “They are not insults, just statements.”
    “Fine, well, let’s try on a few more for size, shall we?” I set down the EMF counter and limped over to him, poking a finger into his chest. He captured my hand with his, refusing to let it go. I ignored the wonderful things his touch did to me, and let him have it with both barrels. “For your information, Dracula, women have been emancipated. We can think on our own, make our own choices, and even—heaven forbid!—live our lives in comfort and happiness without any know-it-all males telling us what to do. Furthermore, I am a Summoner. It goes with the territory that my mind is strong. Strong is
not
obstinate. And as for self-confidence, I’m very confident in myself and my abilities. Just because I haven’t had a lot of success Summoning doesn’t mean that I can’t do it. I can, I know I can, but it’s not an exact science and there’s a lot of elements that come into play when you’re dealing with ghosts.”
    “I wasn’t speaking of your self-confidence relating to your skills; I was referring to the fact that you find your appearance lacking.”
    “There’s nothing I can do about my appearance,” I snapped. “I’m well aware of my shortcomings, if that’s what you mean. I don’t consider dealing with what I’ve got as best I can as expressing a lack of self-confidence.”
    “You hide your very feminine body behind the cover of shapeless male clothing just as you hide your eyes behind dark glasses.”
    “I wear pants because they’re a heck of a lot more comfortable when crawling around haunted houses than a skirt and heels. I wear dark glasses because being called a freak gets a bit wearisome after the fiftieth time. Any more questions, Sherlock? Or can I get on with taking a few readings?”
    “You hide your attraction to me behind denial.”
    I grinned and checked him for any ultrasonic emissions. “Oh, so now we get to the truth of your complaints. You’re just pissed because I didn’t respond to your kiss. Your smug masculine pride has been hurt. Poor little Christian, used to swooning maidens whenever you lay a