Kylie chuckled. "When you think about it, all things sexual are sort of ... I mean, even French kissing ... having someone's tongue in your mouth. It's gross."

"Unless you're doing it." Della's words came out dreamlike. Kylie felt certain her friend was thinking about Steve. "And then it's not gross. It's almost magic."

Kylie remembered French-kissing Lucas and even doing more the night they'd been coming back from the graveyard. It had been magical. But all that magic was over now. No more Lucas. "Yeah, it's not so gross then, is it." Popping up, she went and looked inside the tiny pantry. "Do we have anything chocolate in this kitchen? Anything?"

"I think there's some chocolate syrup in the fridge. But we don't have any milk. Not that it was me who drank it. That would be the witch." Della glanced back at Kylie.

Kylie reached into the refrigerator and found the chocolate syrup. Oh, hell, beggars couldn't be choosy.

She squeezed a line of chocolate all the way up her index finger and popped the digit into her mouth.

"So the meeting with the Brightens didn't go well?" Della asked.

"No, it went fine," Kylie mumbled around her chocolate-covered finger. When the sweetness disappeared, she pulled her finger out and aimed the top of the bottle down and gave the digit another squirt of sweetness.

"Then why are you sucking chocolate syrup off your finger like it's whiskey? Wait! I know why, I heard about the fiasco with your dad and mom-the whole pregnancy thing. Hilarious." Della dropped her elbows on the table and laughed."Not hilarious." Kylie frowned. "How did you hear about it?"

Della shrugged, looking a little guilty for bringing it up. "Someone heard it go down. Everybody was talking about it. Sorry." She made an apology face.

Kylie moaned. "Will I ever stop being the source of gossip around here?" She held her head back and squeezed a good squirt of chocolate straight into her mouth.

"Now that's gross!" Della chuckled.

Kylie brought the bottle down and licked her lips. "I didn't touch my lips to the bottle. I just poured it into my mouth."

"And on your chin."

Frowning, Kylie wiped her chin with the back of her hand. "Sorry, I'm feeling desperate." She snagged a bowl and spoon and went back to the table and emptied a half a cup of the sweet feel-good stuff into her bowl.

"Damn," Della said. "You are feeling desperate."

Kylie scooped a spoonful of chocolate into her mouth, licked the spoon clean and said, "Monique crawled into the stall with me."

"Who? What stall?"

"Monique. Lucas's Monique. She climbed into the bathroom stall with me in the restaurant bathroom."

"Oh, shit! Did you two like duke it out or something?"

"No." Kylie licked the spoon. "I just peed all over myself." She took another spoonful of chocolate into her mouth.

Della sighed. "Are you okay?"

"I will be after I finish off this bottle," Kylie said.

Della half grinned. "If I was a real friend, I'd stop you from drinking it."

Kylie shook her head. "If you were a real friend, you'd help me finish it."

"Shit. Why not?" She pushed over her glass of blood. "Give me a couple of shots."

Kylie arched an eyebrow. "For real?"

"Yeah." Della pushed her schoolbooks to the side. "Screw homework, let's get drunk off chocolate. I could use a pick-me-up, too."

Kylie saw pain reflect in her friend's gaze. She gave an extra-hard squeeze of chocolate into the vamp's glass. "What really happened while you were away, Della?"

Chapter Twenty-six

The vamp stared down at her glass of blood laced with chocolate. She swirled the glass and seemed to watch the two ingredients blend together. "I skipped out on Steve the first night and went to see Lee."

That didn't surprised Kylie, she knew Della was still hung up on Lee, but it didn't explain how she ended up getting hickeys from Steve. Unless it wasn't Steve who gave her the hickey, but Kylie didn't think she'd lie about that. And something told Kylie this wasn't all about Lee. It was about a shape-shifter with a cute butt.

"And?" Kylie asked, dipping her spoon back into her own chocolate.

"And he went out on a date with his new fiancee." She brought the glass to her lips and sipped. "Hey, this shit is really good."

"Yeah." Kylie waited for Della to continue. She didn't have to wait too long.

"He took her to a Chinese restaurant. I followed them." Tears filled Della's eyes.

Feeling her friend's pain, Kylie set her hand on Della's. Della pulled it away.

"Then they spotted me and I realized I looked like an idiot. I was all kinds of embarrassed." She took another sip of her chocolate blood and looked up. "Then like some damn knight in shining armor Steve showed up. He'd followed me. He saved my ass from looking like a total fool. Pretended we were on a date. He kissed me in front of them. Like we were this hot couple."

Kylie took another spoonful of chocolate into her mouth. "And the kiss was pretty good so you guys made out later?"

"No. I mean yes."

Kylie pointed her spoon at Della. "Which is it?"

"Yes it was good, but it didn't happen until the next day." Della leaned in and frowned.

"The mission went bad. I was stabbed," Della confessed.