When her eyelids lifted, her tender gaze held him as lovingly as her arms. She smiled up at him. “Is this what happiness feels like? I don’t think I’ve ever really known it before.”
He lowered his head and kissed her, unrushed, his hips still rocking against hers. “I don’t know about happiness. It’s never been something I wanted or needed. But I do need this. I want this, with you.”
“You have me now,” she said, her smile deepening. “And I have you, Knox.”
“Yes, you do.” He felt the depth of her vow in the bond that linked him to her. But as he stared into her beautiful hazel eyes, he slowly shook his head. “Growing up in Dragos’s lab, I never knew what it meant to have a family. I didn’t know how to feel anything. None of us did. We didn’t want to feel, because in the Hunter program, emotion meant death. The only way to survive was to be a machine, so that’s what I did. That’s what we all did.”
“I hate that you went through that,” Leni murmured, caressing his face. “And I’m so very glad that you did survive, Knox.”
Her sincerity—her tender compassion—wrapped its warmth around him through the bond. Where he once might have resisted the comfort, now he welcomed it. Hell, he needed it, more than he wanted to admit.
“I let someone in once,” he murmured. “When she died, I fell back on my old ways. I closed myself off. I walled everyone out, including my brothers who’d escaped with me to build new lives outside the program. Over time, I had myself convinced I didn’t need anyone, that I didn’t want ties to any place or to any person. Then I met you, Lenora.”
He smoothed his thumb over her soft lips, then couldn’t resist leaning down to kiss her. She melted into him, her fingers tunneling into his hair and holding him close.
He let out a wry, airless laugh. “You ruined everything. You ruined me.”
Her eyes widened under her furrowing brow. Doubt crackled through his connection to her and he wanted to kick himself for putting even as much as a second of uncertainty in her heart.
“What I mean to say is that you’ve changed me, Leni. You’ve done more than that. You’ve saved me.”
She gave him a gentle smile. “You saved me too.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You were never the one in need of saving, and not just because of your mark. You are the strongest woman I’ve ever known. You have the purest heart. The most unshakable faith.” He exhaled a hard sigh, feeling awkward for the fact that he couldn’t even give her proper words to express all the things she made him feel. And yet he had just taken the one thing she couldn’t share with another for as long as either of them drew breath. “You make me want to be the kind of mate you deserve. I want to earn the love and forgiveness I feel through your blood.”
Leni frowned. “You don’t have to earn anything, Knox.”
“Yes, I do,” he bit off sharply. “I’ve taken too much away from you tonight. I promise, I’ll find a way to make it right.”
Her fingers gently stroked the side of his face. “There’s nothing more I want than what you’ve already given me. Your love, Knox. That’s everything to me.”
He kissed her again, each drumming beat of her heart pulling down the remnants of the walls that had served to protect him for as long as he could remember. With Leni, none of his walls had been high enough or strong enough to keep her from getting through, from getting into his blood even before he’d put his mouth to her vein tonight.
“You have my love,” he murmured against her lips. “You’ll always have that. You and Riley both. Tonight, I’m also offering you my bond.”
She drew back, emotion glittering in her eyes. There was hesitation in her voice, and that note of uncertainty carved a hole inside him. “It’s forever, Knox. If I drink from you, it can’t be undone . . . not ever. I’ll be a shackle you can’t ever break.”
Ah, Christ. His own words tossed back at him now, even as gently as Leni delivered them, struck him like a lash. He hated that he’d said them to her. He hadn’t meant to be so cruel. Fear had done that to him, fear of what he was feeling for the extraordinary woman who had already given him more than he could ever want or need.
“Forever, my beautiful Lenora.” He smoothed his fingers over the curve of her pretty cheek and delicate jaw line. “That’s what the bond means. I know that, and I won’t settle for anything less with you. If you’ll have me.”
Her soft gasp caught in her throat as elation poured through her veins. He felt it, reveled in it. Made a silent vow that he would love her with every breath in his body, right down to his last.
With his gaze locked on hers, he brought his wrist up to his mouth. His fangs sank into the flesh and muscle below his palm, piercing the vein that ran the length of his forearm.
Blood dripped onto her bare breasts as he waited for Leni to make her decision.
To his relief, she barely hesitated before taking hold of his arm and bringing the twin punctures to her mouth. The instant her lips closed over his wrist, his spine bowed. A strangled growl of pleasure boiled out of him, every sinew in his body going taut as Leni took the first sip of his blood.
Fuck, he’d had no idea what to expect. He wasn’t prepared for the electric jolt that traveled through him as she drank and the bond between them fused into completion.
His veins were still lit up and humming with the power of her blood, but now a further energy coursed between Leni and him. He saw it in her eyes as she held his awestruck gaze and drew from his vein. He felt it in the connection that strengthened and pulsed with white-hot ferocity as the gossamer threads of their bond forged into an unbreakable, eternal link.
His love for her overwhelmed him.
His desire, which had seemed boundless before, now burned into an infinite need.
He thrust hard, groaning at the feel of her tight walls gripping him, milking him. She moaned as he rolled his pelvis against hers, each stroke more desperate than the last. He couldn’t get close enough to her, couldn’t go deep enough.
