As spring turned to summer, the temperatures grew warmer, and Erica’s infatuation with Aidan grew that much stronger. Since setting Awsha aside, Aidan had spent most of his evenings with Erica from the time he awoke between seven and nine, until the time she went to sleep, usually between midnight and one. Then he spent what remained of the night being tutored in additional abilities by Claire and occasionally Sean or Haven, depending on his progress.

It was nearing ten on that particularly warm night as he found himself being led back to that special cove of theirs by Erica. Aidan just hid a knowing smile as she spread out a blanket, and gestured for him to come join her upon it. Her aura screamed her desires to him, despite the shy smile she attempted to wear as he took the seat next to her.

A moment after claiming that seat, she was already moving into his arms, covering his mouth with hers, pressing her breasts tightly against his chest to make her wants even more apparent. When she finally had to end the kiss for the mere sake of needing to take a ragged breath, she still pressed tightly against him as she looked up into his eyes.

“Are we ever going to do more than kiss?” she whispered, tracing the material of his shirt with her slightly shaking fingers.

“I suppose that possibility becomes more and more likely each evening we spend together, doesn’t it?” he told her with that ever present charm, and obviously more control over his own desires than Erica seemed to be having over hers as the nights progressed.

“You act like you want me as much as I…” she let her voice trail off with a blush “but you never try to do more. Don’t you want to do more?” she whispered against his neck.

“That is a rather difficult question considering my odd relationship with your substitute parents, as well as the fact that my desires are ever so slightly different than yours” he attempted.

“What do you mean different than mine? I know you’ve been with other women, like that” Erica looked down with another blush “so they can’t be all that different, can they?”

“Oh believe me, I do quite enjoy that activity” Aidan began.

“But?” Erica returned shakily, the worry obvious in her pretty walnut colored eyes.

“But, that’s not the desire that is most pressing to me; to us” he clarified.

“You mean… blood?” she asked in a slightly raspy tone.

“Well, we call it the Kiss, capitalized” he smiled “but yes that would be the one that I have more difficulty ignoring every time I get close to one of your kind” he explained further.

Erica swallowed slightly, not able to bring herself to move back from him just yet “So you’d only want to bite me? Not….” She looked down slightly.

“Oh sweet girl, making love to you would be quite appealing too. I assure you” he added with another charming smile.

That was when Erica’s blush deepened “but you’d rather bite me…give me the Kiss?” she corrected.

“I wouldn’t say ‘rather’ just that I think of it more often than the aforementioned activity” he attempted to comfort her insecurities.

She took another deep shaky breath before gathering the strength to meet his equally dark eyes beneath the black curls that barely brushed his shoulders “I’ve only ever been bitten by one of you, and that was only that one time” she admitted, casting her eyes down quickly.

That was when Aidan remembered the story she relayed to him the very first time they had sat in that same spot together “I guarantee you, what Awsha did to you and what I constantly imagine doing…they’re very, very different scenarios. I promise” he assured as he gently moved one of her own dark curls off of her face.

“It happened so fast when she did it, I don’t even remember it hurting. I think I was too terrified to even remember what I felt” she admitted quietly.

“Very different” he assured once more as he squeezed her more tightly.

“So, that’s what you really want? To give me the Kiss?” she whispered, finally looking up at him again.

“Among other things” he smiled back down at her again.

“And it won’t hurt?” she asked for one more assurance.

“Most definitely not” he smiled again.

Erica took one more deep breath then moved slightly to push her long curls away from her neck with shaking fingers. Aidan simply smiled once more before taking her offer and moving to gently begin kissing her neck. Feeling her entire body tense, he forced his kisses to remain gentle for several more long moments. When the sound of her heart racing got too much for him to ignore, he finally moved to ever so delicately penetrate her flesh with those fangs.

Erica couldn’t stop the moan of pleasure that immediately escaped her lips, her back arching and her body almost immediately beginning to shudder from the orgasmic pleasure his Kiss gave her. Aidan continued to drink deeply from her vein, as his own tremors began the instant he felt her body shuddering against his.

When he knew he could take no more without endangering her life, Aidan used a great deal of willpower to finally remove his fangs as he gently licked the wound shut. At the feel of him finally ending that most passionate contact, Erica whimpered, tears rolling down her cheeks as she struggled to catch her breath and steady her pulse once more.

“Oh I wasn’t trying to make you cry, love” Aidan whispered as he kissed a remaining drop of blood from her neck in an attempt to slow the tremors that she seemed to still be fighting.

“How could that feel like that?” she breathed the words rather than spoke them, her voice seeming to have almost completely left her as well.

“Great mystery of the universe that is” he smiled again as he offered another gentle kiss to her lips.

“It felt like that for you too?” she managed.

“The pleasure was too intense to even try to describe” another smile “though I think you now are quite aware of how intense” he had to tease, though gently.

“Does this help to describe it?” she whispered, emboldened by her first experience with that kind of intense sexual pleasure, and still feeling the aftereffects of it. To accent her words, she reached for his hand, moving it under her long skirt and beneath her undergarment where she was nothing short of completely soaked after the way he had made her climax with a simple Kiss.

“I’d say that definitely paints a more accurate picture” he replied, his own voice a bit hoarse at being made aware of exactly how intense the effect was that he truly had on her body.

“If I didn’t need to feel you inside me before….” She whispered, leaving the sentence at that.

Still feeling the effects of that pleasure himself, Aidan’s will was too weak at that point to resist the knowledge of exactly how intensely she desired him in that moment. Shutting out the voices in his head warning him against acting rashly, his hands were then moving to the front of his pants, where he had already made his body come to life for her.

In only another moment, he was pulling that thoroughly ruined undergarment aside and moving to take a place above her. A moment before allowing himself to enter her, he had one last moment of rational thought “you know this part probably will hurt” he warned her in a whisper.

“I don’t mind” she whispered back as she closed her eyes, bracing herself for that pain that she did truly want to feel right then. A moment later she cried out as he entered her, his lips covering the sound as he kissed her for a long moment, waiting for the tension to leave her body again. Once she seemed to at last adjust to the feel of him inside her, he immediately began moving above her, pushing both of them toward even more pleasure that night.

When Aidan and Erica had recovered enough from their encounter to slowly make their way back to the house it was already past midnight. Upon their arrival, they were both more than a bit relieved that Sean was at a meeting and Claire had apparently stayed in her room to wait for the members of her household to return home. Erica gave Aidan a quick, though passionate kiss and a smile before rushing off to her own room.

Aidan was more than a bit wary of how the rest of the evening would go, all things considered, and slowly moved toward his own quarters. Only Claire was as aware of his presence as she always had been, and peeked out from her room the moment he reached the hallway.

Though her expression told him that she was also almost immediately aware of his nightly activities “you’re back” though the words barely left her throat.

“Well, this is usually the time we return, isn’t it?” he responded with more than a bit of wariness.

“And you’re going to bed already?” she asked as she glanced at the door he had just been about to open, though she was using every bit of her own will to keep her voice even.

“Actually I suppose it is still pretty early, isn’t it?” he attempted another awkward smile “think I might go have a drink” he stated before quickly turning on his heel to head in the direction of the kitchen and their store of blood. Though he almost visibly cringed as he heard Claire’s footfalls behind him.

“Hungry huh?” she asked, still forcing the same monotone as they reached the kitchen and he shakily claimed one of the bottles of red.

He took a long moment to compose himself enough to face her obvious knowledge “I suppose we could go around and around like this with both of us playing dumb. But I’m sure that will grow pretty thin rather quickly, wouldn’t it?” he told her with a defeated tone.

“Yeah, just maybe” she agreed with the slightest tremor in her voice.

“Well, let me have it; all the rage and anger. I’ve already been playing it out in my head the whole way back here” he sighed as he took a shaky sip.

Claire looked down a moment as she thought on his words before finding her own “I just have one question.”

Aidan swallowed again as he regarded her cautiously “and that would be?”

“What now?” she stated simply.

“What now?” he repeated with narrowed eyes, a little caught “care to elaborate on your question, just a tad…please?” he added more quietly.

Another slight sigh before Claire spoke “she’s a human, mortal girl, Aidan. Her life is so very short compared to ours” she added, voice breaking.

Aidan seemed caught once more as he tried to decipher that strange statement “I didn’t realize I was endangering her life…” he returned with confusion.

Claire sniffled again “she’ll probably only be alive for twenty, thirty more years… You have eternity” she replied as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“I’m really not sure I’m following you here, Claire” he stated with honest puzzlement.

“Would it really hurt you to just please not hurt her?”

“Hurt her?” he asked with a raise of his brow.

“Could you please just not run away and break her heart? Could you please just stay and let her be happy for what little time she does actually have? It’s such a small, tiny fraction of your own life. Can you please just let her be happy for what is merely a blink of an eye to people like us? Could you honestly do that? Please?” she added as a few more tears fell.

Upon waking the next evening, Claire was still being as surprisingly silent as she had been when Sean had returned from the council meeting shortly before dawn. Assuming she would tell him soon enough what had her so distraught, Sean went about his evening as he normally would, until she ultimately chose to do so.

Shortly after offering Claire a gentle kiss upon the cheek and leaving their room, Sean had moved down the hallway, noting that Aidan also seemed in no hurry to leave his own quarters for any social endeavors yet either. He simply shook his head and rapped on the door of the servants’ quarters at around nine that evening. Isabelle exited to greet him with a slight bow and a smile.

Returning her polite smile, Sean was just about to lean down to fill his hunger for the evening when Erica peered out into the hallway with her own grin. Pausing his motions, he glanced over at Erica as she stood there looking up at he and Isabelle expectantly.

“Well at least one other person here wants to be social” he smirked over at Erica, his hand still tentatively at Isabelle’s back as the servant quietly waited for him to finish his task “I’ll be out to the living room in a bit” Sean told Erica a moment later, as she seemed to still be standing there expectantly rather than moving from her doorway.

“I’ll wait” she smiled up at him and Isabelle once more.

“I was just going to get something to eat, first” Sean added a little warily.

“I’ll wait” Erica repeated with another smile, which did cause a bit of tension in Isabelle as Sean looked down at his ward skeptically.

“You do know what that means, right?” he asked, sure she already was quite aware of the knowledge.

“That you’re going to bite her; give her the Kiss” Erica stated plainly, still not moving.

“Yes, and then I’ll be on my way into the living room” he repeated slowly as he gestured down the hall.

“Ok” Erica smiled again as she still remained in her spot.

Sean then adopted a more thoughtful and confused look “Erica, why are you suddenly so interested in watching me…. Eat?” he couldn’t help questioning as Isabelle’s tension doubled.

“I just want to see” she stated plainly.

“You want to see me bite someone?” he asked a little worriedly.

“Why is that so odd? It’s not like I don’t know what you and Claire are. Why shouldn’t I see?”

“I’m more curious about why you’re suddenly voicing such an interest” he told her with narrowed eyes.

“I honestly just want to see if it’s the same” she admitted with a slight blush.

“The same as what?” Sean asked with further wariness.

Erica took a brave breath “the same as when Aidan bit me” she managed, which caused Isabelle to quickly look up at Sean with her own blush. Though Sean himself was paler than ever at that revelation.