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“You know Philadelphia?”
“Been here a couple of times. That’s all.”
Together Lucas and I crawled into bed. Nothing was on my mind but sleep—until the moment we were under the covers, with him next to me.
We reached for each other at the same instant. Lucas’s mouth found mine, and we kissed desperately, like we hadn’t been together for years. His arms pulled me close, and I wound both my legs around one of his as our kisses deepened.
Within seconds, it felt like we were still too far away. I grabbed his T-shirt and started tugging it off him; he helped me with that, then pulled mine off. We kissed again, the touch electric with the feel of his skin on mine, but it still wasn’t enough. With shaky hands, I fumbled with my bra straps, pushing them down, then finally unhooking it.
I’d always thought I would feel embarrassed the first time a guy saw me undressed, but I didn’t. Lucas looked at me like I was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, and when he stroked me with one hand, the feeling was better than I’d imagined it could be.
I took his hand in mine and guided it down to my jeans. I wanted to show him all of me. I wanted to feel that beautiful all over.
Lucas helped me undress, then wriggled out of his own jeans and tossed them across the room. I’d never seen a na**d guy before except, like, in paintings and on the Internet. Somehow I’d never thought of the sight as beautiful, not until now. I liked how Lucas looked, how he felt in my hands, the gentle way that he touched me. Whenever I had a moment that I felt nervous or didn’t know what to do, he kissed me again, and all my fear went away.
Mine, I thought. It was the same kind of hunger that overtook me when I wanted his blood, but better, because this way I could drink him in again, and again, and again. The crazy need to bite him was gone, replaced by something else, something that had nothing to do with being a vampire—instead, it was part of being alive. At long last, after years of my wanting him, Lucas truly belonged to me.
Finally, when we were almost past the point of self-control, he whispered roughly, “Bianca, are you sure?”
“So sure,” I said, winding my hands through his hair. “This is how it’s meant to be.”
“Yeah.” Lucas kissed me again, and for the first time in months and months, I knew that, right now at least, everything was perfect.
The next morning, I stirred drowsily in bed, realized that I was actually in a bed, realized that Lucas was asleep next to me, that we were both na**d and then memory came thundering in.
My eyes went wide. Did I really—
Yes, I did really.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy about it, because I was. Even though I was a little bit sore—in places I hadn’t known I could be sore—I’d never felt so overjoyed or loved or sure.
Everything seemed so surreal, that was all. Me, in bed with a lover. I pulled the sheet around me tightly, grinning and silly, and it seemed like a shame to leave Lucas out of the joke.
I tickled his leg with my toes, and he shifted against his pillow. One eye opened groggily. Then he grabbed me so quickly it made me squeal with laughter, and towed me on top of him.
“Good morning,” he murmured between kisses. “I could get used to this.”
“Me, too.”
For a while we simply kissed each other, silly and messy and yet more and more intense. My body felt tingly all over, and I wondered if it was too soon to give it another try.
Before things got to that point, though, Lucas pulled back from me and smiled. “I think I’ve figured out what we’re going to do.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that out, too, seeing how we’re na**d in bed together.”
“Not that, wanton woman.” He grinned at me in amazement. “What have I gotten myself into?”
“Something good.”
“That I knew.” Lucas kissed my hand. “What I meant was, I know what we can do next for cash, to get ourselves settled. It means taking another loan, which I don’t like, but at this point I figure we’d better deal with it. We’ll have run through the cash Balthazar gave us within a week at this hotel.”
I had no problems asking for help right now. We genuinely needed it. “You have a friend in Philadelphia?”
“So do you. Think about it.”
And as soon as I thought, I could envision the Phillies cap on his sandy hair. My face lit up in a smile. “Vic!”
Lucas called Vic and arranged for us to meet at one of the downtown diners for lunch. We walked there hand in hand, me in my new green sundress, holding Lucas’s hand. I imagined that people were looking at me differently—that somehow they knew—but I thought probably that was just me being silly. I felt exactly the same, only happier than I’d been in a long while. Lucas, too, seemed relaxed; I couldn’t remember another time I’d seen him completely at ease.
