but when he opened his mouth to tell her he couldn't stay, the words wouldn't come. Instead, he bent his head and kissed her, kissed her with all the bittersweet longing that had tormented him for the past two weeks.
And when the kiss ended, she took him by the hand and led him into her bedroom.
He saw it all in a quick glance: the dresser and nightstand made of burnished oak, the large oval mirror that reflected her image, but not his, the double bed covered with a colorful cotton throw.
Leanne stood in the middle of the room, her heart pounding wildly in her breast as she waited for Jason to take her in his arms.
Instead, he pressed a kiss to her cheek, and when he looked at her, his eyes were filled with doubts. "Are you sure?"
She nodded, and then she reached under his shirt, letting her fingers slide up and down the length of his back. His skin was firm and cool beneath her hand.
With a suddenness that startled her, he swung her into his arms and covered her mouth with his, kissing her until she was breathless, weightless, aware of nothing in all the world but the iron-hard arms that held her. His face blocked everything else from her vision, and she stared up into his eyes, eyes that burned with a bright blue flame.
"Jason." She whispered his name, just his name, but it conveyed all the loneliness she'd felt during their separation, her anguish at the thought of never seeing him again, the deep void his absence had left in her life.
"I know," he said, his voice thick with unshed tears. "I know."
Gently, he placed her on the bed, his hands moving over her face, lightly tracing the outline of her lips, her brows, the delicate curve of her cheek.
"Leanne, beloved?"
He bent to kiss her again, and yet again, knowing he could never get enough of her, knowing that, if he existed for another three hundred years, he would never love like this again.
Leanne stroked his brow. It was so good to touch him again, to know that he still cared. Their separation had not been easy for him, either, she thought. There was a dark, haunted look in his eyes that had not been there before, a pain so deep it made her want to weep.
"Jason, let us go on as before."
His expression mirrored his surprise. "You can't mean that?"
"I do. I don't care that you're a?"
"You say you don't care," he remarked quietly, "yet you can't even say the word."
"Vampire. Vampire! I don't care what you are, only say you won't leave me, that you'll be a part of my life again."
"What kind of life can you have with me?" he asked in a voice filled with self-loathing. "How long will you be content with a man?a monster?who can never share the daylight with you, who can come to you only at night, who sometimes feeds on the living because he can't resist the urge to kill, because he can't always control his fiendish hunger, his rage?"
"I'll help you," she replied fervently. "I'll love you so completely you won't have to be angry anymore. And if you need to take someone's blood, you can take mine."
He gazed into the depths of her eyes, eyes filled with trust and hope, and for a moment he let himself believe that such a life was possible.
Knowing it was wrong, knowing that to touch her now would only bring them both pain later on, he kissed her.
Kissed her because he loved her so much, wanted her so much, needed her so desperately.
He began to undress her then, his hands moving reverently over her body as he reacquainted himself with the gentle contours of her body, the softness of her skin.
He closed his eyes, his joy so fierce it was almost agony, as she rid him of his clothes. She explored his hard-muscled body freely, letting her fingertips glide over the width of his shoulders, down his flat belly, the length of his thighs.
His response to her touch was instant, bringing a smile to her lips and a warm glow of pleasure to her eyes. He groaned softly as he drew her up against him, the lush curves of her body filling the emptiness in his.
His mouth covered hers again in a long, hungry kiss, and he knew if he held her and kissed her for the rest of his life, it wouldn't be enough.