After planting a kiss on the spot where Edie had apparently been bitten, he looked up at the witch. “Thank you, Sabrina. I owe you, and I have an excellent idea for how I can repay that debt.”
“We’ll talk later. Starla told everyone to give you two some privacy, including me.” She offered him a faint smile. “Besides, I need some time with my wife too.”
“And that’s precisely what we’ll be discussing,” he said, and her smile widened. “Find me when you’re ready.”
“I’m sorry,” Edie repeated as soon as he returned his attention to her. “I can’t even—”
His big, warm hands cupped her face. “Sweet Edie, this is nothing. I would have gladly died for you. And here I am,livingwith you, having given up nothing but endless centuries of isolation and an unmourned, detached death. This is an ending happier than any I could have envisioned, and I shouldn’t have teased you about it.”
For such a cynical vampire, that perspective positivelyradiatedoptimism.
Naturally, she was suspicious. “Truly?”
“Truly.” The tip of his nose nudged hers. “I want nothing more than this. Nothing more than you. You’re mine, ma puce. Mine to protect. Mine to keep and cherish as long as I draw breath on this earth, and possibly after that too, if I have my way.”
“Hmmm.” Tenderly, she kissed the corner of his mouth. “Yours to love?”
She didn’tneedthe words, not when his actions spoke so clearly. But hearing it aloud would still be nice.
“It’s been centuries, Edie. I don’t remember what love feels like.” After his thumb slid across her cheek one last time, he stretched to retrieve something from the ground behind him. His mother’s pomander, which he pressed into Edie’s palm. Then he covered her hand with his, closing her fingers more tightlyaround the silver sphere. “But all of me is yours. Every atom. Every thought and hope and desire. And if I’m entirely yours, that must include my heart, no?”
Strong emotion had brought out the slightest hint of an accent, and she adored it. Adored him.
She grinned at him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Also, no one can exist as long as I have without doing the occasional favor. I have several extremely powerful creatures in my debt.” He nuzzled her temple as he spoke, sounding very smug. “So fear not, darling. You may yet get to bask in my glory for centuries to come.”
“What doesthatmean?” Propping herself up on her elbow sounded like a good idea until she actually did it, promptly became dizzy, and dropped down onto his chest again. “And precisely how longhaveyou existed?”
He snorted, stroking a broad palm up and down her back. “Nice try. But I’m not telling you how old I am.”
“You’re so vain.”
“For good reason.” His muscles flexed beneath her, because he was a freaking show-off. “I’m perfection made flesh.”
Her fake retching sounds were quite convincing, if she did say so herself. And she did.
He added breezily, “I’m getting immortality for both of us, because I have no intention of getting wrinkled and withered, and I need you around to admire me. Forever.”
Okay. That was a discussion they could pursue later. Right now, her priority was puncturing that ginormous ego of his.
She kept her voice to a whisper, because their private bubble would pop soon enough. “No…one’s…”
When he covered her mouth with his in a sweetly ravenous kiss, she simply waited him out. As soon as his head lifted and she could think again, the song restarted.
“No one’s vain like Gaston—”
“This is not new information, human. In fact, mere moments ago—”
“—lacks all shame like Gaston!”
“Shame requires a sense of wrongdoing, and since I’ve never done anything wrong—”
“No one brags about how much you came like Gaston!”
Arching his brows, he held up six fingers.
She held up four, doing her damnedest to exude discontent and sexual frustration. “In his hand-knotted briefs he’s so—”
