“And here we are.”
“And here we are.”
“What would we do on this sneak out? If things were normal. And I was just a girl you were bringing home to meet your father.”
“Oh…” Somehow, she could picture him rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’d probably give you an amateur astronomy lesson. Try to impress you.”
She grinned. “I’d totally buy it.”
“In that case, just overhead is the famous squirrel fight constellation. There are nine stars…arranged exactly in the shape of two squirrels trying to get the same nut. It’s Greek.”
No walls sent the sound of her laughter echoing back, so she pictured a wide-open space. “Tell me what everything looks like.”
“Pretty dark. The moon and stars are the only light, except a little spilling out from the house. We’re in a field that goes on for about two acres, before you’d hit the trees. They’re probably turning orange for fall about now. The grass you’re walking on will be knee-high in the spring, but right now it’s kind of laying low from being scorched all summer. We’re just in the wide open, really. Swallowed up in the night.”
“I want you to make love to me.”
His hungry energy ripped through her. “Oh Jesus Christ. You didn’t even warn me.” They stopped walking and his hands settled on her shoulders. “Absolutely not, Mary.”
The desire spilling off of him practically had her panting. “I know what you’re thinking. That I’m offering myself out of guilt. Because I’m your mate and I might be leaving you—”
“Whoa whoa. Might be?” Tucker’s hands dropped away from her shoulders like forty-pound stones. “God, Mary, you can’t be thinking of changing your plans. This is why I kept it from you.”
“Tucker…I’m scared.”
That brought him up short, his sudden alertness raising the hair on her arms. Her vampire did not like it when she was fearful—and she would have felt bad for using his protectiveness against him if it wasn’t true. She was scared. “Why?”
“I wasn’t scared to marry Hadrian before, because there has only ever been isolation and solitude for me. Anything was better than that. Don’t you understand? So I was just running toward it with open arms, ready to make any tradeoff necessary to bring my family back together. But now there’s you. I’m not alone or isolated now. I have something to lose.”
“I can’t give you what he can,” Tucker ground out.
“Stop telling yourself what you can’t give me. And believe in what you can.” She shrugged his jacket off her shoulders, let it slough to the ground and started unbuttoning her shirt. “Of course I was willing to do anything to get my sight back. To be whole. It was the reason my mother and I were left behind. My blindness has been a curse my whole life. But you don’t make it feel like that. You fill my head with beauty. You make me feel like I’m already whole. Like I don’t need to change a single thing to be accepted or loved.”
“You don’t,” he said without hesitation, coming closer, so close his voice was above her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I already love you, goddammit, Mary.”
She reached up and thread her fingers into his hair. “I love you, too.”
Tucker made a choked sound and then his mouth was on hers, communicating his desperation with every soft twist of his lips on her, every sweep of his tongue. She bloomed under the kiss, her heart opening for him, as if he were the sunshine, her breasts growing tender against the hard pressure of his chest. His fingertips were reverent on her face, tracing her cheekbones, cupping her jaw, but they traveled south as the kiss grew wilder, scrubbing down to her hips and clutching, securing their lower bodies tightly together and groaning into Mary’s mouth.
“I’m just the girl you brought home to meet your father,” she whispered in between kisses, her feminine power so rich, she was immediately drunk on it. “We’ve just snuck out to be alone.” Her lips curved wickedly against his. “You’ve impressed me with your astronomy. What happens next?”
His palms raked down over Mary’s buttocks, urging her up on tiptoes, lifting her slightly so her sex bore down on his erection, his head falling back on a long moan. “I act like a gentleman, bring you back to the house and tuck you safely into bed?”
“No.” Emboldened by the unsteadiness in his tone, the thickness of his shaft and the knowledge that she was his mate, Mary took the collar of his shirt in her grip and leapt, wrapping her legs around his hips. “That’s not really what you want, Tucker,” she whispered, raking her teeth up to his ear and biting. “Try again.”
His hand slipped into the waistband of her skirt, kept going until his touch invaded her panties to knead her bottom. “Mary, you don’t understand what you’re asking me,” he rasped, capturing her mouth for a thorough kiss. “I want more than anything to pretend we’re a normal, human couple, but we’re not. I’m a predator and you’re my mate. If you let me inside this body, it’ll be the end of my fucking leash.” A slicing sound signaled the dropping of his fangs and the grip on her backside turned bruising. “I’m going to need everything. Going to need your blood. And…”