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Deep down, she knew she couldn’t keep going like this, but she did not know how to reach him. Terror froze her every time Armando returned from a hunt, followed by guilt for betraying her family.
She’d done her best to forget him, but it was no use.
He was lodged so deep within her soul, there was no way to dig him out again.
When she laid eyes on him as he stepped through the patio doors, she was alive again. Dark hair tousled from the wind, he wore a loose white blouse tucked in at the waist with his pants emphasizing his muscular thighs. Something inside her came alive with a frightening intensity at the hunger in his gaze.
“Where have you been?” she asked, her breath catching in her throat.
“Come with me.” He stretched out his hand.
Entranced by the sensual promise in those words, Gabby took his hand, a shiver of anticipation shooting up her arm. He slipped an arm under her knees and lifted her with no effort.
“Where’re we going?”
“A place where we can be alone.”
She shouldn’t be so excited at the prospect. Armando would murder her and Felix if he ever found them. She would be cast down into the deepest pits of hell for her actions.
None of it mattered.
He was here.
“Hold tight.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head against his chest. The world around her blurred. Wind whipped her hair back. She closed her eyes to prevent them from tearing up.
The trip was short. She counted his steady heartbeat to distract her from the dizzying movement. When he stopped, she opened her eyes. She had to blink a few times to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.
They were on a secluded beach surrounded on two sides by tall cliffs and the sea on the other. The full moon hung bright in the cloudless sky, illuminating the picnic basket and the quilted blanket spread on the silvery beach.
They couldn’t be that far from her family’s villa, but this felt like another world.
A world that belonged to them.
Felix lowered her onto the blanket before sitting next to her. Gabby wasn’t ready to let him go yet, so she snuggled back against his rock-hard chest. His arm circled around her waist and pulled her tighter against him.
“Are you hungry?”
She wasn’t, not really. She wanted to lay here all day and all night next to him, soaking him in, savoring the sense of being whole again. Before Felix, she had thought her life complete. Her brother had made sure she wanted for nothing. Family and friends loved and doted on her. Only now did she understand her existence had been meaningless without him.
Felix leaned over her and opened the picnic basket he’d prepared. Inside was a spread of cheese, bread, olives, and grapes, along with a jug of wine. When the smell of the bread wafted up to her, Gabby’s stomach growled. She’d had no appetite in the past few days and hadn’t eaten at all today.
“You are hungry.” A statement of fact, in a domineering voice that brooked no argument.
“Yes.” Her stomach growled again. With him here, her body had remembered its other needs as well, like food.
Felix reached into the basket. He took out a slice of bread and topped it with cheese before handing it to her. “You need to eat,tesoro mio,even when I’m not with you.”
Gabby took a bite and groaned with pleasure. The bread was still warm with a hint of saltiness and rosemary. The cheese was creamy and smooth, complementing the bread perfectly. When Felix handed her the cup of wine, she grasped it and savored its sweetness.
“How do you know I haven’t been eating?” she asked in between bites, unconcerned about the lack of utensils or etiquette. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she’d been.
“Because I am the same.”
His gaze sent a shiver of awareness through her. She realized she was only in her dressing gown, but she felt no need to hide herself from him. No shyness or shame or fear arising from years of lecturing. His eyes dropped to her neck and Gabby forgot all about the food. “Without you, I have no desire to feed.”
If he had asked her then, she would have bared her neck and given him what he needed. There was still a part of her, trained since childhood to hate vampires, which balked at the thought. To distract herself, she repeated her earlier question, “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”
