about me than most people could learn in a lifetime. You know my character and what I stand for. And you know this is no passing fling. This is forever.”
“Forever.” She tasted the word. “That’s a long time, Traian.”
The water poured over her body and steam encircled them as she leaned into him so that the tips of her breasts pressed against his chest. She felt him hard and thick and heavy with a man’s need, a temptation and a pleading.
“Forever is quite tedious and endless without you. With you, forever is gone in moments.”
“You’re asking me to make a decision, the enormity of which I can’t possibly comprehend. I love my family, Traian. I really love them and would never be happy without them. I don’t really know what you’re asking of me, but I think it’s far more than I’ve comprehended.”
He bent his head to hers. Close. His mouth was inches from hers. “I know what I am asking of you, and I know you have reservations about your family. I do not want to go back to an existence without you. Spend your life with me, Joie,” Traian tempted softly. He feathered kisses down her face, over the corners of her mouth. His teeth tugged at her bottom lip. “Spend several lifetimes with me, an eternity. Be with me. Say you want me that much. Let me be part of your family.”
She looked up at him, at the intensity burning in his eyes. His emotion was so strong, so hot, it branded her, seared her all the way to her heart. Joie felt the pull of his need, of his loneliness. He was a dangerous predator, not quite human. Powerful beyond anything she had ever dreamed of. And sexy. Heart-stoppingly sexy. Her arms, of their own volition, were already sliding around his neck, her body molding itself to his.
“Can we be together, Traian? How? Tell me how.” Because she had been alone in the midst of a family she loved. Always surrounded by people, friends, family, she was always apart. She never knew why until she heard his voice. Something had been missing from deep inside her, some essential part of her.
Somehow, with Traian, she felt safe and at peace. She didn’t know why, she was a very independent and self-reliant person, but something in her kept demanding she search all four corners of the Earth, the highest peaks, the deepest caves, everywhere, although she had no idea what she was searching for until she’d found . . . him. Traian. He held the missing piece of her.
“It doesn’t make sense when you sleep beneath the ground and I can’t.”
“You can become as I am. You would still be Joie, still part of your family, but with the gifts and the vulnerabilities of my race. Or I can age as you age. My strength will weaken and I will be more vulnerable to our enemies. It is your happiness that counts, Joie. I want to be in your life always.”
Butterfly wings fluttered in the pit of her stomach. She felt she was on the edge of a great precipice. Joie tried to pull back before it was too late. The enormity of what he was offering was both frightening and exhilarating. He swamped her with his loneliness, with the intensity of her own feelings, so completely foreign to her. She tried to take refuge in humor. “I don’t even know if you’re good in bed.”
“I want you to acknowledge to me that you know what I am offering you.” His mouth skimmed over her face, tracing her high cheekbones, her chin, moved lower to find the pulse beating frantically in her neck. His warm breath bathed her in heat, a seductive temptation every bit as powerful as the feel of his body heavy with need.
She was in his mind, saw the choices clearly. His teeth sinking deep, making her his, bringing her into his world. Or Traian staying with her as if he were human, aging along with her, his great strength slowly fading, always vulnerable to enemies. Two choices. Two worlds. Only a heartbeat of time to choose.
She knew she needed to answer him not because he demanded it, but because the intensity of her feeling for him was so strong, she needed to settle her future in her own mind. His teeth nipped her skin, his tongue swirled over the tiny ache. She felt the throb in her deepest core, the clenching of muscles aching