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Alexei took a moment with that information. “Has anyone ever tried to teach you?” he asked eventually.

“Well, no, but I’ve followed recipes from the internet.”

“It’s different having someone to show you in person. Cooking is an art. It’s hard to learn just from reading. It helps to have someone to direct you.”

Jay turned from the oven, smiling at the thought. “Oh! I’mverygood at following directions.”

“I bet you are, kotyonok.” Alexei’s voice came out kind of throaty and husky and weirdly sexy. Maybe from being in the cold too long? Jay had to turn back around to hide his blush.

He hummed to cover his embarrassment, pulling the little box out of the freezer. “It doesn’t seem quite fair though. Roman’s such a good cook, andhe’sa vampire, so it’s not like wecan’thave a knack for cooking. It’s not a species thing, I don’t think.”

There was a weighty silence from behind him.

Oh, shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Jay hadn’t meant to mention anything about the others. He’d been sogooduntil now. He’d never even once told Colin there were more of his kind in town.

But there was something about the careful, close way Alexei always watched him that had Jay just wanting to talk all day long. People rarely paid attention to him, not like this. Sure, they’d be amused when he said something unintentionally funny, maybe even momentarily charmed by his admittedly weird ways. But then they would just pat his head—metaphorically or sometimes literally—and move on.

But Alexei… He watched. Stared, even.

And Jay liked it.

“There are more of you here?” Alexei finally asked. “Vampires?”

“Um…” Jay dithered over answering, filling a water glass and bringing it over to the couch while he thought it over. (Ferdy always needed water after a run, and Alexei had just had a walk, so that was probably a good idea for him too.)

He was pleased when Alexei gulped it down easily. He also felt a surprisingly warm tingling in his belly, watching Alexei’s Adam’s apple bob.

Alexei looked good doing anything and everything, it seemed.

“There are others,” Jay admitted quietly, watching the human drink.

Alexei set the glass down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Very uncivilized of him. Jay liked it. “I’m not much of a cook, but I can teach you to make syrniki. They’re like Russian pancakes.” He stared down at his glass. “My grandmother taught me.”

“Oh,” Jay breathed. What an incredibly nice offer from a new friend. Because that was what they were becoming, right? That was what happened when one person came to another person’s home and shared food and secrets? “Oh yes, I’d like that very much.”

Twenty minutes later and Alexei had wolfed down an entire box of the little pizza bagels. He’d assured Jay one box would be enough. “Just needed to soak up some of the rum.”

The humandidlook a little more alert now. His eyes were sharper, that glazed look gone. He was fiddling with his empty plate, turning it round and round on the coffee table. He’d been more or less silent, eating his food, but now he seemed ready to ask some questions. “How long have you been…feeding…on Colin? And what did you mean that bites are pleasurable?”

Jay, seated next to him on the couch now, folded his hands on his lap, considering how to answer. Technically, Colin had given him permission to share, as long as he wasn’t present to be embarrassed by it all. So Jay did his best to lay it all out carefully and concisely.

“I’ve been feeding on Colin since shortly after he hired me. Once every two weeks.” Which honestly left Jay pretty hungry a lot of the time, but he didn’t want to overfeed on his singular food source. “Vampire bites can be very…arousing, for the human involved. And Colin… Well, um, as he put it to me: he likes the idea of sex in theory but doesn’t always feel…into it…in real life. He was intrigued by the bite’s arousal effects. We made an arrangement, with full knowledge and full consent from both parties.” Jay liked adding that last part. He was proud of how he’d handled the task of feeding in Hyde Park.

“So why aren’t you two fucking?” Alexei asked, shocking Jay a little with his bluntness. “Are bites not arousing for vampires as well?”

Jay shifted on the couch. He was honestly a little surprised Alexei was so much more interested in the sex part than the drinking-blood-from-a-coworker part. But maybe that was just how human brains worked. It had been so long since Jay had been one himself; perhaps he was out of touch. “Well…yes, they are. But Colin doesn’t actually want sex from me—we’re really not each other’s type—and also I-I’m sort of lacking in experience anyway. I wouldn’t be a good guide for all that.”

Alexei’s eyes on him were very intense, his pupils looking larger than before. “How lacking?” he asked, his voice husky again. Maybe it wasn’t from the cold after all.

“I’m a virgin,” Jay admitted, making sure he kept his chin held high as he said it. He refused to be embarrassed by his inexperience. Well, he refused toshowhis embarrassment, at least.

He watched in fascination as Alexei’s pupils dilated even further. Alexei swayed a little toward Jay—maybe he hadn’t sobered up as much as they’d thought—then seemed to catch himself, clearing his throat and rubbing at the back of his neck. “You don’t have any interest in sex?”

“Oh!” Jay almost giggled at the thought. “No, I do. Very much. But I had some strange circumstances for my first two centuries, and then, well…it’s hard to know where to start when you’ve been…sheltered, like I have.”

Alexei took his time processing that information. Jay liked the way he did that, always considering the things Jay said very carefully. When he eventually spoke, he switched directions once again. “Are you still hungry? I interrupted you.”

Oh God. There went Jay’s fangs.

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