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Her fingers rushed to her mouth and her wooziness hit him like a flash flood. Her mouth moved with thick saliva. “What?”
He always knew this would be difficult to explain to her, but he hadn’t anticipated this level of revulsion. “When I mentioned our diet—”
“Don’t.” Her hand cupped over her mouth. “I’ll throw up.”
His gaze lowered to the carpet beneath her feet. Perhaps it was a mistake confessing so much. He only hoped to help her understand.
His grandfather and the Elders convinced him the time to have these conversations had passed and he feared he’d lose the ability to speak rationally to her soon if he didn’t have her blood again. He’d told her the truth. It was the only thing that quelled the beast inside, but each day it grew louder and stronger.
“It’s how we survive,” he explained, trying to make her see. “There are other cultures that feed off the blood of animals. The Portuguese are known for their savory blood rice from chickens.”
“That’s chickens!” her hand fluttered to her head and she pulled off her kapp. “This is ... cannibalistic.”
His jaw locked. “We do not eat people, Annalise.”
“But you drink their blood.” She turned away and gagged.
“Yours was the first human vein I drank from. We are only supposed to feed from our mates or from the veins of those who give freely—spouses. Otherwise, we survive on animals and plants.”
“Animal blood?”
“Yes. And the English maltreat lesser creatures, sentencing them to a lifetime of captivity before slaughtering them. Our animals are cherished. They offer us sustenance and we provide a safe and natural home for them to graze freely and live long lives.”
“I’ve had meat with every meal I’ve eaten here.”
He nodded. “But you can taste the difference. The meat doesn’t have the tang of fear or the hormones and antibiotics other farmers inject in their livestock. When an animal dies, its adrenaline lingers in the flavor. You won’t taste that here.”
She looked away, her lips firming.
“You know what I’m telling you is true.”
She sat on the bed. “Fine. But that’s not the issue, is it? I don’t care if your cows are happy and your meat is organic. You just told me you...” Her lips twisted and she looked away. “I can’t even say it.”
“I drink blood.”
A sharp shift cut through the air. Her eyes widened and she turned to him. The color leached from her face and the cold intrusion of fear sliced into him. Her fear.
“I know what you are,” she whispered.
Her toes slid to the floor and her eyes darted to the door. Her heartbeat hammered against her ribs and her pulse rippled just under the translucent skin of her throat. He heard the soft click of her swallow. Watched as her fingers closed over the bedpost.
He could smell her spiking adrenaline. Hear the slight creak of her weight shifting to the balls of her feet.
She bolted to the door, but he got there first, caging her between the wood and the wall of his bare chest. She screamed in a broken sob.
“You mustn’t run from me, Anna. My first instinct is to chase and I’m too weak to think clearly. I’ll hunt you.”
“Please,” she cried. “Don’t hurt me.”
Her chest pressed into the door, her hands covering her face. He touched her shoulder and she flinched.
“I would never willingly hurt you.”
Ragged breaths ripped past her lips as she pushed as close to the door as possible. Her adrenaline, her heartbeat, her quickened breathing, it all called to him, rousing responses in him that were unwanted.
His body hardened. “You have to calm down.”
“I can’t!”
He crowded closer to her, his eyes closing as his nose pressed to her hair. “Please, Anna. If not for me, for your own good.”
She stilled, her gasped breaths dicing up the silence.
“Good girl.” His nose pressed to the delicate skin where her throat met her shoulder. His fingers closed around her waist and she whimpered. His lips trailed with the weight of a feather, sensing the soft vibration of her rapid pulse. “Yes.”
His hand moved over her clothes, flattening to the front of her stomach and pulling her back from the door. She trembled, her face pressed to her palms as he carefully lifted her in his arms.
Her body curled tight the moment he had her in his arms. She hid from him, but also leaned into him for shelter.
“I have you.” He kissed the top of her hair and carried her to the bed. “So long as you don’t run from me, I won’t lose control.”
As he sat, she curled more on his lap, her feet tucking under her skirts and her face hiding in his shoulder. His arms cradled her protectively, petting over her hair and loosening the tie of her braid.
“Calm,” he whispered, trying to get her emotions to mirror his own. It wasn’t easy.
He fed twice today, but the animal blood no longer satisfied his hunger. By the time he left the Council, the last of her blood had left his system. His skin had burned on the journey home and his eyes felt washed in fire. The vertigo had returned with a vengeance and his temper held on by a thread.
Cain was missing and the Order had specific instructions to report any sighting of him. Once captured, he would be tried for his crimes. Adam should feel some level of concern, but he could feel nothing beyond the aching hunger for his mate at the moment—that and the damn weakness nauseating him.
He needed to feed, and he needed her blood. But he wanted her permission.
Everyone’s encouragement that he rush through the bonding was draining him even more. He felt their worry and stomached their growing anxiety the longer he delayed. It was why he suggested to his father that the family spend some time away from the house for the next while. He needed his strength so he could concentrate.
Her breathing slowed as he ran his fingers through her unbraided strands and rocked her slowly. Ruby waves recessed with golden dips shone in her hair.
“Will you look at me, Annalise?”
Her shoulders remained tense, her fingers covering her eyes. “No.”
He sighed. Perhaps it would help her to know she enjoyed it whenever he fed from her.
He glanced down at the tight way her hands covered her face. Perhaps not.
“We are not monsters.” Or maybe they were. What other creature could create such terror in another? “I know you think you know what we are, but you confuse us for something else.”
She didn’t respond, but she also wasn’t interrupting for a change, so he went on. “You’ve heard stories of others, folklore and fantasy. We are not like the monsters of those stories, but there is truth to the legends. We’ve found a way to live in gentle simplicity. We do not wish to harm, and we do not wish to be harmed. You’ve seen this with your own eyes.”
His lips pressed to her temple, her fingers lowering an inch.
“Do not see us as a parasite. There’s nothing demonic about our kind. Think of Gracie, her innocent eyes and gentle laugh. She’s an immortal infant. And while she might tease and speak with unguarded honesty, she’s not a danger to anyone. Only a young hellion, just like the young females of your kind.”
The more he reminded her of their similarities and goodness, the more she seemed to relax.
“We have families and weddings. We enjoy leisure and appreciate a hard day’s work. We know love and loss. We feel, ainsicht. We feel as much as you.”
Slow tears trickled down her cheek, but she was not the bundle of tension she’d been minutes ago.
“And this morning, when I made love to you, and looking into your eyes, I felt your soul stroking mine. It was like touching heaven.”
He nuzzled his nose against her fingertips, pressing a kiss to both her eyes.
“We’re different, Annalise, but we’re also the same. You and I are the same. God saw to it when he created us. We were once one, incomplete for all these years, but together we can become whole again.”
Her brow wrinkled as she blinked up at him with uncertainty. Her lashes spiked with tears and her skin wore tracks of salt.
“There you are,” he whispered. “I knew you’d come back to me.”
He gently pulled her hands away from her face, pressing them softly against her chest. He kissed away her fallen tears, following each track until his lips met the corner of her mouth.
“Tell me you believe I won’t hurt you, Anna,” he whispered. “Tell me you trust me.” He needed to know she still believed there was good in him, despite their differences and what he’d done.
She drew in a stuttering breath and rasped, “I believe you won’t hurt me.”
He waited for her to admit she trusted him, but nothing else came. His gaze fell to a point just over her head and he swallowed down his regret. He’d broken her trust and he had no one to blame for the loss but himself.
“I’ll earn your trust again. I swear it.”
Her eyes searched his face, her frown deepening. “Are you going to bite me?”
He drew back. “Why would you...”
Her shoulder lifted with a slight shrug. “That’s why you’re weak, isn’t it? That’s why you have such gnawing hunger, and you can hardly stand up without losing your balance.”
Her precise observations surprised him, but they shouldn’t have. She always paid close attention whenever he explained his condition to her. “The next time I take your blood, it will be with your permission.”
“What will happen if you don’t have it?”
He swallowed. “I’ll get weaker. The animals help us withstand the rays of sun, but my appetite’s withered. My nocturnal nature will take over and feeding will become ... difficult.”
By that point he would send her away. His father would see she was hidden where even Adam couldn’t track her and then his grandfather would do as instructed and take him before the Council. His logical mind would wither and the council would do everything to protect her, as would be his final wish.
“And if I give you my blood?”
His gums tingled and his body thrilled with reflexive anticipation. “The symptoms would go away for now. My strength would return, and the pain would subside.” He couldn’t keep any more secrets from her. “Our connection would strengthen. You’d feel my emotions with less effort. And ... I’d be able to track you from miles away.”
“Is that why you did it? To track me?”
“I did it because my natural instincts demanded it of me, but yes, I feared losing you. Your blood ensured that I would be able to find you again with little effort.”
“How long does that last?”
His lips pressed into a firm line. “I’m afraid, in my current condition, I could lose you. Your blood’s no longer in my system. If you were to find a car or ... an airplane...” A knot formed in his chest. He swallowed against the hard lump in his throat. “Now is the time to tell me if you want to go. I can make arrangements so I ... wouldn’t be able to follow.”
Her frown deepened. “And what would happen if I chose to leave and you couldn’t find me.”
His jaw tightened and his gaze skated away from hers. “My humanity would deteriorate. It wouldn’t take long. The need to find you would consume me. I’d become incensed by my instinct to survive, but I’d make sure you were safe from me. Then the Council would put me down and you’d be free. It would all be over. No more pain. No more us.”
Her breathing quickened. “There has to be some other way to help you.”
“There isn’t.”
“But they’ll kill you.”
He shook his head. “It’s not murder. It’s duty. And, if I surrender, it will be merciful. It’s mercy. I’m passed the point of choosing my own destiny. It’s been decided, all except for this last part. I’m reliant on others, forced to beg this of you—or them. But I can’t save myself.”
“How do you know? Has anyone ever tried?”
“Anna, if I were free, I’d hunt you. With or without your blood, I’d find you again and again. Only, my appetite would be insatiable, my eyes blind, and my heart consumed by bloodlust. The man I am would die regardless and what remained would be more beast than man.”
Her chin trembled as her eyes shimmered behind a fresh wall of tears, her voice small and weak with fear. “You swore you’d never hurt me.”
“I would never let it come to that. I intend to keep my promise, which is why I plan to let you go and surrender my life to the Council, if that’s what you choose.”
“But if I give you my blood that won’t happen?”
“The calling... It starts an internal clock that can only be stopped by bonding. Your blood adds time, but the longer we wait, the less and less time it buys us.”
Twin tears tumbled past her lashes. “This is too big of a decision for me to make. You’re asking me to give up my life for yours.”
“Your human life. I would give you immortality. No matter what, Anna, our souls are eternally locked as one. If I die, your mortality will eventually run out and we’ll find each other again.”
“How?”
“Do you not believe in an afterlife?”
“No. I believe in science.”
He frowned and pressed his lips tight. “I see.” He couldn’t force his beliefs on her, so he let that argument go. “You don’t need to make a decision now.”
Her gaze cut to him. “You’re suffering.”
“We’re all suffering. The heart is an incredibly human organ, delicate and systemically dramatic. But I can abide the pain.” He could bear almost anything for her.
“You forget that I can sense it. It’s radiating from you, Adam. And when we touch it’s stronger. More of an actual feeling than an instinct. I don’t know how that’s happening.”
“It’s because we’ve emotionally bonded. My empathy is one of my strongest gifts. It makes sense that it would be the first one my soul shared. Not all mates communicate emotions as easily as we seem to.”
His brow tightened, wondering how much she actually felt. They seemed to share a ricocheting vibration, but not an actual translation of units of pain.
“Can I try an experiment?” he asked, shifting her to sit up on his lap.
“What do you want to do?”
He slid a straight pin from the band of her apron. “I’m going to prick my finger. I want you to tell me what you feel?”
Her eyes focused on his finger and she nodded. He slid the point of the pin into his fingertip, passed the callous of his fingerprint until it struck a nerve.
“I feel a tingling at the base of my neck.”
“Not your finger?”
“No. It’s more of a...” She frowned. “Sort of like when your stomach tells your brain it’s hungry. You know the signals more than the actual feeling of an empty belly—tiredness, irritability, lethargy—”
“Lust.”
“What?”
He removed the straight pin and placed it aside. “Take all of those symptoms and combine them with lust. When I hunger for your blood, it’s a physical need. My body wants more than sustenance from you, Annalise. It wants everything.”
Her eyes widened. “And now I feel that.” She pressed a hand to her front, just above her uterus. “Here.”
He pulled her other hand to his lap, showing her what she did to him. “And I feel it here.”
Her lips parted. “Adam...”
“It’s not anything you need to fear, Anna. I should have shown you, but you still had so much to learn about what I was. My bite would bring the opposite of pain.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t know if I could handle you biting me.” She gasped. “Oh, my God. It was you! I thought a spider bit me, but it was you!” Her flush darkened and she shoved off him, her face hardening. “Here,” she growled, pointing to her inner thigh.
His neck heated. “There’s an artery—”
“Oh, shut up! You could have bit my wrist just as easily.”
“True.” He wouldn’t apologize for choosing the location he had. “I wanted to taste you where your scent was strongest.”
She sucked in a breath. “You dirty, Amish pervert.”
“I’d do it again if you let me.”
She gaped at him. “I don’t even know what to say to that!”
When he’d last had his mouth between her legs it took all his strength not to bite her again. Even as the blood pumped to her swollen labia and her heartbeat pulsed through her sensitive clitoris under his tongue, he considered taking a small nip.
“Stop it!”
“Stop what?”
“I can feel your filthy thoughts.”
He tried to look remorseful, but he could also feel hers. She was curious and her scent had intensified. Her skin wore a soft blush, and there was a reason she was keeping her distance.
“You want me to show you what it feels like.”
“No,” she denied—unconvincingly.
He smiled. “You’re curious.” And other things. “I could show you.”
“No. I don’t want to know. I don’t want any of this.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is not what anyone wants, Adam.”
The truth of her words doused their fragile reprieve. “All I am, Annalise, all I desire, is your happiness. I know I’ve broken your trust, but if you believe anything, believe me when I say I will accept your decision and hold nothing against you no matter what you choose.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t call it my decision. I didn’t choose any of this.”
“I’m giving you the choice. That’s why we’re here having this conversation.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Would you have me decide for you?” He’d done everything in his power not to decide her fate. He’d thought he’d done the honorable thing by allowing her to have options.
“I don’t want that either. I want ... normal.”
He smirked and let out a humorless laugh. “I’m afraid that’s the one thing I can’t offer.”
He wanted to hold her and soothe her, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch her now that she’d put her wishes so clearly between them. “Perhaps you’d prefer your male friend from the bar. He seemed less complicated and after only one thing.”
Her head jerked up and she scowled at him. “Are you talking about Kyle?”
His personal anger and envy nipped, clouding his judgment. “Yes.” He ground his clenched teeth.
Her mouth pursed in an angry little bow. “So, you want me to apologize for the way some guy felt about me? I have no control over other people’s—”
“How about what you felt for him? Did he fit your definition of normal?”
Her chest lifted as her breathing turned agitated. “It’s none of your business how I felt about him.”
“It became my business the moment I smelled him on your skin. The first time I saw you, your clothing reeked of him. Why were you with him outside of work?”
“He’s my friend!”
“A friend would say goodnight at a reasonable hour.”
“Screw you, Adam! Before you blew into my life and turned it upside down, I was single. I could have as many friends as I wanted!”
He growled, on his feet and crowding her before realizing he’d moved. “Careful, ainsicht.”
“Oh, go growl at someone else.” She shoved him back and he caught her wrists. “You’re not going to make me feel like a whore for dating.”
He yanked her forward, twisting and toppling her to the bed. He pinned her arms above her head and dragged his nose up the side of her throat, his body grinding into hers. “I don’t want you to have other friends. Only me, Anna.”
She pulled her arms, but his hold remained. “Get off of me.”
“Did he smell my claim on you? Did it repel him?” He gathered her wrists into one hand, lifting her skirts and sliding his fingers along her skirt. “He could sense a stronger male.”
She stopped squirming as his finger teased over her knee. Her arousal mixed with his, sweetening the air.
“I’m not ashamed. The moment I found you, I marked you. My territory.”
Her breasts pressed against her dress and her thighs opened. He teased the soft skin just above her femoral artery.
“And when I fed from you, sinking my teeth into this lush skin, your sex wept for me. You moaned and arched into me, your body begging for more. Nothing had ever tasted so sweet. Until the next time I fed from you.”
“I hate you.”
“Yet you aren’t fighting me off.” He loosened his hand, no longer holding her arms, but they remained above her head. He pulled the pins free from her apron and blouse, placing them on the bedside table.
Fingers slipping under the fabric, he tugged, and her hips lifted, allowing him to pull the apron off. She was under no compulsion.
He pushed the skirt of her dress above her hips, exposing her lower half. Her legs draped over the side of the bed, toes dangling inches from the floor.
“Part your knees.”
Her eyes closed and her thighs spread. He breathed in the sweet musk of her arousal. “Could he do this to you, ainsicht? Could he make you wet with barely a touch? Your idea of normal might be nothing more than a frail cage, holding you back from a freedom even you struggle to comprehend. I could set you free.”
“I hate you.” Her eyes remained pinched shut, her face turned into her raised arms as she lay exposed before him.
“You hate the unknown. Because by the look—and scent—of you, you very much like me.”
She tried to hide her body’s response, but her heavy breathing and rapid heart rate told the truth.
“No pain, Annalise. Only pleasure. I could show you, if you’d only grant your permission.” His finger swirled over her knee, trailing softly to dance above the pulse throbbing at her thigh. He dragged the digit higher and her hips lifted.
“Is there something you want from me?” He teased his finger over the soft path of hair and her breath caught.
“Adam...”
“I’d give you anything, Anna.” His touch skated to her other hip, gliding down her thigh, up the inner curve of her leg, and tripping over the sticky trickle of her desire. “There’s no shame between us. Anything you want from me, you need only ask.”
Her body opened, her sex angling closer to his touch. “Put your hands on me.”
“Here?” He slid through her hot folds to the tucked away bud, rubbing softly.
A sharp gasp pierced the quiet and she arched into his touch. “Yes.”
Rubbing his palm over her clitoris, he slid two fingers into her channel. “And here? Do you want me here?”
The tempo of her breathing increased, as did her keening moans. He fed his fingers into her, rubbing and teasing. Hot nectar coated his knuckles, bathing each digit in her pearly arousal and perfuming the air with her unmistakable lust.
“I feel your hunger like you feel mine, Annalise. It’s inside, at the base of my spine, on the tip of my tongue, and wrapped tight around my cock. It’s all-encompassing. It feeds my desire until it engulfs us both and we can’t tell where your lust begins and mine ends.” He thrust his fingers faster. “This is only the beginning. The closer we become, the more intense these emotions will be. It will take centuries for us to burn the edge off, and even then, our attraction will make the sharpest side of your old normal feel like nothing more than a dull blade.”
Her hands pulled at her clothing. Her shoulders pressed into the bed. She arched and writhed against his touch, panting and begging.
“You’re there. I can feel it. You only have to say it. Tell me what you want, Anna. Tell me and it’s yours...”
“I want...” Her fingers trailed down her inner thighs, her knees falling open. “I want...”
“Say it.”
She moaned, her spine bowing off the bed. “Do it! Do it now, Adam!”
“You have to say it.” His free hand tore the buttons from his pants, his fingers coiling around his throbbing cock. “Tell me what you want!” He stroked hard, his fingers feeding in and out of her sex as her body thrummed for more.
“All of it! I want all of it!”
He yanked her forward, lifting her off the bed and pulling her into his arms. She gasped as he turned her back against the cool wall and worked his cock between her legs. “Look at me.”
Her eyes found his as the broad head of his cock rested against the mouth of her sex. He panted, letting her see all of him.
“Look at what I am, Anna. See all of me and tell me if you still want ... normal.”
“I want you.”
“Then you have me.” His hips cocked forward and he filled her to the hilt. “All of me.” He thrust hard, pinning her against the wall with his possession, marking her with his scent. “And I will never apologize for wanting all of you.”
Sliding a hand up the back of her neck, under the soft curtain of her hair, he pulled her head back, exposing her throat. His jaw opened, fangs fully elongated, and as his cock stabbed into her, his head dropped, puncturing her soft skin and latching on to his mate.
She screamed as her channel tightened, strangling his cock in a wash of heat and ecstasy. His seed burst from his veins, filling her as his hips drove into her in a frenzied tattoo of greedy hunger.
He fed from her vein, pulling deeply, drinking her life-giving essence into his soul. She tasted of honeysuckle, and light, and hope. She tasted of salvation.
Slaking the sharp edge of his hunger, he lay her down. He gentled his hold. Her soft moans translated her pleasure as he returned to suckle at her vein, savoring small swallows as his hips slowly rocked, his cock penetrating her heat in a languid way that soothed both of them.
Her fingers rested in his hair, holding him to her as he fed and used her body for both their pleasure. Small aftershocks of her release trembled over his cock and her breath caught every so often. He could fall asleep like this.
But as her heart rate slowed, reminding him of her fragility, he forced himself to pull away. She gave a needy moan and angled her neck toward his lips as if silently asking him to go on, but he couldn’t without costing her.
He licked over the twin punctures, closing the wound, and pressed a kiss to her pulse. “Later. I don’t want you so weak you can’t move.”
He pushed his weight off her and thrust his hips forward one last time. She was tired and spent, having climaxed several times and shared a good amount of her blood.
“Shut your eyes, ainsicht. Rest and enjoy.”
Her eyes closed and he carefully pulled off her cape and dress. He couldn’t bear the thought of withdrawing from her heat, so he rolled to his back and pulled her on top of him, cradling her head to his shoulder.
“Let me stay inside of you for a little while longer.”
She moaned softly and settled her limbs around him. He brushed his fingers into her hair allowing the strands to fall like silken ribbons.
His virility was no doubt a cumbersome undertaking for her. They could only repeat this interspecies sort of mating for so long, before his baser instincts took over. Eventually, his lust would become too much and it would be too dangerous. But he mostly feared the moment when they shared intimacy for the last time, part of him already preparing for her choice to return to her normal life.
She sighed. “What are you thinking? You feel ... cold.”
They were so in tune, even more so while he was still inside of her. He’d have to be more careful with his emotions. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Then I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
She pushed herself up, her body sliding down his length in a delicious stroke of friction that had his eyes closing. Her breasts hung like soft fruit between them, begging his mouth for a taste.
“No more secrets, Adam.”
He dragged a finger up her spine, and she arched back, her body rolling against his as he lengthened inside of her. “I was only thinking of the future.”
Her hands flattened on his chest as she rocked over him. “Do we have to?”
His mouth hooked in a half smile. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice. “No. We don’t have to think about it right now.”
Her smile was soft, her eyes heavy, and her motions languid. “You were right.”
“About?”
She blushed, her skin a touch paler than usual. “I liked it. A lot.”
He laughed. “Perhaps that restored a bit of your trust in me?”
She held up her finger and thumb, barely any space in between. “A smidge.”
His hands lowered to her hips, his fingers pressing into her backside as she rocked over him. “So, the next time I need—”
“Yes. I’ll do it.”
He stared up at her, wondering if they would make it to a next time or if this was the last time. “Anna, I want you to remember this, the way I touch you, the adoration you feel when I look at you. This is me. This is who I am when I’m with you. Anything else is...” His lips pressed tight. “If I change, just know it’s not me.”
“I see exactly who you are, Adam. And I don’t think I could ever forget.”
He lifted a hand to her face, his thumb, tracing over her full lips as her lashes lowered. Her lips closed around his thumb and sucked softly. She bit and he grunted, his cock swelling inside of her.
She giggled and sent him a sidelong glance, eyes teasing. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”
If only she knew. “Better.”
Her lips parted. “Really?”
He nodded. “Making love to you while feeding... It’s everything. You hold my existence in your hands. I’m completely vulnerable and yours in those moments. I feel ... utterly loved.”
“I want to feel that.”
He pulled her hand to his chest, pressing it over his heart. “You can. Right here. My walls are down, Annalise. No more secrets. My love is yours.”
She stilled. “Are you saying you love me?”
He laughed. “Is it not obvious?”
He thought the truth would make her happy, but there came a wave of sadness. When she glanced away, he caught her chin.
“I don’t need to hear the words from you. I know you might not feel the same. But that doesn’t lessen how I feel. I love you, Annalise. You’re my ainsicht, my one and only for all ewichkeit.”
Her face nestled against his hand. “What’s ewichkeit?”
Pulling her to his chest, he closed his arms around her, holding her tight and pressing a kiss to her head. “My eternity.”
She sighed. “You’re like an all or nothing sort of guy, aren’t you?”
He smiled at her teasing tone. “Yes.”