The Last of the Red Hot Vampires - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,60

asked, suddenly breathless as he knelt on the bed and started crawling up my legs.

He stopped, his face impassive, but inside him a great well of pain existed. "I have loved women before, Portia. I don't think I could have lasted as long as I have without occasionally being in love, caring for someone, and receiving love in return."

A knife twisted in my heart. It was unreasonable for me to expect that Theo could live the thousand plus years he had lived without falling in love, but my heart refused to recognize reason.

"What I feel for you is...different."

Different could be good. Different could be...oh, who was I fooling? Different was horrible. I didn't want to be different - I wanted Theo to love me just as much as he loved the other women in his life. I wanted the same place in his affections, to mean something to him other than a means to an end. I wanted him to love me as much as I was coming to love him!

"I see." My throat ached with unshed tears of self-pity. "These women you loved...were they immortal?"

"No. I knew when I began with them that the relationship was finite. I knew they would grow old, and there would come a time when they would die, and I would be left alone again." He sat back on his heels and unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it onto a nearby chair. With a look in his eye that warmed me despite the pain, he continued up the length of my body. "You, as I said, are different. Whether by Joining as my Beloved, or by acceptance into the Court, you will be immortal."

"Which means that when you grow tired of me, you won't be able to count on attrition to get rid of me."

His breath feathered against my mouth as he settled onto my body. "I have never grown tired of any of the women whom I loved. I mourned their passings, and felt myself diminished for a time."

"And then you got over it and fell in love again." The pain hurt so deeply in me that I wondered if there would ever be an end to it.

"Yes. But now there is you, and you, as I said, are different."

His lips brushed mine as he spoke. I wanted so badly to kiss him, to taste him, to merge myself with him that my body shook. But the pain at his confession was too much, too much for me to live with. I couldn't do it.

"I need you, Portia."

Hot tears leaked out of my eyes as I closed them tightly, turning my head to the side to avoid the torturous lure of his mouth. Oh, yes, he needed me. He needed me for sustenance. He needed me to help him achieve his greatest wish - salvation. He needed me not in the way a man needs a woman, but as a partner, someone sharing an adventure, bonded by circumstances into a symbiotic relationship.

You, my love, will be with me forever. You will be mine to love, mine to share the joys of life, mine to explore all the possibilities that lie before us.

I looked at him through eyes made blurry with tears. I wanted so much to believe him, but the pain was too deep to be erased with a few easily spoken words.

You complete me, Portia, don't you feel that? His eyes were filled with fire, but it wasn't just the head of passion that burned within him. It is true I have loved in the past, but I know now that I was only biding my time until you would come into my life. You are life to me, my love. I could not exist without you.

I burst into uncharacteristic tears at such beautiful words. I didn't need to look into Theo's face to know that he meant them - his emotions surrounded me, merging with my own until it was impossible to tell which were his and which mine.

His kiss burned more than just my lips; it scorched my soul with its intensity. I gave myself up to him, relinquished every last bit of me, but I wasn't in the least bit diminished. My heart sang as I drank in the sweetness of his mouth, filling me with such joy that I seriously thought for a moment that I would burst with happiness. I wanted to tell him how I felt, what he meant to me, how the warm kernel of love