“All women love biscuits, do they not?”
I smothered a laugh. “Not thirty.”
He turned his gaze to the roses. “I wasn’t sure which one you would want more, so I made both.”
“You had a busy morning.”
“Indeed.”
We had a light conversation about the weather, both of us flirting with our eyes but avoiding the topic of last night’s kiss.
After I finished my breakfast, I was relieved to find that I didn’t have any burning or reflux. “Milly’s magic pill did the trick.” I smiled at the rhythmic jumping in my belly. “He has the hiccups.”
“He?”
“Or she.”
Atticus rose to his feet and wandered across the room. “How long have you been into knitting?”
I gulped down my orange juice and stood. “Less than a year. I needed a hobby to occupy my mind after escaping the labs.”
Atticus twirled a knitting needle between his fingers. “It’s a clever hobby for someone afraid of Vampires.”
No one had ever made the connection that my wooden needles were made from impalement wood. Whenever we went out, I would carry them in my purse, along with a bit of yarn. They offered a sense of security, and I desperately needed that since I had no intention of letting anyone capture me again.
He set the needles back in the chair. “I didn’t hear any sounds coming from your room last night… or this morning. Did you not find the gift pleasing?”
I glanced at the vibrator on the bedside table. “You just happened to have one lying around? A lady doesn’t want a used pleasure toy. Besides, I was only teasing last night.”
Or was I? My craving for his touch certainly hadn’t disappeared. In fact, it was all I could think about during my shower.
He approached and dipped his chin. “It wasn’t used. I had my pilot run a quick errand.”
I belted out a laugh. “That’s even worse!”
“Let me clear the dishes. Would you like to keep the biscuits in here?”
“I’ll have one as a midmorning snack. Maybe with bacon or sausage inside.”
“Very well.”
While he collected the dishes on a large tray, I admired the way his hair was styled loosely back with some locks falling out of place. I imagined his eyes were once pale blue. His features were Nordic, which wouldn’t have been far from his homeland. Perhaps that was where his people originally came from. I remembered one of my packmates remarking how he looked like a model on a romance cover, but I’d never seen him that way. Just enigmatic and dangerous.
After spending time with him, I was beginning to notice everything, like the tiny dark moles on his neck and the way his tongue sometimes rubbed the tip of his fangs.
“Why do Vampires have such beautiful skin? I didn’t think you could have moles.”
He slowly brought a raspberry to his lips and ate it. “It’s the magic of our maker’s blood mingling with our own. It reverses scars and sun damage, returning it to the condition and color we had at birth. Any marks we’re born with, we keep.”
“But you have lines between your eyes,” I pointed out.
He straightened up and gripped the back of the chair. “Well, when we’re first made, all the wrinkles caused by the sun are healed. That includes lost collagen.” He set the last plate on the tray and showed me his palm. “See those lines? We’re born with them. You also have them on some of your joints because the skin is looser there. And we get lines from repeated muscle movements. The transition restores our skin to how it was atbirth, but we can still develop lines on our face over time. If you frown enough, you’ll create wrinkles.”
“I don’t see many wrinkly Vampires.”
A smile touched his lips. “We don’t wrinkle as easily as everyone else, and not as quickly. Otherwise I’d look like a raisin. Maybe the older we get, the less expressive we are.” He set a glass on the tray. “I’ve seen a few Vampires who were turned when they were past their prime. Not many would choose an older person, but you know what I found interesting?”
“What?”
