I lower my head to hers, telling myself that would be a mistake. If I want her to make her own decision, she needs to have time to decide if she loves me—or not. Maybe in this lifetime, she won’t.
My cellphone buzzes with a text and I grimace. I can’t ignore a message, not as a warden, not when it could be a call to duty. I snag my phone from my pocket and read the message from Cam: We have a problem. My place. Sooner than later.
“Problem?” Ivy asks.
I glance up at her. “Work,” I say. “And a potential problem, yes.”
“I guess that means I’ll walk myself to my room.”
I tangle the fingers of one of her hands with mine. “I’m walking you to your room.” I start walking, leading her through the restaurant and into the lobby. I don’t stop walking until we’re at the elevator where someone has exited and I catch the door. Ivy enters the car, expecting me to follow, and I tell myself to leave now. I’m called to duty, but damn it, she is my duty and so much more.
I join her in the elevator and key in her floor. The minute the doors shut, my hands are on her waist and I’m pressing her against the wall, staring down at her. In my mind, I’m back a hundred years, to the night she died, and she’s smiling up at me, happy. She’d been happy one moment and gone the next.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asks softly.
My lashes lower and my gut twists with a replay of that moment she was ripped out of the carriage. The elevator dings and my eyes fix on her face. I want to transfer my memories to hers. I want to tell her who she is and who I am, but is that the right decision? Once we go there, she’ll know about monsters. And her life will never be the same.
She’ll know I’m a monster.
And so, my reply is simply, “You’re the best view I’ve seen in a very long time.”
Her cheeks flush a pretty pink, and I capture her hand, leading her out into the hallway and to her door. She slides her key into the door and opens it, but before she can enter, I slide my foot into the opening and once again catch her waist.
I’m staring at her again and her hand finds my cheek. There is familiarity in that action and that touch, and I watch a flicker of that feeling slide over her face. The blood we shared connects her to me, as does the past. What I’m feeling, she feels.
“I’m feeling that familiar feeling with you again,” she says softly. “I don’t understand. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like I’ve touched you just like that in the past.” She laughs nervously and adds, “I sound crazy. Don’t give me any more champagne.”
My hands cup her face and the back of her head and I say, “You’re not crazy.”
My mouth closes down on hers, my tongue sliding against her tongue, drinking in the taste of her, my woman. My wife. Only she’s not my wife, not anymore. She moans and my gums tingle, raw hunger erupting in me.
I tear my mouth from hers and lean into her neck. She sucks in a breath, her fingers digging into my shoulders as if she knows what is coming as if she welcomes it. Three bites and she’s mine. It’s that simple now. Three bites would be so fast, so easy. My teeth extend, but as they do, my mind flashes back to the moment I found her dead. I’m back on my knees, holding her, roaring with the pain, her throat ripped out by a vampire. Every second I’m with her makes this life her life. I can save her. I can make her live forever.
Not like this, I tell myself. Not like this, but my mouth presses to her skin and her pulse thrums beneath my tongue, her blood calling to me, but I don’t bite her. I lift my head and I stare down at her, my body raging, but the monster in me doesn’t win. Right now, I’m more human than I have been in a very long time.
“I have to go.” And that’s all I say before I release her and turn and walk toward the stairwell, my pace urgent. My need for distance is immediate.
Once I’m in the corridor, I don’t stop. I keep walking before I change my mind. I barely held back. I barely stopped myself from biting her. If we were alone, if we were naked, I’d never stop myself. That means I get one time with her, one time only, before I have to tell her who, and what, I am.