Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 47359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 237(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 237(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
“I didn’t want to bother you. After all, we did have a busy night last night.” He ran his finger gently over her lips. “Would you really leave without—”
She thought for sure her heart would pound right out of her chest. How was she ever going to say—
I love you.
No. No. That wasn’t what she was going to say.
No, it’s what I’m saying.
Her eyes rounded, her brow knitted, and she stared at him unsure.
“Now, you will let me finish.”
It was a command, not a question, though it didn’t matter, she was too stunned that she had heard him so clearly in her head to reply.
“Would you really have left without telling me you love me, after all the times I’ve asked you to let me love you?”
“Make love to me.”
He smiled. “I intend to do that for the rest of our lives.”
Her legs went weak, and she reached out to grab hold of his arm. “I thought all the times you said that that you meant make love to me.”
He took her suitcase from her hand and set it aside, then he unbuttoned her red jacket and slipped it off her, dropping it atop her suitcase, her scarf followed. His arm went around her waist, and he tugged her close.
“You should have listened closer to your thoughts. I was there often, letting you know how I felt.”
“That wasn’t just me when I thought of loving you?”
“No, you felt my love for you as well.”
“So you’ve known how I’ve felt about you all along?” she asked.
“How do you feel?”
“I love you,” she said without hesitation. “God, that feels so freeing to admit it aloud, almost orgasmic. I love you. I really, really do love you.”
His eyes began to glow red, and his fangs dropped down. “All of me?”
“I can’t say it doesn’t frighten me to see you like that.”
“The question is can you love that part of me?”
Could she love that part of him? “There’s only one way to find out,” she found herself saying.
His eyes returned to their normal dark color and his fangs disappeared, though his crafty smile surfaced ever so slowly. “It sounds as if you’re sacrificing yourself.”
“Hmmm, and here I thought I challenged,” she said with a playful tap to his chest.
He laughed softly. “You challenge a vampire?”
“Well, if you’re not all of what you claim to be, I may just have to walk out that door, get in the car, and drive away,” she said with a dramatic wave of her hand and a grin.
“First of all, I’m never letting you go. I’ve loved you since first meeting you, loved you even more when you fainted in my arms, more than that when I first kissed you and when we made love the deal was sealed...you were forever mine. Second, there’s no car service coming for you. I cancelled it. And snow removal will not commence until tomorrow. I wanted this day with you so we could sort things out between us, since you were being so stubborn.”
She stood speechless, though not for long. She gave his arm a light punch. “Why didn’t you tell me right off how you felt? Why did you let me suffer the tortures of hell thinking it was just lust you felt for me and nothing more? And I am not stubborn, merely determined.”
He laughed, not so softly this time. “And would you have believed me?” He pressed his finger to her lips when she went to answer. “I tell you I’m a vampire and a short time later I tell you I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. You had been debating about my sanity while thinking I was a vampire. I can’t imagine what you would have thought if I told you I loved you and always would.” He gave her a quick kiss. “And stubborn versus determined is a debate better left for another day.”
“So, you left it for me to say first?” she asked.
“Willing, no restraints, no coercion that was how you needed to love me. And that was how I wanted you to love me—all of me.”
She brushed her lips over his, and said, “Then it’s about time I do.”
His eyes turned such a fiery red that Lara could see herself reflected in them and as his fangs dropped down, their tips seemed to grow ever sharper and his arm around her waist grew ever tighter. And she couldn’t stop herself from shivering.
“I need you to be sure about this, Lara,” he said. “I will not do this if you are not sure.”
A loss so devastating flooded her senses that she thought she would weep. She wasn’t sure if it was his feelings she felt or her own, or perhaps it was both theirs combined. She only knew that she never wanted either of them to ever experience it again, and she knew that they would if they ever parted.