After several minutes of that, I belatedly remembered that we were burying a body… and yeah. I was not about to get frisky with a dead serial killer five feet away from us. I pulled back. “We need to finish this later.”
“Later,” he agreed, flashing me a wolfish grin.
“You’re not mad?”
“At you? Never.”
Nicolas allowed me to pull him into my arms. He settled his head on my chest. The gesture was so gentle and human that I felt brave enough to ask the thing I needed to know above all else.
“Do you still experience emotions?”
He hesitated, stiffening beneath my touch. “I don’t know.”
I felt my brows draw together. “How can you not know? You either do or you don’t.”
“You know, old souls are immune to a vampire’s compulsive gifts—no one knows why, really. But it’s very inconvenient. If you were anyone else, I would never have to explain myself to you.”
I didn’t fall for it. I instinctively, down to the core of me, knew he’d never mess with my mind, even if he could.
“Nicolas,” I said reproachfully. “Talk to me. Let me in.”
He sighed. “Why does that work on me every single time?”
“You said you loved me.”
“I do.”
“So you do experience emotions?”
“For a very long time, Ididn’t.”
“Wait. As in, you didn’t before, but you do now? What changed?”
“You know what changed. I met you.”
I let that sink in. “Do you—do you regret it?”
“No!” Nicolas said vehemently, pulling back. He gazed at me, his eyes wide with shock, as though he could hardly believe I would ever wonder that. “Never.You brought me back to life, Eli.”
“Me, too.”
When his eyebrows drew together in confusion, I explained, “I wasn’t really living. I was existing, day after day. I was drowning. I accepted that my life was what it was. It wasn’t until I met you that I wanted… more.”
“What do you want now?”
“I want you,” I answered. “I’m choosing you, Nicolas. We can figure the rest out as we go along.”
“And I choose you as well,” he said softly, his lips parted with wonder as his gaze searched mine. He let out a little laugh. “After all, how could I not? Eli, you’ve given me myself again. The world was very simple and very dark. And now it’s complex, messy, wonderful, and filled with color and light.”
“That’s a lot of words to say you’re cooking dinner tonight.”
He grinned. “Oh, am I?”
I nodded solemnly. “After we get done burying the body.” Then I paused, hesitating. I wasn’t sure if it was wise to ask my next question, but I had to know. “Do you still feel the compulsion to kill?”
“No,” he said slowly, as if weighing his words. He cast a glance toward Morgan Peterson’s body. “I thought perhapsI would gain some fulfillment from it—from the hunt. From ending his life. It didn’t satisfy me at all.”
I let out a sharp breath of relief.
