“I know,” she whispered, her hand enclosing around his and clasping it to her chest.
Against his hand, he could feel the flux of her power as she connected with him in her own way. Her exquisite eyes ran lovingly over his face. He brushed his lips over hers in a light caress that left him craving more as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her fingers threaded through his shortened hair while her tongue tasted his lips. His arms locked around her, and he pulled her flush against his chest.
Looking to erase the last of the images from the hotel, he opened himself to Quinn. He’d seen what Earl had done to her as a human, knew what he’d done to her when he’d held her prisoner, but now all he got from her was an endless wave of love so deep it rattled him and caused his desire for her to arc ever higher.
“You need to rest,” he murmured against her mouth.
“I need you,” she replied, and nipped at his lip hard enough to draw blood. His body jerked against hers when she pulled his lip into her mouth, sucking the blood from it before she nipped him again. “Now, Julian, I need you now.”
She released his lip as she leaned back to tug off her shirt, the only thing she’d worn to bed. His gaze voraciously drank in her toned body before he bent to place a kiss against her chest. He pulled his own clothes off as he greedily tasted the salt of her flesh and caressed the silk of her skin.
He could live for an eternity and never get enough of the taste and smell of her. Never get enough of the way she moved against him or the sounds she emitted when he was inside of her. His fangs pierced the tender flesh of her neck. Her blood rushed hotly in, filling his mouth, making him stronger. The taste of her blood was ambrosia on his tongue. Her hands rested against his chest as her fangs pierced his shoulder.
Releasing his hold on her throat, he placed his mouth against her ear. “Mine.”
In response, a flood of her power spilled into him, causing his deadened heart to leap to life. For nearly fifty beats, the long dead organ pounded within his chest once more. A rush filled him, making him lightheaded on her power.
Her unusual ability to breathe life back into a heart that had ceased beating five hundred seventy-six years ago was growing stronger every time she used it. Like the woman beneath him, he would never get enough of feeling that organ pounding in his chest once more. It was a gift no other vampire had ever received, and she gave it to him as openly as she gave herself.
Releasing her bite on him, her mouth turned to his ear. “I love you.”
He pulled her closer against him. “And I love you,” he whispered as he lost himself to her.
***
“Are you leaving your ability on all the time?” Quinn asked Julian as she traced the muscles of his abdomen down to the trail of blond hair leading toward the edge of the boxers he’d pulled on.
He ran his fingers over her hair, letting it slide through his fingers. “When it’s not just you, me, and the others, yes.”
She tilted her head back to take him in. “Why?”
“I need to know everything I can, all of the time, if I’m to protect you.”
“You can protect me without driving yourself crazy.”
“I’m handling it.”
“I know you don’t like having it on all the time.”
“I don’t, but I’m adjusting to it, and one day I won’t have to keep it on at all.”
“One day we’ll know peace,” she breathed hopefully.
“We will,” he vowed and kissed the tip of her nose.
“What’s it like, to know all of those things or see them, or whatever happens to you when you touch people and things?”
“Sometimes it’s an influx of images that flip rapidly through my mind. Sometimes it’s only what the person has most recently done, but if I dig deep enough, I can often pull more from them.”
“It sounds overwhelming.”
His fingers stilled in her hair; his eyes were like arctic ice when they met hers—a rich, deep blue, but chilly and distant. She didn’t have to hear his answer to know what he was going to say.
“It can be. Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived after first being turned into a vampire between the bloodlust that comes with awakening, the path of carnage I left behind me, and the bombardment of images from people and things that beat against me. My ability nearly drove me mad in the beginning. I don’t know how a Hunter or an Elder didn’t end up taking me out when they take out so many young ones.”
She didn’t know how anyone could handle all of that, but somehow he had managed to.
What would her life had been like if he’d never stepped into it? What would have become of her if he’d been killed before they ever met? She would have been so lonely.