Unwilling amusement took him. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I know Emma will find a way to fix that brain of yours. In the meantime, let’s come up with a list of all the things you want to experience. I figure we’ll head to Texas and royally mess with your aunt, and later on have some fun together at Hope’s party. Then what? I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go.” Just in case.
She sampled the chicken and hummed in appreciation. “That’s quite the offer.” She seemed to mull it over. “I’d like to see Paris before I die.”
Paris it was, then.
Her gaze rose to meet his directly, and a light peach filtered beneath the skin on her delicate face. “I also want to have sex before I die. You like me, and I like you. What do you say?”
Chapter Fifteen
Dessie flitted nervously through the sprawling closet that housed more clothes than she could’ve ever imagined having. In every color and fabric, and everything was her size.
There were almost too many pieces from which to choose.
The master bathroom was opulent and somehow comfortable with steel-gray towels, a warmed tile floor, and a bathtub big enough for three. She’d spent a decadent amount of time in the shower, with its many spray nozzles, and now drew on a flimsy white nightgown and matching robe that was pure silk.
She felt like a woman, a sexy one, and not a dying and desperate girl. Even so, she gulped.
Why had her school not been coed? She had learned the last couple of months to relate to people, to speak with men who weren’t her professors, but she’d never even kissed a man until Garrett. She didn’t feel guilty about asking him to engage in relations with her. Even with her inexperience, she knew he was attracted to her.
She was most certainly attracted to him. Just looking at him gave her those butterflies in her stomach she’d read about. He was gorgeous, but it was more than that. Garrett Kayrs was a good man. Or male. He was strong and sure, and he loved his family. There was a gentleness about him that called to her, but if she were honest, it was the edge in him that made her knees weak. The hint of danger and the whisper of violence, both of which she knew he’d never use on her.
He made her feel safe, which she hadn’t felt in a very long time, if ever.
Yeah, she was halfway in love with him, and that was okay. It wasn’t as if she had the time to explore her feelings. She had to accept them, and this was a good one.
He knocked on the door. “Des? Put on a swimsuit. Apparently we have a hot tub on the deck.” His footsteps echoed away.
We? He’d said we. She hurriedly changed into a one-piece blue suit she found in one of the many drawers and wrapped a thick terrycloth robe around herself before padding out barefoot, past the humongous bed that made her blush, to an open sliding-glass door that led to the deck. Garrett was already in a bubbling hot tub, his head back and his eyes closed.
She hung the robe on a hook near the door and hurried to the hot tub, absurdly grateful he didn’t look at her in the swimsuit. It was ridiculous, considering his mouth had been all over her body, but even so. She sat on the edge and gingerly slipped her feet in. Heat tingled up her legs, so she slid all the way in, letting the warm water engulf her.
It was divine.
His eyelids slowly opened, and that metallic gray speared through the darkness.
She shivered and then looked at the quiet lake before glancing up at the myriad of twinkling stars. “Do your eyes change colors?”
“Yes. Most immortals have at least two eye colors, and I seem to have a few.”
That was intriguing, wasn’t it? She settled down and let the warm water soak through her bones. “I like your home.”
“Me too.” His voice was a low rumble she could feel along her nerve endings. “I’ve been thinking.”
“No. No thinking.” Heat bombarded her, flooding her system like a relaxing elixir. “I mean it, Garrett.”
He looked up at the cold but sparkling sky. “Dessie, I don’t want you to make a mistake.”
She moved then, going on instinct. Water splashed as she walked to him and planted herself right on his lap, her legs straddling his. She was tired of not living and exhausted from trying not to die. For now, she just wanted tofeel. “If you don’t want me, tell me now.” Perhaps she’d read him wrong.
“You know I want you.” To prove his point, he flattened his palm over her entire lower back and pulled her into his body, where his erection was hard and throbbing through his swim trunks.
Her eyes widened, and her lungs stuttered. Okay. He wanted her. Her legs trembled, but she cupped his face and leaned in to kiss him gently. Then she leaned back, keeping her hands in place and smiling when his whiskers scratched her palms. Letting herself explore, she traced the hard edge of his jaw and down the roped muscles in his neck. “I didn’t know necks could have muscles,” she murmured, tracing her fingers along his collarbone. He was sleekly muscled, not bulky or bulgy. Just powerful and graceful. “I should’ve known you weren’t human.”
“Dessie.” Even with the hot water around them, his palm heated her lower back. “You need to take a breath.”
“I’m breathing.” She inched forward and licked her way up his neck to bite his earlobe. “If you don’t want to do this, I’ll stop pushing you. But I want this. I want you.” There wasn’t enough time left for her to play games or learn how to be coy. Honesty and this moment were all she had. “But I don’t want you to humor me just because I don’t have a lot of time left. Don’t take pity on me.”
He wrapped his hand around her nape and threaded his long fingers through her hair. “I’m not feeling pity. At all.” With that, he took her mouth, destroying any need for her to think ever again. The hunger in his kiss, in how deep he went, was proof that he wanted this as much as she did.
