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“Not so secret anymore, is it? I’m an open book with you, Lenore.”
I laugh softly and his hand drops from my face. “Is that so? Then tell me what’s going on between us. Why the distance? We’ve been back from Shelter Cove for a couple of weeks and yet…yet it feels like everything is already changing.”
“It is changing,” he says adamantly. “You’re changing. We’re changing. What we are to each other is changing with every second of the day. That bond we have, it’s only growing stronger.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re staying away?”
“You’re in my bed every night, aren’t you?”
“Sex isn’t the answer for everything.”
He raises a brow. “Says the woman fucking me every day.”
The vulgarity catches me off-guard. I love it when his façade slips a little and a hint of that beast comes out.
“Look,” I tell him, feeling more emotions bubbling to the surface. I’m just a walking time bomb now. “I just…I don’t want to come on too strong. But I do need some reassurance, especially when my world feels upside down half the time.”
“Reassurance about what?”
I stare at him dumbly for a moment. My god, he can be so dense sometimes. Guess living for centuries doesn’t make you any wiser when it comes to women.
I gather up the courage, hating that he’s making me say this. “I don’t know. Us. The fact that I’m in love with you and even though you told me the same, I just don’t know it anymore. I’m…I’m afraid you’ve changed your mind.”
He blinks at me, slowly.
I sigh, looking down at my boots, feeling my cheeks flush.
“Changed my mind?” he repeats.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him quickly. “Just forget it.”
“I do love you,” he says in a heated rush, his voice cracking, eyes turning wild as they take me in. Those precious words cause fireworks to explode down my spine. “But this is new for me too. Loving someone, loving you. I’m not made for it, you must believe me on that. My heart isn’t built for it. I don’t think any vampire hearts are, especially those born from such a dark place.”
He reaches out, his fingers press up against my chin, lifting it so I meet his eyes. “You are mine for the ages, Lenore, and that will never change. Please forgive me if I don’t seem to show it, if I don’t say it as much as I should. Just know that I feel it. I feel it. This black heart belongs only to you, my dear.”
He takes my hand and presses it against his chest. “It’s doing the best it can.”
Well fuck. From the weight in his words, to the way he’s staring at me so deeply it’s like he’s taking laps in my soul, I kind of feel like a jerk now to even doubt him.
“Sorry,” I say. “I—”
“Shhhh,” he interrupts, brushing his mouth against mine. “What did I say about apologizing?”
Then he kisses me, his lips and tongue telling me more than his words ever could. Immediately my body relaxes against his, all the panic and tension and fear I’ve been carrying inside me dissipating. Lust makes the perfect kindling, coaxing the flame until my veins run hot and the world is forgotten and I’m lost in the slow, sensual slide of his tongue, the hard way he grips my hair.
I have his blood inside me, he has my blood inside him. I never feel quite whole until our bodies are joined in some way. I said that sex isn’t the answer for everything, and I still stand by that, but there’s no denying the magnetic way that we connect. Sometimes it feels like too much for this world.
I don’t know how long we stand there on the wharf, kissing each other. I feel like a teenager again, like I could just kiss this man for hours on end, succumbing to the soft, languid tease of his mouth.
Then I feel a wet splash in my hair and break away to look up, just in time to have a fat raindrop land on my forehead. We had two days of hot weather earlier in the week, but I guess it was just a false summer start, as usual.
“Come on,” Solon says, grasping my hand as he peers up at the dark clouds. “We should head back. I left my guests waiting.”
I stare at him. “You ditched them to come after me?”
“Of course. You are what’s most important to me. Not them.” While those words sink in, he turns and waves his hand in the air, creating flames. I quickly look around to see if anyone is watching – it’s impossible to know. Surely some vampire-looking dude creating flames out of mid-air will catch the eye of even the most jaded San Franciscan. “No one can see,” he adds, noting my wary expression. “The door doesn’t appear to the average person.”
