"I like that last one."
I turn in his arms, rolling to face him. The movement presses us together in new ways, and I watch his eyes darken.
He looks different in the dim light of evening. Softer, somehow. The hard edges that usually define him have blurred. His hair is mussed, falling across his forehead in a way I've never seen. There are scratches on his shoulders from my nails, already fading but still visible.
I did that. I marked him.
We stare at each other for a long moment. This close, I can seethe gray of his eyes, the faint lines around them that suggest centuries of expression, even if his face hasn't aged. I can see the vulnerability he usually hides, the softness he buries under command and control.
"Last night was..." I trail off, not sure how to finish.
"Yes." He traces a finger along my jaw. "It was."
"Is it always like that?"
"No." His expression is serious now. "I've never had that."
"What was that?"
He considers the question. His thumb brushes across my lower lip, a gesture that's becoming familiar. "I think that was what happens when you stop holding back. When you let yourself feel everything instead of just the physical."
I understand what he means. Last night wasn't just bodies. It was everything we'd been denying, everything we'd been afraid of, finally given permission to exist.
"I want more," I tell him.
"More?"
"Not just..." I gesture vaguely between us. "I want to know you. Really know you. Everything you've been hiding behind those walls of yours."
Something flickers in his expression. Caution, maybe. Or hope. "That's a lot to ask."
"I know." I prop myself up on my elbow. "But I'm asking anyway."
He's quiet for a long moment. I watch him wrestle with something.
"There's a way," he says finally. "For you to know me. All of me. But it's... intimate. More intimate than what we did last night, in some ways."
"More intimate than sex?"
"For vampires, blood is..." He pauses, searching for words. "It'snot just sustenance. It's connection. When you drink from someone, you taste everything they are. Their essence. Their history. Their emotions. Nothing is hidden."
I remember the way he bit me last night. The flood of sensation, the pleasure that bordered on pain.
"You drank from me," I say slowly. "What did you taste?"
His expression softens. "I tasted your strength. Your fire. Your fear and your hope and that stubborn defiance that made me notice you in the first place." His thumb traces my lower lip again. "I tasted how much you want me. How much you trust me, despite everything. It was... intoxicating."
"I want that." The words come out before I can second-guess them. "I want to taste you. Know you the way you know me now."
"Celeste." He cups my face in both hands, making sure I'm looking at him. "I need you to understand what you're asking. When you drink from me, you'll taste everything. All of it. The good and the bad. Over six hundred years of pain and violence and loneliness. I won't be able to hide any of it from you."
"I don't want you to hide from me." I turn my head, press a kiss to his palm. "I want to know all of you. Even the parts you think I won't like."
He's quiet for a long moment.
Then he tilts his head back, baring his throat.
The gesture steals my breath.
