Clearing his throat, he began, “Food is not the only pleasure we lose interest in over time. Sex too, becomes … er … boring?”

“Boring?” Her eyebrows rose at this news. “You’re kidding, right? I mean Stephanie mentioned something about life mates making sex mind-blowing, but—”

“Even sex grows boring after several centuries,” he assured her solemnly.

“No way! Sex is awesome,” Sherry said with a laugh, and then added, “You must have been doing it wrong.”

Basil stiffened slightly at the diagnosis, but then noted the twinkle in her eyes and realized she was teasing him again. He was beginning to recognize when she was, he noted, and found that fact reassuring. Even so, he answered her seriously. “Skill has nothing to do with it. All immortals eventually grow tired of it after a time. However, meeting a life mate stimulates a renewed interest in that just as it does food.”

“Wow,” Sherry breathed, and for a moment he thought she was amazed at what he’d just said … and she was, just not in the way he’d thought. He came to that conclusion when she added, “Only a lawyer could make passion sound so mundane. Seriously? A life mate ‘stimulates a renewed interest’?” She tilted her head, and asked, “That translates to my presence should make you horny, right?”

The twinkle in her eye took away any offense from her question, and actually made him laugh. She certainly had a way with words he thought as he nodded.

“Okay, I can see that too,” Bricker allowed, and then glanced from Basil to Lucian and asked, “But what was Elvi’s deal?”

Lucian scowled when the young man settled his gaze on him. It seemed obvious to Basil that his brother had no idea why Elvi was crying, but rather than say so, he simply said,

“She is a woman. They don’t need a reason to cry. They just do.”

Sherry released what sounded suspiciously like a snort, her body jerking against his, and then she explained to Bricker, “Elvi is just relieved that Stephanie’s life is no longer in danger. It has been a great strain on her to worry about the girl for so long.”

“Ah,” Bricker said with understanding. But now Lucian was scowling even harder.

“She should be happy now then. Stephanie is safe,” Lucian pointed out.

“She is happy,” Sherry assured him patiently. “That’s why she was crying.”

If anything, that seemed to confuse Lucian more. Shaking his head, he turned to Bricker and said, “You see? It’s as I said, women don’t need a reason to cry. They just do.”

“Sherrilyn Harlow Carne?”

Turning sharply to the couple on the steps, Sherry met his gaze as he announced, “This is my wife, Leigh Argeneau.”

She offered her hand to the other woman. “Call me Sherry. I’ve only ever been called Sherrilyn Harlow Carne by my mother and that was when I was in trouble.”

Leigh chuckled and took her hand in a warm grasp. “Sherry it is.”

“Yes. You aren’t the one in trouble,” Lucian announced dryly as the two women shook.

Leigh rolled her eyes at the words and smiled wryly. “Ignore him. We’re new parents, so we aren’t getting a lot of sleep at the moment. It makes him cranky.”

“Yeah, that’s what it is. Lack of sleep due to the babies,” Justin said with a snort as he moved past them. “’Cause Lucian was just a big huggie bear before that.”

When Sherry glanced curiously to the man disappearing into the house, Basil said helpfully, “Lucian is always cranky.”

Much to her surprise, when Sherry then glanced worriedly to Lucian to see how he was taking the announcement, he was nodding with agreement and apparent satisfaction. She gathered he was proud of his crankiness.

“Don’t mind Lucian,” Leigh said lightly. “He just acts all growly and mean around the boys to keep them in line. He’s really a marshmallow.”

Now it was Basil who snorted.

When Basil merely nodded and then turned his attention back to her, Sherry forced a smile and said, “So it’s Baw-zil, not Bay-sil?”

Basil nodded. “It’s short for Basileios.”

A car horn honked as he spoke, and she wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Tilting her head, she asked, “Bellicose?”

“No, not ‘bellicose,’” he said with a chuckle. “That is a temperament not a name. My name is Basileios.” He spoke slowly and loudly this time to be sure she heard.

“Basileios,” Sherry murmured, and then pursed her lips briefly as the name tickled her memory. “So you weren’t named after a spice, but some big snake from Harry Potter? Nice.”

He blinked. “A snake? What the devil are you talking about?”

“I think she’s getting Basileios mixed up with basilisk,” Stephanie said helpfully, turning in the front seat to grin at them.

“Basilisk, right,” Sherry said with a smile, and then shrugged. “They sound very similar.”

“They are not similar,” he said grimly. “My name is ‘Baw-sill-ee-os.’”

“Well, you said it fast the first time and it sounded kind of like ‘basilisk,’” she said apologetically.

“It did kind of, didn’t it?” Stephanie agreed.

“It did not,” Basileios said indignantly.

Feeling herself relax a bit, Sherry teased, “Well, if you’re going to go and get all bellicose about it, maybe we should just go with the spice and call you ‘Bay-sil’ after all,” she said, pronouncing it like the spice.