“Bite me,” I ask him in the middle of one of our late Saturday afternoon romps in the sheets. “Please…”

“You know I can’t.”

“You can.” I turn my head, baring the side of my neck to him. He knows the spot I mean, the juncture of neck and shoulder. “I’m not asking you to draw blood.”

“Don’t say that,” he says. “Don’t even think it.” He hesitates, nuzzles the spot in question while his hand cups my breast and his thumb tweaks the nipple.

Beneath him, I give a slight jolt.

“Please?” I’m not begging, exactly.

“Honey, I can’t.” He meets my eyes when he says it, urging me to understand, and I do, but that doesn’t stop the wanting.  Still, he lowers his head to my neck again and licks.

It’s not a bite, but it’s almost as good.

“Oh, god…”

Our afternoon encounter escalates from there, until we’re both satisfied and sleepy. We curl up together and nap. When I wake, the room is completely dark instead of merely dim, and he is gone from the bed. I hear movement in the kitchen. He’s opening a bottle… I can smell the contents.

Wearing the t-shirt he’d cast off much earlier, I padd out of the bedroom on bare feet. He doesn’t hear me coming; I know this because he starts when I slide my hands around his waist from behind and lay my head against his shoulder.

“You’re cold as ice,” he says, “you’re hungry.”

“I’m always hungry… after… ”

I reach around him and grab the bottle from his far hand, then take a swig. “Not bad,” I said. “Tastes like a ninety-nine… maybe a two thousand. Virgin?”

“Virgin,” he confirms. “Two thousand. Carpathian blend. Shall I heat it for you?

“Please.” I go to the couch and wrap a cotton throw around my legs. He joins me a few minutes later, handing me my favorite mug – a smiley-face with fangs – full of steaming liquid. For himself, he’s got scrambled eggs and a hamburger patty. He says protein is essential.

“Full moon tonight,” I comment after checking an app on my phone. “You going out with the guys?”

“Do you mind if I do?”

I shake my head. “Nope. Francesca and Catherine and I have plans to see a late movie.”

“Home by dawn?”

“Home by dawn.”

* * *

I come home from my Saturday night with the girls to find that he’s home early. “Everything okay?” I ask, stripping off my clothes and climbing into bed with him.

He answers with a sly smile. “Everything’s fine, I just kept thinking about earlier… about how you like it with teeth… about how I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”

“You mostly did,” I assure him.

“I can give you more than ‘mostly’ now.”

I reach out to touch him, under the covers, and find a fine coating of hair. He’s in his between state, holding it for me.

This is the only time he can bite me and neither turn me, nor be turned. It’s a brief window we have in the last moments before dawn, three days a month. But I’ll take it. We’ll take it.

Such is life when you’re a vampire married to a werewolf, and you both prefer your horizontal recreation with teeth.