“Right, then, mate, terribly sorry for my unspeakable rudeness, and I do beg your pardon. I can only say that it was caused by my natural affront to the notion of her as my sister. Since I'll be shagging her tonight, you can imagine how I'd be distressed at the thought of rogering my sibling""You shmuck! The only thing you'll be shagging tonight is yourself!""You wanted sincerity, well, luv, I was sincere.”

“He muttered something foul and then climbed the stairs, rapping twice on Timmie’s door.“Right, then, mate, terribly sorry for my unspeakable rudeness, and I do beg your pardon,”he said with admirable humbleness when Timmie cracked it open. Only I could pick up theslight edge to his voice as he went on. “I can only say that it was caused by my naturalaffront to the notion of her as my sister. Since I’ll be shagging her tonight, you canimagine how I’d be distressed at the thought of rogering my sibling.”“You schmuck!” I burst as Timmie’s jaw dropped. “The only thing you’ll be shaggingtonight is yourself!”“You wanted sincerity,” he countered. “Well, luv, I was sincere.”

“Careful, luv. I might be angry with you, but that doesn't mean I don't still want you. So if you do that again, I'll shag you right here, right now, and sod anyone who wants to watch”

“Since you and Crispin are now finished and I have a few hours to kill, how about that shag?” he asked with heavy irony.“Bite me,” I sighed, gathering up the pages.He winked. “Of course. My second-favorite thing to do in bed.”

“How can you stand touching her?” my sister blurted, staring at our clasped hands. “Doesn’t that hurt?”I seized on the change of topic. “These gloves are specialized rubber. They block the current.”Gretchen’s gaze traveled over Vlad, disbelief still stamped on her features. “Yeah, but how do you two do anything else, unless he has a special, currentrepellingglove for his—”“Gretchen!” my father cut her off.My cheeks felt hot. Don’t say a word, I thought to Vlad, seeing his chest tremble with suppressed laughter.“He has a natural immunity,” I gritted out.”

“You're shagging a woman who can turn into a dragon? Blast you, Charles, I am sick with envy!”

“You know what your problem is, Justina? You're in desperate need of a good shag. "Not that I'm offering you one myself, mind. My days as a whore ended back in the seventeen hundreds." The gin was abruptly sucked back into my lungs as I gasped. He did not just tell my mother about his former profession; sweet Jesus, let me have heard incorrectly!I hadn't, and Bones went right on. "... But I have a friend who owes me a favor and he could be persuaded to... Kitten, are you all right?" I'd stopped breathing as soon as he casually admitted to his prior occupation. Add that to the liquid stuck in my lungs, and no, I wasn't all right.”