She’d been doing well in her town with her apartment, job, and friends, but she’d only been surviving. She hadn’t started to really live again until Julian crashed his way into her life.
“In many ways,” he said as his fingers ran through her hair once more, “my new ability was more frightening to me than being a vampire. I could wrap my mind around the vampire part of me. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that people and things now endlessly revealed secrets to me, and they would continue to do so for an eternity. The first time I ever successfully turned the ability off, I almost cried. I thought the only way I’d ever know such peace again was in death.”
Quinn went completely still against him. He gazed down at her with love evident in his gaze, as was his vulnerability. She knew what it had taken for him to admit any of this to her, to reveal how out of control and helpless he’d felt at the beginning of his vampire life, but that revelation had bared him to her in a way he’d never been bared before. She’d seen part of what his ability was and what it was like for him when she’d fed from him, but she knew now she’d only scratched the surface of it, because that was all he would allow her to see.
“Finally having the chaos silenced was a glimpse of heaven I never believed I’d ever have,” he said.
She struggled against the pinpricks of tears in her eyes. If she cried now, he would end this conversation. “And now it’s noisy again because of me.”
“There is always peace within me when I’m with you. Even if we’re fighting for our lives, you bring a tranquility to me that suppressing my ability never could. You are my heaven now.”
He already owned her heart and soul, but those words caused her to fall further in love with him. “You’re mine too,” she replied honestly.
His arms locked around her as he held her flush against him.
“Would you let me see what your ability is like for you?” she asked as she ran her fingers over the bite she’d left on his shoulder.
He went completely still against her. “You don’t want to see the things I have.”
“I want to know everything about you.”
His jaw locked as his teeth grated together. “Quinn—”
“There’s nothing left to shelter me from, Julian. I’ve seen the worst of vampires, of you, of myself. I can handle this.”
“I know you can, I would never doubt that, but I don’t want you to be upset.”
“Upset? Oh,” she said as realization sank in, “because you’re doing it for me now.”
“For us.”
The black stubble lining his jaw tickled her lips when she kissed his chin. “Us,” she said and sank her fangs into his neck. He would open himself up to her, or he wouldn’t, but she needed this connection with him again right now.
His potent blood filled her mouth. He remained tensed against her when she felt the pathways between their minds opening and his love engulfed her.
But though she felt his love and caught glimpses of his past and what he’d endured throughout his life, his mind remained mostly blocked to hers about his ability. She didn’t push against him. If he wasn’t ready to share this with her, she wouldn’t force him. He would reveal it to her when he was ready, but she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of hurt. She’d believed they were beyond this point of withholding things from each other.
She went to withdraw her fangs before he could sense her disappointment, but then she felt a wavering within him. A piece of his mind that she hadn’t realized was blocked suddenly gave way before her. What had been behind the wall flooded over her.
Quinn stopped herself from recoiling as she was bombarded with an influx of images that made her feel like someone was smashing a hammer around the inside of her brain. Synapses she’d never known existed in her mind fired like stars she could actually see somehow. It was as if she stood outside herself, looking in, and then she realized she stood outside of Julian looking in.
It was his mind firing so beautifully across millions of nerve endings spreading out before her like intersecting highways. She’d never seen anything more magnificent or tumultuous in her life. It was as entrancing as it was frightening.
Dizziness assailed her, and she couldn’t make sense of what she saw. There were children, men, women, then dogs, horses, two lovers, blood, death, laughter, love, children again, more lovers, cars, and a screeching noise that echoed so loudly in her head she didn’t think it would ever stop.
Car accident, she realized even as laughter then sobs swelled within her mind.