chapter Eight
In the afterglow, Michael’s fingers twined with mine, and I curled up against his chest.
“Did you mean what you said back there?” he said softly.
“Mean what?” I was still reeling from the most intense orgasm of my life, and not a single breast or cock was involved. Weird. Not bad, just weird.
“About always loving me?”
Oh. Suddenly shy, I tilted my head down, unable to look him in the eye. “I’m sure I was just saying things. Loss of blood and all that. We’re cool. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried. I still love you, too.” He kissed me lightly on the mouth, then the nose, as if he couldn’t get enough of looking at me, tasting me. “I’ve always loved you. I never stopped loving you. Even when I went to Europe, all I could think about was how much you’d have loved being there with me.”
I suddenly felt like the world’s shittiest person. “Our breakup… with Thad…”
“You didn’t sleep with him. I know.”
I looked at him suspiciously. “How do you know?”
“Because I went to his dorm the next day and punched his lights out for touching you. He didn’t protest in the slightest, just let me hit him. I guess it didn’t hurt too much if he was a shifter.” He grimaced. “At the time, I couldn’t figure it out. I was just so angry. It took me a few weeks to calm down, and then I realized his actions didn’t make sense—and yours didn’t, either. I wanted to talk to you, confront you about it. But you were gone.”
“I had to end it fast,” I murmured, twining my fingers in his hair. The spikes were flattened, and I raked my hand through his hair, making it stand on end again. “It’s against the rules for humans and supernaturals to have a relationship. One-night stand, yes. Relationship, no. Any number of things could have happened. I could have turned you by accident. Or if you found out my secret, it could have compromised my entire family and all the were-jaguars in the area. We’d get kicked out of the Alliance if you found out the truth, so I had to find a way to run you off for good.” I pulled him close to me once more. “I cried for a month straight.”
“I was miserable without you,” he admitted. “Still angry but completely and totally miserable. I vowed that when I got back from my trip, we’d talk. Except… I was turned into a vampire. And I knew I couldn’t have a normal life. After that, I felt like I couldn’t approach you. We’re not allowed to reveal ourselves to normal humans, just like you. It never occurred to me that you might be supernatural, too. Anyhow, when I came back, I still felt out of sorts. The local vampires all had blood mates, and the friend I’d been drinking from had left to spend time with friends in Australia. I met Mariah, and she offered to share blood duties for a while, but I hadn’t realized that Angelo was interested in her. I told her I wasn’t interested, but I didn’t have anyone else to drink from, and Mariah started to follow me, showing up at the most inconvenient times. I blood-banked it for a while, but then Mariah got even more annoying. I needed to get rid of her and thought a date might solve both of my problems.”
My heart felt a little twinge.
“Except no woman I’ve met compares to you. It wasn’t until I joined the Alliance a few weeks ago that I found you. I was scrolling through the profiles at the agency and came across your picture. I thought it was a mistake until I saw your affiliation, and then, well, I had to set up a date.”
I smiled even as tears spilled from my eyes. “Even after all this time, you wanted me?”
He leaned in to kiss away my tears. “Of course I wanted you.”
“I hurt you.”
“You didn’t have a choice. And it enabled us to get here, to this place. I don’t regret it.”
I devoured him with my eyes, still finding it hard to believe that I could look my fill at him, touch him, taste him, without fear of someone or something tearing us apart. “I’ve thought of nothing but you. Did you think of me?”
“Every day. Every moment, every hour. I could think of nothing but you.”
Dreamed of this, Michael had said when he’d touched my cheek.
I suddenly punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For constantly calling me your friend,” I said in a heated tone. “If you called me that one more time, I was going to shove those fangs down your throat.”
He chuckled and kissed me again, as if unable to help himself. “I was trying not to pressure you. Just because I was still desperately in love with you, it didn’t mean you were still holding a torch for me.”
“I was, and I still am,” I said. “Does this mean we can be blood mates?”
If one taste of Michael’s blood made me feel so dizzy with love for him, I wanted to do it over and over again. The thought of drinking from anyone else made me feel sick. Michael was the only one I wanted.
The only one I’d ever wanted.
He stilled against me. “You’re not mad that I turned you?”
I flexed my fingers and was happy to see my claws pop. “I still have my jaguar. I’m alive and well. And now I have you. Of course I’m not mad.”
“You’re not doing this to save me from Angelo, I hope.”
I shook my head. “I’m doing this because I love you.”
I kissed him. I could kiss him for all of eternity now. I liked that. “Write him and tell him that you have a blood mate and she’s going to Europe with you.”
He grinned. “I would love to see Europe with you by my side. But I won’t take you as my blood mate until you’re absolutely certain that it’s what you want. The first day after you’ve turned isn’t the time to make that decision.”
“You can still write him and tell him we’re partners. It’ll get him off your back, regardless.” I wrapped my arms around him, feeling as if everything in the world had shifted back into place. “Whether we wait one year or twenty, my answer will be the same. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t want anyone to come between us ever again.”
“We have eternity,” he agreed. “And you might want to think about a new name. I wasn’t joking when I said vampires picked new names to start over.”
I ran my fingers down his back. “Let’s pick something happier than Les Miserables.”
“Something with a happy ending?”
“Exactly.”
—
At first, we argued over names. I thought it would be fun to be Lizzy and Darcy. Michael flat-out disagreed. Too obvious. He’d suggested Edmond Dantes and Haidee, but I was the one who protested that. Edmond and Haidee? Seriously. And here he thought I was the obvious one. I’d suggested Edward and Elinor from Sense and Sensibility, but he’d hated the thought—no vampire should ever have the name Edward again, he’d claimed.
I could see his point.
We settled on Marianne and Christopher Brandon and traveled Europe in style. By the time five years had passed, I was more than ready for the mate mark. Michael stubbornly insisted on giving me more time, so I went ahead and marked him at the top of the Eiffel Tower. And at the Sydney Opera House. And at the Great Pyramid in Giza, and the Acropolis in Greece, and the Taj Mahal.
He eventually got the picture.