“I’m thorry,” she lisped around the fangs protruding from her jaw, feeling horrible about biting the man in the tongue.

“Good job,” Dante said gruffly and slapped Justin on the shoulder.

He’d still been holding her in his arms, a pained expression on his face, but now eased away from her. He didn’t just let her go, though, but turned and walked out of the kitchen.

“Ith he o’ay?” she asked, the words garbled around her fangs. God, it was hard to talk with these darned things out.

“He’s fine,” Gia said reassuringly. “He’s probably going to rinse his mouth.”

“And take a cold shower,” Dante added with amusement.

“Definitely,” Tomasso agreed, grinning from ear to ear.

Gia gave her cousins a look and then stepped up next to Holly. “Now, let’s concentrate on getting your fangs back where they belong. Shall we?”

“Idiot, idiot, idiot,” Justin chanted, banging his head repeatedly against the ceramic tile of the shower wall as cold water poured down over the back of his black T-­shirt and jeans.

Getting undressed before the cold shower he was suffering would have taken too long for him to bother with. Especially since he’d been battling mightily against the insane urge to march right back to the kitchen, pick up Holly, carry her up here to his room, rip off her clothes and ravish her.

He banged his head against the wall again to remove the images that thought brought to mind. What had he been thinking? How had he let those two big buffoons goad him into kissing her? That had been the worst possible thing he could have done at this stage. Now he’d had a taste of what he would lose if he didn’t win her over, and . . . dear God, nothing he’d experienced before had prepared him for the way his body had reacted when he’d kissed Holly.

Justin was no virgin. Nor was he an ancient immortal who had given up women ages ago and couldn’t remember sex. He’d had more women in the last century than he’d care to admit. And he’d had some damned fine sex too. Hot, sweaty, knock your socks off, unforgettable sex.

And every one of those experiences faded to nothing next to a simple kiss from Holly.

“Holy, fuck a duck,” he muttered, banging his head again. If he’d known . . .

Hell, if he’d known what the others had been experiencing with this wave of immortals finding their life mates . . . well, he might just have kidnapped Marguerite at sword point and demanded she find him his mate. That or blow his own head off with envy.

“Christ on a cracker,” he muttered, slamming his head again. His entire body was still vibrating with his response to their kiss. It was as if the millions of nanos in his body had turned into sparklers and were doing little “Whoopee” dances from his head to his toes.

“Whoop-­dee-­fucking-­doo!” Justin growled, hitting the wall again. How was he supposed to act natural around her after this? How was he supposed to keep his hands off of her? And why the heck wasn’t she up here, crawling all over him like flies on shit?

That thought had him growling under his breath with frustration. Holly hadn’t seemed as affected by the kiss as him. Sure, she’d kissed him back almost desperately, but the moment she’d tasted a little blood, she’d jumped back with a sort of horror, as if she’d mortally wounded him.

“Screw the blood,” he muttered, banging his head again. She could have bitten his tongue clean off and he wouldn’t have stopped kissing her. Who cared? It would grow back, for cripes sake and kissing her was worth losing a lot of body parts over and having to grow them back. Sex with her, though . . . he thought he might risk his life for that. How could they not have told him what he was missing?

“Bastards,” Justin growled, but instead of banging his head again, he turned in the shower and let the cold water hit his front. It certainly hadn’t been doing much good on his back. He was still hard as a damned flagpole . . . for all the good that did him. He was a flagpole without a flag, a tent pole without a tent to cover him, a fishing pole without a—­okay not a fishing pole. They were bendy and—­

“And why the hell am I having this conversation in my poor muddled head?” he asked himself with disgust. But the answer was obvious enough. Because he was muddled. He was a muddled, horny dog who presently couldn’t think of anything but getting Holly naked and planting his flagpole in her sweet wet ground.

“All right, Bricker, old boy. You’ve lost your ever-­loving mind,” Justin told himself grimly as he took note of his own thoughts. Fortunately, he’d also lost his erection with the shame of spouting such nonsense. Sighing his relief, he turned off the shower and stepped out to drip all over the bathroom floor. A mess he’d have to clean up later, Justin realized. Man, he really was an idiot.

He began to strip off his soaking clothes, removing his T-­shirt first and tossing it back into the shower before setting to work on his jeans. That was a mammoth task. Wet jeans did not come off easily and he struggled with it, banging against the wall repeatedly as he nearly toppled over. Once off, those joined the T-­shirt on the shower floor, then Justin grabbed a towel and quickly dried himself off.

He was in his bedroom, standing in front of the closet, donning a fresh pair of black jeans when a knock sounded at the door.

Snapping the snap, and doing up the zipper, he called, “Yeah?” and wasn’t surprised when the door opened.

Gia stuck her head in, glanced around until she spotted him and then seeing him, smiled and stepped into the room. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Justin growled, snatching a fresh T-­shirt off a hangar, and tugging it over his head. “What’s going on downstairs?”

“Holly has mastered bringing on and retracting her fangs,” Gia told him with a smile.

“What?” he squawked, stilling with his shirt half on. “Already?”

Gia nodded. “She’s a very fast learner, and your kisses helped. All she has to do now is think of you kissing her to make them come out.”

Justin grunted and finished pulling the shirt on, not sure how to take that. Was it good that thoughts of his kisses brought her teeth out? It meant just thinking of or remembering their kiss turned her on. That had to be good, right?

“You even helped her with retracting them,” she added and the amusement in her voice made him suspicious until she added, “She just thinks of your fish dinner and they go away—­Poof!” she said and laughed at his expression. Moving forward, Gia gave him a motherly hug, cooing, “Oh, do not be sad. She appreciated the effort. And you definitely got her attention with that kiss.”

“Did I?” he asked dubiously.

“Of course, you did,” she assured him.

“Well, she sure pulled away in a hurry,” Justin complained.

“She thought she’d hurt you,” Gia said solemnly. She hesitated, and then added, “Of course, now she feels just horrible and her guilt is twofold.”

“Twofold?” he asked with a frown.

Gia nodded. “She feels bad because she fears she hurt you, and she is experiencing a great deal of guilt. One, because she feels that she was unfaithful to her husband by responding to your kisses.”

Justin ran a weary hand through his hair and shook his head. He didn’t like the idea that she was feeling guilty about the kiss. She hadn’t chosen it. They’d pretty much forced it on her. Actually, it had been pretty much forced on both of them since there was no way in hell he would have stood by and allowed Dante to try to build that kind of fire in Holly, and Dante had known it.

“Yes, Dante was very naughty,” Gia murmured, apparently reading his mind. “He wanted you both to have a little taste of what you could have together. Holly so that she knows what she is missing, and you so that you understand just what you are fighting for here and take it seriously.”

“He told you that?” Justin asked with surprise.