He was masculine enough to be hairy, but not enough to need a shave. His eyes were dark, heated, molten chocolate, and his face was flushed with hunger for her, and only she could sate him.

Even though she knew she should be weak and limp with the physical exertions she had already been through, Clare smiled as her body heated up yet again with a l.u.s.t for this vampire.

Fiercely enjoying the sense of freedom she had always craved in the bedroom, Clare gently reached down one hand and cupped his b.a.l.l.s in the warmth of her hand. Curious, wondering what he would like and not like, Clare let herself slowly stroke her fingers carefully over the thin skin there.

She watched his face and body carefully, grateful to see the pleasure in his dark eyes and more than gratified to watch in pride as his c.o.c.k rose once again, as firmly as if he had been weeks without release.

Enjoying the pleasure mirrored in his dark, dark brown eyes, Clare smiled slowly, seductively, feeling every inch the insatiable, s.e.xy siren calling and luring a man to his doom.

Slowly, enjoying the heat of the moment, she carefully swung her body over his, climbed to straddle his hips once again, but maneuvering herself so she still could cup his b.a.l.l.s until the very last moment.

Finally, regretfully needing to let go, Clare consoled herself with the feeling of thrusting herself upon Simeon slowly, easily and steadily. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, enjoying the slow ride down his thick shaft and the myriad sensations he caused to explode within her.

She could feel him rubbing the edges of her walls, and twisting her position carefully, she angled herself so he hit her G-spot and gently slid over it again and again.

Feeling dizzyingly in control, and loving every heated second of their play, she took his large, warm hands in her own and brought them up to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He easily cupped them, firm and strong, her own smaller hands showing him how she liked her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to be lifted and supported slightly.

Without even direction, he grazed one thumb gently over the nipple, causing the already distended peak to harden to the borderline of pain. As he gently abraded the peak again and again, Clare felt her hips tilting to the best angle for his penetration, thrusting his thick shaft deeper and deeper into her in time with his thumb.

She smiled, realized they had fallen in sync without even meaning to, and she wallowed for the moment in the perfection of their byplay. Simeon played with her nipples, moving easily from one to the other, gently squeezing and plying her turgid peaks, and Clare felt her body move almost as if of its own accord, reaching for the final climax to shatter them both.

All too soon, she could feel herself getting close, and from the pants emanating from Simeon she knew he would not be able to hold out much longer, either. Grunting, ignoring the slight sheen of sweat running down her back, Clare reached one hand down to play with and rub her c.l.i.t to help her move along even faster.

When Simeon's eyes heated up with an almost red spark of excitement and deep l.u.s.t, she felt herself smiling saucily and arched her back to give him a better view of her playing with her own c.l.i.t.

As her feelings began to well up inside her chest and head, create havoc with her mind, she closed her eyes once again and let her head fall back, the pleasure of his thick shaft and her own ministrations with her c.l.i.t almost overwhelming her.

With one hand on his hips, she slowed her thrusts down upon his shaft, making them deeper, longer and more powerful. A large part of her wanted this to last forever, but the fire burned so hot inside her belly and the sparks his c.o.c.k elicited from the friction sent her higher and higher, and she knew she wouldn't be able to last very long.

Simeon's breathing had become choppy, and his body felt almost on fire he burned so hot, she knew they were both on the razor edge, control about to snap.

"Go over, love, you're driving me wild," he panted harshly, and she could feel his own climax begging for release. Being so close to her lover, being able to feel what he felt amazed and excited her.

She bent down, squashing his hands between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and his chest.

She kissed him deeply, wanting him to feel and sense everything that rushed through her body.

"But I want this to last," she whispered teasingly against his lips.

"It has lasted, dearheart. Control between us will take time. Time and practice," he replied as he grinned wickedly.

"Then I think we need a lot of practice, Simeon."

He rolled them both over once more on the bed, and for once, Clare felt perfectly happy to give herself up to this man, this moment, and give up all her control. As he moved his hands from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he reached for both her thighs, raised her legs high and wide and thrust inside her far more strongly, a hundred times more deeply inside her, and so deliciously forceful to have her screaming out in mere seconds.

This time the o.r.g.a.s.m exploded in her mind as well as her body. The potency of the o.r.g.a.s.m made her literally scream with its force and the unimaginable pleasure that rocked her world to its very foundation.

Less than a second later she felt the answering explosion inside Simeon, felt him almost pa.s.s out from the sheer weight of his pleasure as his c.o.c.k exploded so deep inside her, shooting jets of seed deep into her very heart and soul.

Clare closed her eyes, a white explosion rocking through her body. Her ears rang with a distant hum as she felt the contractions rocket around her body, so huge they seemed to fill up the whole room.

Everything went a clear, bright white for a moment, and Clare opened her eyes to find herself back in the rec-park she had been transported to all those months ago with the tome.

She felt her heart constrict, about to shatter. Had the best s.e.x of her entire life, had finally falling in love with Simeon acted as some sort of catalyst and sent her back in time?

She didn't want to go!

Clare gasped for breath, scared and almost frozen with the panic that engulfed her.

And then she heard Simeon's well-known voice call out.

"Ethan! Zebadiah! You run to your mother, not chase each other around those trees!"

Clare frowned, confused, and turned around. The park was brightly lit by the two daytime orange suns, the gra.s.s and trees a lovely shade of green, the flowers blooming and spreading all sorts of colors around the place.

She felt her heart settle down as she saw Simeon waving to her and nodding at the two little boys who giggled and ran, one chasing the other. She had no idea how, but she knew without a doubt that the little man running in the red jumpsuit was Ethan, the little boy in the dark green was Zebadiah.

"Mama!" the two boys shouted in sync. "I'm gonna catch Zeb," little Ethan called out.

The twins were identical in all but the color of their suits, but Clare knew which one was which without question or thought. She smiled and knelt in the gra.s.s, uncaring of stains to her clothes. She held her arms out, and both little boys ran straight into her arms as if they belonged there always.

Clare felt tears on her cheeks as her heart filled with a joy and love she had never before known existed. Pulling back infinitesimally, she took a closer look at the two boys. They both had Simeon's dark, dark brown eyes, and straight, slightly messy brown hair.

The closer Clare looked at them, the more she knew these two boys were mirror images of Simeon, their father, at his age. She did, however, recognize the impatient mannerisms as her sons pried themselves from her hug as her own, so she had almost certainly left her own stamp on them as well.

"Chase us, Mama," Ethan called out as he and Zebadiah both ran away again, and laughing, Clare stood up to give chase. The vision, however, faded, and Clare felt Simeon's hand gently stroking her face.

"Clare," he whispered softly, and she opened her eyes to watch her lover, and the father of the children she knew they had just created, lower his weight onto her, pressing them both gently into the big, soft bed.

Clare knew it couldn't have been more than thirty seconds she had been out of it, having that odd vision of the children they had just conceived, yet she knew it had changed her world forever.

With Simeon's weight on top of her, even though he was heavy, she didn't feel uncomfortable. In fact, Clare knew she felt so relaxed and so wonderful she never wanted to move-ever again.

Chapter Ten.

Clare felt as if she were floating on the warmest, softest cloud in the whole world. She tried to think back. In the last hour or so she had experienced, what? Four o.r.g.a.s.ms? Five?

She stretched lazily, smiling as Simeon grunted and shifted slightly, but still lay pretty much on top of her, covering her with the warmth of his body from head to foot, their legs intertwined. Clare shifted more comfortably, so their bodies fit together perfectly.

She snickered softly to herself as she felt muscles long-unused twinge happily. Maybe she had died and gone to heaven?

Just as she felt her eyes close and she pondered the decadent indulgence of a nap, the bedroom door smashed inward, breaking open and slamming very loudly into its recess in the wall. Clare felt her eyes snap open in burgeoning alarm and, totally against her conscious will, she heard herself scream.

A tall man with shoulder-length, brown curly hair came crashing through the doorframe with what looked like a laser sword from a very cheesy movie glowing bright red in one hand.

Clare felt her heart beat almost hard enough to break through her rib cage. Acting on pure instinct and ignoring everything else around her, she rolled out from underneath Simeon, attempting to jump out of the enormous bed.

She felt her small progress halted as Simeon's warm arms wrapped themselves firmly around her. His large body moved at the same time to come up and cover her from the dark brown gaze of the man who had run into the previously peaceful bedroom.

Being forced to stay still, although mostly shielded from the intruder, Clare blinked as the stranger had a completely startled, almost comedic look of absolute surprise spread across his face.

Studying him closely in the beat of silence, Clare frowned. The intruder looked vaguely familiar, but how so?

Clare realized that just as she stared at the stranger, so too was he staring at her, surprise as well as a faint flush of annoyance crossing over his face. Clare felt herself blush bright red over her whole body.

Simeon's body might be shielding her, but she bet this strange man was still copping a pretty decent eyeful of her naked body. She stared in a very concentrated, hard manner at the plush carpet, a deep bluish-purple color.

Never had she wished so hard to all the heavens in the galaxy that the earth beneath her would open up and swallow her whole. Naked or not. Nothing could be quite this mortifying, she decided.

"For the sake of the G.o.ddess, Si!" the stranger said, lowering his glowing red laser sword-thing and placing a hand on his hip, the perfect picture of masculine annoyance. "Next time you bring a girl around to screw-"

Before Clare could even begin to feel indignation at the mention of being a "mere girl to screw", she felt her eyes widen in shock as Simeon leapt completely naked from the bed to practically jump down the intruder's throat.

"Don't you dare insult her like that, Rylan! She is not some lame floozy like you'd bring back here. She is-uh...she's..."

Clare grabbed a fistful of the covers and brought it up to her neck with one hand. Sitting forward onto the edge of the bed, she scooted so she could reach out and place a hand carefully on her lover's arm. Between the covers and still sitting partially behind Simeon's body, now quivering in either the cold or outrage, Clare couldn't tell which, she figured she had to be at least mostly decently covered.

She smiled wryly, realizing she needn't have worried. Simeon was flexing his hands as if wishing he could strangle the other man, while the man he had called Rylan stared hard at Simeon as if he had lost his marbles.

"Simeon," Clare said softly, hoping to defuse whatever situation boiled between her lover and his twin brother. "It's not Ry's fault he thinks I'm some prost.i.tute. I mean..." she fumbled slightly as Simeon stood completely in front of her, fully blocking her from Rylan's view.

She hadn't managed to get a good very look at him, other than to notice the curly dark brown hair and impressive physique, but at least she now knew why he had seemed so familiar even though they hadn't met.

She shook her head, feeling faintly annoyed now. Simeon couldn't possibly think he was just some pa.s.sing fantasy-f.u.c.k, that she'd ditch him for some other handsome body and pretty face.

No, she thought to herself, far more likely he's just being protective because I'm practically naked.

Chivalry was all well and good, she believed, but it wasn't like she was some fainting virgin or something.

"It's not like we're sitting here drinking tea," she continued firmly, sitting up straighter, tucking her legs beneath her. "Let's get dressed and we can talk downstairs like civilized people, hmm?" she offered, hoping a bit of s.p.a.ce and maybe even some clothes would fix whatever situation swirled around them.

"Yeah, bro," Rylan said sarcastically. "I felt the shift of your power, dork. I thought you were being attacked, not...uh...doing what you were doing. So don't smite me with that glance you used to give me when we were kids."

Clare felt her embarra.s.sment level rise as Rylan's annoyance hit home to her. s.h.i.t, she mentally cursed herself. This was certainly a bad way to be introduced to the family, naked and immediately post-coital. Not the best of first impressions.

Clare could almost see the protective instincts of Simeon leap to the fore. The problem with understanding her lover so comprehensively she slowly was discovering was she had a feeling most of her stronger emotions would no longer be kept by merely a poker face.

"Get the h.e.l.l out of here, Ry," Simeon said lowly. Clare smiled. While Simeon certainly didn't seem happy, he did seem to have himself a bit more under control. "We'll be down in a minute or two," he added.

The lecherous, knowing leer and obscene wink Ry gave Simeon was more than enough for her to realize there would be no time for more nooky before they went down there either. Likely the man would be counting the seconds and hypothesizing what they were doing up here.

Clare grimaced.

Feeling once again like a teenager caught by her parents necking in the car out front of the house, she jumped out of the bed as soon as the now dented door slid closed as much as it could behind the s.e.xy man, and leapt to where her clothes were strewn across the floor.

Simeon, on the other hand, fell back with a huge sigh and sprawled out over his large bed and grinned like a fool at her.

"Something wrong, baby?" he asked teasingly. Clare flipped him the bird, not knowing or caring if the rude hand gesture had progressed through to the future, and continued to look for where her panties had fallen.

"That man," she waved to the closed door, "now thinks I'm some sort of prost.i.tute. A hussy, some s.e.x-crazed, obsessive fiend. I am not going to hang around here bantering with him. I need to get back to work anyway."

"You haven't had your lunch yet," Simeon pointed out, pretending to be the very soul of sensitivity.

Clare paused for a second, casting a startled glance at her lover. Seeing the glint in his eye, she recognized his odd brand of teasing. She shook her head, gave up on her hunt and pulled her pants on.

She hadn't been able to find her panties, but suddenly remembering the rending tear she had heard as she pulled them over her hips in her earlier haste, she figured they would be unwearable even if she could find them.

She fastened her pants and searched for her bra and shirt.

"He's my twin, Clare," Simeon said with an enviable calm. She felt her heartbeat hitch and then accelerate even more. Brilliant. There's more of them, she grouched to herself, even though she had known from Gavreel's talks Simeon and Rylan were the twins, the memory just hadn't clicked fully with the reality until she had been confronted with it.

"He just felt...I suppose you could say the power surge from the sheer force of my o.r.g.a.s.m." Simeon crooked a hand under his chin to watch her more comfortably. "He was worried. He won't bite-I promise. He just likes to tease."

Clare stared at Simeon, then shook her head and found her bra on the other side of the room. She walked over and s.n.a.t.c.hed it from where it had been cast to the floor and began to put it on.

"It is still rather embarra.s.sing," she pointed out with her customary ruthless logic. "And why did he react so strangely? I mean, you and I both know we've...well...done more than just had some brilliant s.e.x, but surely it's not that odd for you to climax? I'm sure he must have felt you have s.e.x here a heap of times. What brought him..."

Clare trailed off as her mind supplied the answer of Simeon's twin having somehow understood the significance of this particular s.e.xual escapade. Instead of fretting or overreacting, Clare simply pulled her shirt on and shut her mouth.

Sure, she felt embarra.s.sed to think Rylan might somehow know Simeon had experienced fantastic s.e.x and completed his Soul's Circle, but she knew herself well enough to know it might take a few moments to wrap her head around it without wanting to blush first.

Instead of stressing over something she had no control of, Clare tried to focus on anything else. When her mind came up empty she breathed deeply to gather her courage to go back downstairs.

"It will be okay," Simeon soothed her as he stood up from the bed to embrace her, "Rylan will just tease the h.e.l.l out of me. I think you'll find he'll be far more curious about you than you are about him."

Clare chuckled.

"I don't know," she replied with humor, "I'm pretty d.a.m.n curious about your twin. I bet we can gossip about you lots and find a few items of common interest."

She chuckled happily as Simeon mumbled something about "ganging up on me" as he squeezed her tightly and then let her reluctantly go.

She finished dressing and turned to watch as Simeon moved around, finally pulling a shirt and pants on. The intimate knowledge that he wore no underwear had her face heating up with another blush.

"Rylan will definitely be waiting," Simeon said casually. "And he will be simply bursting with eagerness to chat with you."

Clare walked over to the door, a comfortable smile on her face.

"I don't suppose I can cry off and insist Alderic will be wondering where I am."

"No, I really don't think that will wash, Clare," Simeon said softly, but with a smile. She knew he understood she hadn't expected to get away with it, but although she knew she likely would get along with Simeon's twin, she couldn't help but feel nervous meeting him after being discovered so immediately post-coital.