happen to me. After high school, I went to college. I didn’t hang around with the ‘cool’ crowd because I didn’t drink or smoke and I wasn’t a party girl.” She shrugged. “I hardly dated at all. After I graduated, I was too busy working to have much time for anything else.” She looked at him, her brow furrowed. “Who would have thought my first sexual encounter would be with a vampire?” She jackknifed into a sitting position. She had made love to a vampire. Unprotected love. Suddenly frantic, she stared at him. What if she got pregnant?
“Relax,” he murmured. “It’s impossible.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” He drew her down beside him so that her head was resting on his shoulder. “You should have told me you were a maiden.”
Kadie smiled faintly, amused by the archaic term. “Why? Would it have made a difference?”
“I would not have touched you had I known,” he said, a faraway look in his eyes. “I saw too many women ravaged during the Crusades, and later, in other wars in other places. I vowed then I would never take a woman against her will.”
“You didn’t take me against my will unless . . . Did you make me want you tonight, the way you made me kiss you?”
“No. Whatever you’re feeling for me is real.”
She nodded, wondering if she should believe him.
“The attraction between us is genuine, Kadie. I swear it on my honor as a knight.”
She ran her hands over his chest. “So many scars,” she marveled. “Were you in a lot of battles?”
“So many that I lost count.”
She traced the thin white scar on his cheek. “How’d you get this one?”
“Knife.”
She ran her fingertips over the shiny white scar that ran from his shoulder to his navel. “And this one?”
“Sword.”
She grimaced, thinking such a wound must have been terribly painful. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like, fighting with swords. Shooting someone seems much easier than skewering your enemy with a sword, feeling the blade penetrate his flesh,” she said, shuddering.
Saintcrow chuckled. “Your idea of pillow talk is a bit unusual. Most women want to hear promises of undying loyalty and affection.”
“Women,” she remarked, then bit down on her lower lip, refusing to ask the question now demanding an answer.
Raising himself up on one elbow, Saintcrow brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. He didn’t have to read her mind to know what she was thinking. Lowering his head, he cupped her cheek, then kissed her gently. “There haven’t been as many as you might think.”
“One would be too many,” she retorted, surprised by her jealousy. He was a man who had lived a very long time, not a monk.
“I’ve never truly loved any woman,” he said. “Does that make you feel better?”
“It would, if I believed you.”
“You don’t?”
“You’re over nine hundred years old, and you’re gorgeous. I’m sure women throughout time have been throwing themselves at your feet.”
“Well,” he said, grinning, “I can’t deny that.”
“You’ve never been married?”
“Once. It was an arranged marriage, as most of them were in those days. Eleanor died in childbirth and our daughter with her. I joined the Crusades shortly after that.”
“And then you became a vampire.”
He nodded. “And marriage in the traditional sense was no longer an option.”
“You could have married a vampire.”
“Perhaps. But very few vampires marry. A mortal union that lasts seventy years is a rarity. A vampire marriage could last for centuries.”
“But if you loved someone, wouldn’t you want to be with her forever?”
“I’ve never met anyone I wanted to spend eternity with.” His gaze moved over her, leaving silky frissons of pleasure in its wake. “Until now.”
Kadie blinked at him. She needed to say something, she thought. But what? He hadn’t said he loved her, but maybe that was a given, if he wanted to spend forever with her. Of course, that was impossible. She didn’t have forever. Did she want to spend the rest of her life with a vampire? Not that it made any difference. At the moment, she didn’t have any other choice. She was his for as long as he wanted her.
“It’s late,” he said. “I need to feed, and you should get some rest.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
She lifted a hand to her neck, a question in her eyes.
“I need more than I want to take from you,” he explained.
“You’re going to drink from one of the other women here?” The thought sent an unexpected bolt of jealousy clean through her.