“Well, if you’re usually… ready… when you’re around me, why didn’t you start anything? Most guys would have.”
Nicolas hesitated—long enough that I was sure he was turning the words over in his head, measuring them carefully. At last, he said, “It needed to be your call, when we made love for the first time. I didn’t want to push you into anything you weren’t ready for.”
“You didn’t want to seduce me?”
He let out a soft chuckle. “No, I’ve wanted to many times,” he admitted. “But I never want you to feel as though I’ve interacted with you… unfairly. I wasn’t certain I could trust my own impulses, so I chose to trust yours instead.”
I swallowed hard around the sudden lump in my throat. “And why is that?”
He kissed my chest and rested his head again, eyes sliding shut with contentment. “You know why.”
“I think I need to hear you say it.”
“Because you told me you were hurt in the past by fools and scoundrels,” he said softly. “And I had no wish to do the same.”
“You didn’t want to hurt me.”
“No,” he agreed solemnly. “I would never hurt you, Eli. And I would have waited much longer if you’d needed me to.” Then he paused. When he spoke again, his breath was cool and soft against my skin, making me shiver. “You should know I’ll make no assumptions—not even now. You’ll set the pace of our sexual encounters for the foreseeable future.”
I wasn’t surprised by any of it. But even so, hearing him say it aloud stirred something in my chest. It was tectonic—a continent of emotion slamming into place at the very core of me, redrawing my internal topography forever.
I was completely, head over heels in love with Nicolas.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN || COLE
Ihad just stepped through the door after dropping Eli off at work when I heard the crash of glass next door.
Eli’s house.
Where his sister, Sam, was home alone.
I was out the back door and over the waist-high wooden fence separating our properties in seconds. My gaze raked across Eli’s back door. It didn’t appear damaged. If there was an intruder, they’d come through the front door—or possibly a window.
I listened intently for several long moments. Time was of the essence, but it was vital to know what I was up against.
On the other side of the wood, I heard Sam sobbing.
I tried the knob and found the door unlocked. I shoved it open and barreled inside. Then I stopped dead. Sam sat on the kitchen floor, surrounded by shards of broken glass, a pool of red at her feet. Her face was streaked with tears, but her eyes widened when I burst in.
“Cole?” she asked, sounding equal parts alarmed and bewildered. She, at least, consented to call me by my modern name. Then again, she hadn’t been dreaming of me for most of her life. Presumably. She added, “What are you doing here?”
She was intoxicated—her words slurred at the edges.
“Are you injured?” I demanded, ignoring her question.
She shook her head mutely, and my gaze swept the room. Nothing came at me. No sound of movement. No telltale second heartbeat. Then again, if it had been a vampire—the whole reason I’d moved in next door—there wouldn’t have been. I turned back to Sam. “What happened? Whose blood is on the floor?”
She blinked at me in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
I pointed to the pool of scarlet at her feet.
Then, belatedly, I saw the overturned bottle a few feet away. It had rolled under the bottom lip of the cabinet. I took a delicate sniff of the air—it was wine, not blood. I relaxed a notch. “Oh.”
Sam followed my gaze and stared at it for a long moment. Then something crumpled in her expression, and her breath hitched. Another round of tears followed.
I grimaced. “Damn it.”
But my feelings for Eli—as impossible as they were—apparently extended to his sister. Because I sighed, shook my head, and settled down on the ground beside her.
