“I will get lucky, Cherie. Very lucky.” He bit his lip, and she tried to smack him. He swatted her hand away as if she were no more than a pesky nuisance. “One day in Kingdom is one mortal month on Earth. We’ve very long days, petite.”
They were in her room now. Gerard closed the door and locked it, the sound like the boom of gunshot in her ears, and she swallowed hard. Then his large hands were on her robe, slipping the sides down and she moaned.
“You can’t just come in and out of my life like this and expect…”
“Shhh.” He pressed his warm finger to her lips. “You talk too much, harpy.” Then his lips covered hers and with a tiny moan of desperation she returned it, pouring her hate and her need into it, tasting his lips, his tongue. Her tears mingled in their kiss.
He pulled back, frowning. “Mon belle, mon belle,” he traced the line of tears falling free from her eyes.
Her heart broke hearing him call her his beauty, all she’d wanted for three months was to hear his sultry French tenor whisper love in her ears, and now that he was here, it hurt so bad. Opened everything up, all the wounds that’d finally started to heal were once again fractured and cracked.
“I brought these.” He lifted his hand, and she gave a quick sob. Her still glowing pendant chain dangled from his hand, along with another one. Similar, except the other pendant was in the shape of a square. Less feminine, but definitely a matching set. But where hers was purple, his was the familiar red and gold color of before.
She grabbed her pendant, the hearts warmth almost seeming to pump in her grip like a real heart, warmth seeped into her palm. Betty looked at him. “I don’t understand.”
The sultriness was gone from his eyes, truth-- unvarnished and raw-- stared back at her. “This is the mate. If I put this chain around my neck, and you do the same with yours,” he handed her the chain, “our souls will be bound. You will never age, you will never die, your mortality will be forever striped from you.”
Her hands shook as she stared down at the pumping, beating heart.
He covered her hands with his. “This is what took me so long to come back. Galeta didn’t want to. She procrastinated the entire time…”
Her entire frame trembled. “Gerard?”
He stopped talking, his eyes were large, and she sensed his nerves. She’d never seen him like this, so vulnerable. It made her want him more.
“Are you talking marriage?”
His jaw clenched. “I’m talking much more than that, Cherie.” He forked twin fingers through his hair, reminding her oddly of the man she’d seen that first day in the library. Disheveled, slightly devilish, and incredibly alluring. “I know what I ask might be overwhelming, frightening even. But I swear to you, my love, I’ve never felt like this before. You’re it. And I’ll prove that to you if I must…”
Betty shushed him with her finger, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “You talk too much.”
He grinned, taking a nip at her finger. His bite shot warmth straight between her legs, heating her blood to a fevered frenzy. The anger melted into something full and impossible and so deep she knew she was drowning, but didn’t care.
“May I?” he asked, easing the necklace from her hands and unclasping it.
She grabbed his and did the same. “Yes.”
They put the necklaces on each other, the moment the heart touched her chest it flared to life and burnt her skin. She hissed and Gerard trembled.
“My life with yours…” he said, and then the red of his pendant flared crimson for the briefest moment before completely being overtaken by purple. Swirling veins of glittering sapphire skated through the lava like movement of color. “Forever.”
The pain in her chest vanished, and when she looked at her pendant, it too glowed with ribbons of blue. He grabbed her face. “You’re mine. Forever.”
She smiled, and was pretty sure she’d never be able to stop now that she’d started. “How old are you?”
A devilish grin curled his lips. “Old. Ancient.” He leaned in so close she tasted the mint of his breath. “You’re stuck with me now, Cherie. So long as I live, you live.”
But then she stopped thinking, because he scooped her up, walked to the bed and laid her down, his hard body sliding along hers. It took only seconds for him to bare her skin to his touch. His eyes burned hot on her body as he looked her up, then down.
He licked his lips. “Hungry, Cherie. I’m starving.”
Empowered, she thrust her chest up and sucked in her stomach, assuming-- what she hoped to be a sexy pose-- and beckoned him with a curled finger. “I’m waiting, Caron. And I hate waiting.”
She laughed as he literally tore himself out of his clothes. His body was magnificent, lean and hard. But it was his manhood, the piece of him she’d seen soft for so long, standing hard and ready that made her mouth water.