Chapter Thirty-Six

When she said “you’re mine,” Hunter’s defenses shattered. How could she want him, after he’d confessed to murder? How could she try to defend him—defend him—after what he’d done?

And, maybe worse, how could he be starting to believe that she had a point? That what he’d done had been justice, not murder?

That he was now the guardian Bane had called him, not a monster at all?

“Mine,” Alice said again, interrupting the stream of consciousness speeding through his mind.

“Alice,” he said fiercely, making up his mind, for better or worse. “I need to kiss you, now. I need to be inside you, now. More than I have never needed anything in my life. Please—I know you must be sore, after—”

She put a finger on his lips. “Yes. Yes. I need you inside me. I need to feel you, to know that you’re part of me. That you’re safe.”

She tightened her arms around him, and he knew—in some part of himself deeper than thought, deeper than reason—he knew that if he took her here and now, claimed her body right here in the crisp, clean, night air, beneath the stars, that he would never, ever be able to let her go.

She needed to know. He needed to tell her and let her make the choice. Be the hero he’d once thought he was and let her go if she changed her mind.

And then he’d walk into the sunlight, and the agony of life without her—the fear that he was becoming a monster—all of it would be gone, forever.

“Alice,” he began, searching for words. “You need to know. If you give yourself to me now, you’re mine. And I’m yours. Forever. I can’t—I can’t be casual with you.”

Her beautiful green eyes got wider and wider as he spoke, and he tried to explain. “I can’t— I don’t know how to be this person. This vampire. But since I met you, no matter that it has been such a short period of time, I’ve known peace again. Laughter—real laughter.”

“Hunter, I—”

He cut her off, desperate to explain, to get it right so she would stay. So she would choose him. Choose a future with him. Choose a love with him.

“I know it doesn’t make sense, Alice, but you’re it for me. My flash point.”

“Hunter—”

He kissed her, long and deep, to postpone the denial he knew must be coming. The polite words of refusal.

The words that would end him.

She gently pushed his chest until he slowly, reluctantly released her. But before she could speak, he offered her his shattered heart.

“Alice. I love you. I’m in love with you. Please, please give me a chance, although I don’t deserve it. I know I can never deserve it, but I swear I’ll spend a lifetime trying. If only you—”

She made a frustrated sound and kissed him hard, stopping his words, and then, before he could think of what else to try or how else to plead with her, she gave him a brilliant and tender smile.

“Hunter. I love you, too.”

She loved him? His dazed mind tried to comprehend it. How could she love him? She was all goodness and light, and he was…he was…

He was thirsty.

And her pulse beat in her neck, so very, very close to his fangs.

…

Alice suddenly realized that Hunter had gone very, very still.

“So thirsty,” he muttered. “So thirsty.”

And then he licked her neck.

No.

No, damn it, she was not going to lose him, not when she’d finally found him. Not to the warlocks, not to his own self-loathing, and she sure as hell was not going to lose him to the thirst.

She grabbed his face and forced it up until he met her gaze. “You listen to me, Hunter Evans. You just told me you love me, and I told you I love you, too. So you know what we’re going to do right now?”

“What?” His eyes started to clear, and she breathed a prayer of thanks.

“You’re going to make love to me, and it’s going to be much better than draining my blood, and”—she took a deep breath and then said it—“if you still need to drink, I’m going to offer you some of mine. Just enough—not all of it, do you understand? We’re going to have a wonderful life with our friends and Charlie and the animals, and lots and lots of sex, and the last thing you want to do is kill me, right? Because I’m a ghost whisperer, and…and I’ll come back and haunt your ass!”

She gave him a triumphant smile, and, wonder of wonders, the red haze in his eyes disappeared completely, and he pulled her closer and hugged the breath out of her.

“I could never love anyone like I love you,” he told her. “And I’m damned sure not going to drink your blood. If I’m desperate, I’ll go find one of those crew guys and take a little, but not you. Never you.”

“You love me? Really?” She suddenly felt shy, now that the crisis had, if not passed, at least abated.

He laughed and kissed her and then stared intently at her, his hands sliding up under her shirt to her breasts, which he firmly grasped. “Sweetheart, I love you so much I’m going to fuck you—so hard and so well. And then I’m going to keep on fucking you until you promise that you’ll never, ever leave me.”

She gasped, both at his provocative language and at the feel of his fingers, now pinching her nipples, and then she moaned, beginning to tremble with heat and desire and dark, delicious, liquid need. “Well, then,” she said breathlessly. “I think we should get on with that.”

He shouted out a sound of such triumph that she was worried he’d wake the crew, or the people on shore, or the freaking Coast Guard, and then he got to work removing their clothes, touching and tasting every inch of her skin as he bared it, and she forgot to worry about anything at all.

She wanted to kiss him everywhere; wanted her hands all over him; kept making incoherent sounds of need and saying things like “more” and “mine” and “now.”

And “Hunter.” Always, always Hunter.

“Don’t tell me to slow down,” he rasped, his lips at her breast and his fingers on her, inside her, stroking through her slick heat. “So hot and wet for me, Alice. Only for me. Always for me. Let me inside you. Please. Now.”

“Yes— Now! Please, I need you,” she gasped, and he grasped her thighs in his big hands and spread them, positioned himself between them, and drove into her, slowly, carefully invading her body, so hard and big—surely bigger than even before, so much of him, so much, and she cried out when he reached between their bodies and pressed his finger against her right where she needed him, right where…right where…oh, he was so deep inside her, so deep, and she couldn’t…she couldn’t…

“Hunter!” she screamed, and he moved back, pulling out of her, and she wanted to cry. “No, don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

“Never,” he growled, and then he thrust back inside, deep and hard, and then she was bucking against him and he was moving, thrusting, long, slow strokes and then short, fast strokes, pounding into her, his big body shaking with the same desire that had captured her in the middle of a hurricane, a tsunami of need and pleasure.

He groaned again, burying his face in her neck, and she realized from the rigidity of his muscles that he was trying to hold on to his self-control.

“To hell with that,” she said fiercely, and she tried something new, tried tightening her interior muscles around him, and he growled and started moving faster and harder and deeper, not fucking her but loving her, loving her, and he took her up and over the edge into a shattering release.

She cried out, holding on with every part of herself, holding on to this man she knew she was deeply, beautifully, impossibly in love with. “Hunter,” she said brokenly, almost sobbing from the beauty of the feeling. “Hunter.”

“Yes, my love,” he said, and then he came, too, so hard and so intense, shaking in her arms.

They lay there, locked around each other, floating on waves of pure sensation, for a very long time, but then Alice saw the first hint of dawn far out in the east, and she forced herself to rouse.

“Hunter.” He didn’t move, and she tried shaking him. “Hunter!”

He made a contented humming sound. “Kiss me again, Alice. Love me.”

“Hunter. Honey. We have to get moving. Dawn isn’t very far away.”

He sat up fast, suddenly wide awake. “Alice?”

“Yes, it’s almost dawn.”

His smile was as big as the universe. “Not that! You called me honey.”

Laughing, they threw on their clothes, and he flew them home, holding her in his arms, both of them smiling every moment of the way. When they made it to her house, they raced to the basement and barely made it before the sun rose fully.

“I love you,” he said. “Did you know—”

And then he fell down, sound asleep, missing the bed by at least a foot. Luckily for him, he didn’t hit his head. Luckily for her, she was strong enough to lift him onto the bed, although he was so big she was almost tempted to just leave him there on the floor.

Unfortunately, though, she was going to have to wait all day Monday to find out what he’d been about to ask her.

“I love you,” she whispered.

And then the basement door slammed open and Charlie, squeaking with excitement, flew down to her and almost set the bed on fire.