He hadn't even broken a sweat.
He was changing in ways both subtle and profound, while she was still just...human. Ordinary. Even less than that because she was damaged.
No.
She wasn't going to think like that. Not tonight. Tonight, they had finally said those most important words to each other, and those three words had transformed everything and nothing. It was just a truth that both of them had known for days but had been too afraid to verbalize.
It was a big deal.
Dimitri walked over to the combined beds, fluffed the two pillows, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Come here." He grinned and patted the spot beside him.
That cocky grin did things to her.
It made her knees weak, and her heart race, and her body remember all the ways Dimitri had touched her, all the pleasure he'd given her, all the promises implicit in that gorgeous, devastating smile.
Was it her imagination, or was he becoming more handsome by the day?
She studied him as she crossed the room, cataloging the changes she'd noticed over the past few days. His jaw seemed a little more defined, the angles sharper and more striking. His neck had thickened slightly, the muscles there more pronounced. His eyes, those beautiful eyes that had first caught her attention, seemed brighter now, more vivid, like someone had turned up the intensity of their color. And his hair was fuller, shinier, the kind of hair that belonged in a shampoo commercial.
The transformation was subtle enough that she convinced herself she was imagining it.
It couldn't be the transition into immortality causing all these changes. It had only been a few days. As the saying went, beauty was in the eye of the beholder, and her loving eyes were seeing him as more handsome because her heart had finally admitted to loving him.
That was a nicer explanation, and she decided to believe it.
The muscle in her left leg spasmed without warning just as she reached the bed, and she stumbled forward. Moving faster than was humanly possible, Dimitri caught her, and that cocky smile vanished.
"Are you okay?" he asked, worry creasing his forehead.
"I'm fine," she said sharply, frustration bleeding through despite her best efforts. "Just a cramp. It happens after I stay on my feet for too long without stretching."
He guided her to the bed, setting her down with infinite gentleness. But she didn't want to be handled like something fragile. She'd spent too many years being treated like a broken thing that might shatter with a push of a finger.
"Let's take care of that cramp." He sat on the bed next to her, lifted her legs onto his lap, and started working at the tight muscles of her calves.
"It's okay, Dimitri. You don't have to. I can…"
"I know you can, but I want to do this." His voice was calm, matter-of-fact.
She tried to pull her legs away, but he held them firmly, not roughly but with enough strength that she couldn't break free without a real struggle. And she wasn't sure she wanted to struggle. The massage felt good, his skilled fingers finding the knots of tension and working them loose as if he had studied physical therapy and practiced it half his life.
He reached for the waistband of her pants and pulled.
"What are you doing?"
"A massage is not a massage with fabric in the way." Before she could object, he'd tugged her pants down past her knees and then off completely, exposing her legs to the lamplight and to his gaze.
Mattie wanted to die.
He'd seen her naked before, and he'd even seen her ruined legs, but for some reason, having him look at them now felt worse because he was becoming even more gorgeous, more perfect.
Her legs were a roadmap of damage—scars crisscrossing the skin in pale, raised lines, muscles that had healed unevenly, patches where the texture was wrong, where the flesh had been burned or cut or crushed and had knit itself back together in ways that were functional but ugly.
His fingers continued their work, kneading the knotted muscle of her left calf, the one that gave her the most trouble. He didn't flinch from the uneven skin, didn't hesitate when his hands passed over the worst of the scarring. His touch remained steady, professional almost, like a doctor treating a patient.
The tears came without warning, welling up in her eyes before she could stop them. She blinked furiously, refusing to let them fall, keeping her face turned away so he wouldn't see her meltdown.
"Why are you crying?" Dimitri asked quietly. "Does it hurt?"
