“Sorry?” I asked.
“Later you can ask me whatever you want. Now, you’ll ask two questions.”
I stared at him and curiosity, as it had a way of doing, got the best of me.
I started with, “How old are you?”
“Eight hundred and twenty-two.”
I felt my lips part and my eyes grow wide. The instant he caught my look, his eyes went hooded.
“Wow,” I breathed, “you’re old.”
His eyes stayed hooded and he smiled, making it the sexiest smile I’d ever seen in my life except the first one I witnessed from him at my Selection the minute I clapped eyes on him when he heard me verbally drooling over how handsome he was.
This one, however, was up close so it was even better.
“Second question,” he prompted, taking me out of my sexy smile reverie.
I tried to decide. There were too many.
Then it came to me. “How do you stop from hurting me?”
His head cocked sharply to the side and he asked, “Pardon?”
“You can throw a car, Lucien,” I said softly. “How do you hug me and not crush my bones?”
His hand slid through my hair then twisted back in it and he explained, “It’s like speaking two languages from birth. It’s second nature. You can think, speak, read and write in them both. You just learn from the minute you’re born how to be a vampire and how to live in the mortal’s world. It’s rare I’ll lose control or any vampire will and it only happens when emotions are high,” he paused, “or when it’s deliberate.”
“It’s like you speak two body languages?” I asked. “Fluently?”
“Exactly like that, yes.”
I thought that was kind of cool. Then something occurred to me that was seriously not cool and my heart skipped a beat.
He heard it and called, “Leah?”
Before I could lose my courage, I blurted, “Emotions are high when you have sex.”
His hand fisted in my hair, his other arm growing tighter.
“Yes,” he agreed.
My breath caught, my body tensed then automatically I tried to draw away.
His arm got even tighter and his face dipped closer. “I’ll not hurt you.”
“Have you ever hurt anyone else?”
“Never.”
“You said that about the feeding,” I whispered.
“Leah –”
“Maybe we should –”
His face got even closer. “No you don’t,” he warned. “I was a week without food when I lost control at your first feeding and you were far more excited than I could imagine. Not than I could desire, but definitely than I could imagine, especially at that point in our relationship.”