“Hiswhat?”I asked, frowning. “I’ve never heard of anything like that from the other Blood Whores.”
“Because it’s something Naggian males reserve for when they bite their wives,” he told me. “It’s a natural chemical made in the fangs that causes pleasure—or at least a less painful bite—when it’s injected into a female. The thing is, it takes some time to build up so no male is going to ‘waste’ it on a female he’s only paying for a quick bite.”
“Oh…” I nodded my head slowly. “I see,” I murmured, though to be honest, I still didn’t think I believed him.
“No, you don’t, but you would if you’d had even one single decent male who cared about you bite you,” he growled.
At that exact moment, as though on cue, the first cloth he had wrapped around my arm fell off. I say “fell off” but that’s really not accurate—it didn’t unwind itself from around my arm or anything. What actually happened was that it started to disintegrate. It looked like a paper turning to ash in the fire, only there was no fire—it was just falling to pieces and those pieces were floating away like little whips of ash that got smaller and smaller until they disappeared completely.
“Oh!” I whispered.
I was so enchanted, watching the strangely graceful dance of the healing cloth floating away from my arm that I forgot to look at the arm itself. But when I finally focused on it, I was even more surprised by what I saw.
“Hey—I’m healed!” I exclaimed, turning my arm this way and that. “Completelyhealed—there aren’t even any scars left!”
It was true. All the puffy black and blue bruises and the bite marks and even the white scars were totally gone. It was like someone had taken an eraser to my arm and gotten rid of all the bad stuff. My skin was smooth and brown and unblemished—to look at it, you would never guess I had been living the miserable life of a Blood Whore and letting twenty men a day bite me for the past six months.
And then the healing wraps on the other arm disintegrated too, and I saw that my left arm was as good as my right. I looked like my old self again!
“Look at that—told you it would work.” Vik’tor grinned at me and I found I was grinning back.
On impulse, I leaned forward and hugged him, wrapping my newly healed arms around his neck. This was made much easier since he was still kneeling in front of me and I was sitting. If we’d both been standing, I would have had to stand on my tiptoes to reach him.
“Thank you,” I whispered in his ear. “You don’t know what this means to me—thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome, baby—more than welcome,” he murmured and there was a soft, deep note in his voice that sent a shiver down my spine. I also found myself noticing how warm his big body was and how good he smelled. What was that spicy cologne he was wearing?
Suddenly, I realized that the loose front of the robe was gaping open and also that I was hugging a man I barely knew. I really shouldn’t be doing this—I might be giving the Baron the wrong idea. Abruptly I pulled away.
“Um, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just…I guess I shouldn’t have done that. Spontaneous displays of affection aren’t really done in Naggian society, are they?”
He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Spontaneous displays of affection? You sound like you’ve been studying the Naggian culture, little girl.”
I shrugged.
“Well, Iwasgoing to be a Sociologist. I mean Iamgoing to be one—if I can ever get back to Earth.”
I had even jokingly thought of doing my dissertation on the social systems and norms of the people of O’nagga Nine, but of course no one would believe me if I wrote it.
“You’ll get there,” Vik’tor murmured. “You’ll get home again.”
“I hope so.” I sighed and then straightened up, making sure the front of the too-large crimson robe was tightly closed. “Well,” I said, trying to sound normal. “Now that I’m all healed, I guess it’s time for you to get what you, er, paid for.”
Vik’tor frowned.
“I don’t want to hurt you all over again, little girl. You just pretty much told me you hate getting bitten.”
“Getting bitten is my job and you paid a lot to bite me,” I pointed out. “Besides, I thought you told me that biting can be, er, pleasurable if the male who’s biting you uses his ‘pleasure venom.’ Can you…I mean, would you use yours on me when you do it? When you bite me? Unless you’re saving it for someone else,” I added, realized that I didn’t even know if he was married or not. Of course, the gossip mags the other Blood Whores followed said he was a bachelor, but who knew how accurate those were?
“I’d love to use my pleasure venom on you, baby.” His voice was a low, interested growl. “And I think I can show you that biting doesn’thaveto hurt.”
“Okay.” Steeling myself against the inevitable pain—(because let’s be honest, I totally expected it to hurt, no matter what he said)—I offered him my right arm.
Vik’tor took my arm in his hands and studied it, looking for the roadmap of veins that was barely visible beneath my light brown skin. At last he seemed to decide he preferred the inner crook of my elbow which was kind of a relief—it hurts less there than in the smaller veins of the wrist.
Bending his head, he started to lick me there, dragging his tongue gently over the sensitive skin, over and over, slowly and deliberately.