All Souls' Night - Renee Rose Page 0,37

wanted to turn her, and I had never been tempted to turn a human before, not after what had been done to Erik and me. I was convinced that she was my soulmate. When she took her life instead of being with me… I’ve had to live with that for the past two hundred years.”

“Bentley, I can’t even imagine.” I scoot closer to my incredibly handsome dominant. I want to crawl onto his lap, to wrap my arms around him, to hold him, to take away his grief. I don’t. I listen, intently, not just to his words, but the feelings he is expressing behind them.

“I allowed an overwhelming amount of loneliness to seep in, which I tried to fill with one night stands, scening with submissives at clubs around the world. I pushed down my need for a connection and tried to cover it with fulfilling the needs of the flesh. Until you. You filled my veins, my thoughts, my loins with an all-consuming desire that I could no longer push away, it erupted into this… this insatiable love I feel for you. I told myself: never again, I would never again fall for a human, for a mortal. I wouldn’t allow myself to feel the pain of watching another one die. Then you came along and made me question every promise I ever made to myself. Damnit, Keri.”

His lips crush mine like an iron searing the wrinkles out of cloth. It’s almost punishing, although I don’t understand what I did wrong, I didn’t make him fall in love with me. He grasps my head, pulling me tighter to him. I submit to his tongue protruding, opening my mouth wider for it. It mates with mine, the ritual as old as time. I wonder briefly how many women he has done this with, being as old as he is, it would be many more than any human man I have been with.

But then again, what does it matter? His experience will benefit me, and does indeed benefit me in many ways. The pleasure he has already demonstrated on my body, the masterful way he can bring me to orgasm again and again, who cares how he learned those skills? The important thing is that I am the recipient of them.

“I love you, Keri. I brought you here this week to tell you that, and to tell you my secret. To ask you if you could be with me, knowing that I am a vampire. You don’t have to decide now—in fact, I would like you to wait until Sunday. I will ask you again then, okay? Until then, we’ll go on as we always do.”

“As we always do? That might be hard to do knowing what I know now.”

“I am sure you have many questions. You can ask them of me or Erik anytime. This week, you will meet other humans who have committed themselves to vampires, and I’m sure they will be open to answering questions too. There are some lovely women at Toxic who have been where you are.”

“I do have many questions. Is this why you don’t sleep with me? Do you turn into some crazy monster when you go to sleep? An uncontrollable beast?” Am I in danger from you? Will you accidentally kill me? You would never kill me consciously… My thoughts continue where my sentence ends.

“Butterfly, I hear your thoughts. You might as well speak them.” He gently nudges me. “No, I don’t turn into a monster. Sunlight is deadly to us. Think of me like a battery, I need to be recharged.”

“Like the energizer bunny?” I tease him, lightening the mood some.

“The energizer bunny with fangs? Sure. If you must. I need to recharge or I get weak. The sun burns us, kills us. I can’t ever be out in it, Butterfly. That is why I sleep during the day.”

“I get it.”

“I prefer to sleep in complete dark, cold conditions. My bedroom is…”

Is what? I imagine a walk-in freezer like the butcher uses to store food in. Oh, he’s a vampire, does he sleep in a coffin? I gag at the thought.

“Not a coffin.” He chuckles. “Come. I’ll show you.” He takes my hand and leads me down the hall and around the corner, to a section of the house that the guards forbade me from exploring earlier. Off to the right is another set of stairs that lead down. There is an even deeper basement than this? My room looks out