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At that moment I’d have given my left nut to drink from her. But I didn’t. Instead, I touched my fangs to her neck, some vestige of sense stopping me from breaking the skin, but craving the feel of her skin beneath my teeth.
Then my own climax overtook me. My vision turned a hazy red.
“Eden,” I said, the word both a groan and a prayer, and stilled deep inside her, the pleasure so intense it felt like I was being wrung out by a giant hand.
When I came back to myself, she was hanging limply in my arms, her breath choppy. I slid an arm under her thighs and carried her into the bedroom, laying her on her bed.
I tucked the covers around her, brushing my lips over hers. “You want me to sleep with you?”
“I’m good,” she said with a crooked half-smile. “Thanks.”
She’d been open to me while we had sex, but already she’d pulled back into herself. She seemed okay, though. Not sad, at least. Resigned.
That’s what I’d wanted, right? For her to accept what we had without pushing for more.
“Okay.” I stared down at her. “And for the record, I don’t think you’re fragile.”
“But you do feel responsible for me.”
I hesitated. It felt like a trick question. “Because I am.”
“No, Talon, you’re not—not the way you mean, anyway. Because you think you’re responsible for making me happy, don’t you?”
Because I am.
This time I didn’t say it aloud. “If you’re unhappy,” I evaded, “then it’s on me.”
“No,” she said, raising up on her forearms to scowl at me. “It’s not. I’m an adult, and if I’m unhappy it’s my own fault. You’re responsible for the baby, not me—and then only until he’s an adult. Yeah, you’re responsible for me in a way—I’m going to need you to help me with the baby, especially when he’s a newborn. And I hope I’ll have your emotional support, too. But that’s where it ends.”
“You’ll have it,” I vowed, ignoring the “that’s where it ends,” part for now.
“Then we’re good,” she said, lying back down.
“Okay.” I rubbed a hand over my chest. If we were good, why didn’t I feel better about this? “You’ll let me know if you need anything, right?”
She closed her eyes. “Sure.”
I hovered another few seconds until she said, “Good night, Talon.”
“See you tomorrow.” I brushed my fingers over the back of her cheek and left.
25
Eden
“So you’re having a baby.” My dad nudged a plate of his homemade oatcakes in my direction, then sat back in a kitchen chair, arms folded over his worn flannel shirt. “A dhampir.”
Beside him, my mom cast him an exasperated look. “I already told you she was.”
I helped myself to an oatcake. “It’s okay, Mom.”
The three of us were seated around the rustic farmhouse table that he’d built for Mom as a wedding gift, long and narrow to fit the dimensions of their 1920s kitchen. At one end of the table a hand-thrown blue pitcher was flanked by a matching teapot; Mom’s day job was as a primary school teacher, but she made pottery on the side.
Dad scowled at me. “What were you thinking?”
“Wes,” Mom said warningly.
“Damn it, Gigi,” he said, “let me say my piece.”
