“Yes, for whatever reason this vision was only going to come while I was with you. Like somehow you are connected to it. It was getting impatient,” I chuckle.
“Yes, well it wasn’t the only one,” he says, and I flush. “It has been torture seeing you so much these past weeks, but not being able to touch you,” he says, voicing my thought from earlier.
“I know. Things are, well, to be honest, I’m not sure how things are. We are skirting around this issue. I need to be more direct.”
He snorts at my choice of words and I continue, “I won’t wait next time to be with you. These last couple of weeks have made me realize that I need to take better care of my relationships. With both you and Devon.” He grunts at the mention of my eldest charge.
“And that’s another thing,” I add. “You need to start being nicer to my boys.” I poke him on the shoulder for emphasis.
“Oh, do I now?” he says in a mock sarcastic tone, staring pointedly at my finger poking him.
“Yes,” I say resolutely.
Bringing his beautiful, amber-flecked, dark eyes back to mine, he says, “Anything for you, my sweet.” He kisses me soundly before I can respond.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A short while later, we are lying in a comfortable silence. I’m stretched out on top of him, perfectly happy, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, while he smokes a cigarette. I didn’t realize that he still smoked.
Devon and I gave up about five years ago. It’s not an addiction as Vampires don’t have addictions, well, unless you count the blood, of course, but it is a habit we found hard to break. As it got harder to smoke in public, we eventually just knocked it on the head.
“Are you happy?” he asks with that knack for reading my mind.
“Mm, very,” I murmur, tracing my finger down his side.
“I mean are you really happy, Aefre? In general?” he presses.
Curious now, I ponder his question as I raise my head and place my chin on my folded hands on his chest.
“Yes. Are you?” I answer.
He looks mildly bewildered that I asked about his happiness, almost as if no one ever has. As always though, the shift is brief and his usual features are back in place, making me wonder if I imagined it. I take the cigarette from him and take a deep draw on it. Fuck it. It’s not like it’s going to kill me. He stares at me with a half-amused expression.
“Thought you quit,” he says, nicely sidestepping my question.
I shrug. “Wasn’t aware you still indulged.”
“Every now and again,” he says, taking it back from me to stub it out. “Stay?”
“I can’t, my love. I ‘smoked out’ of my work office. I need to get back,” I say reluctantly.
He laughs. “‘Smoked out’? I think we need to come up with a better name than that.”
“Yes, well, you work on that and let me know what you come up with,” I say sassily.
He grins, a happy sire now that he has had his wicked way with me. I’m happy too that I’ve spent some time with him alone. The Power is no longer a raging ball which is also an immense relief.
“Fine. Go. But one of these days I am going to want you in my bed all night,” he orders.
A thrill goes through me at the thought. “Yes, sir,” I murmur before I kiss him.
Tearing myself away from him eventually, I stand to get dressed.
“Oh, before you go, I have something for you.” He leans over to his bedside drawer and pulls out a black monogrammed ticket holder and hands it to me.
Opening it, I take in the contents. My eyes flick back to his.
“They are here, at La Scala next week. I thought you might be interested,” he says, watching for my reaction.