“ You just promised me eternity, you know. I can make you live to regret it.”
“Maybe she should cut the guy a little slack, [...] Maybe Thorne had been a no-show because something bad happened to him on the job.
What if he'd been injured in the line of duty and didn't come by as promised because he was incapacitated in some way? Maybe he hadn't called to apologize or to explain his absence because he physically couldn't.
Right. And maybe she had checked her brain into her panties from the second she first laid eyes on the man.”
“Jesus," Dante interjected when the heavy quiet in the vehicle seemed endless. "All this touchy feely is making me itchy to kill something. How about we quit jerking each other off and go blow the roof off this mutha?”
“Let me go now, Lucan.”
“I can’t do that.” He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. His mouth was warm and soft on her fingertips, weaving a spell around her as only he could do. He brought her hand closer, pressing her palm to his chest, to the heavy throb that beat against his ribs like a drum. “I can’t ever let you go, Gabrielle. Because whether you want it from me or not, you have my heart. You have my love, too. If you’ll accept it.”
She swallowed hard. “What?”
“I love you.” The words were low and earnest, a caress she felt deep inside of her. “Gabrielle Maxwell, I love you more than life itself. I’ve been alone for so long, I didn’t know enough to recognize that until it was nearly too late.” He stopped talking then, searching her eyes intently. “It’s not . . . too late, is it?”
He loved her. Joy, pure and bright, poured through her to hear those words coming from Lucan.
“Say it again,” she whispered, needing to know that this moment was real, that it would last.
“I love you, Gabrielle. With every ounce of life in me, I love you.”
“I’m not going to leave you here to bleed my friend dry.”
“If that had been my intent, they’d already be dead on the floor.”
“Candlelight flickered in the adjacent bedroom. She followed the ambient warmth to the threshold and paused there, marveling at what she saw. Lucan’s austere bedroom had been transformed into something out of a dream. Four tall black pillar candles set into intricate silver sconces burned in each corner. Red silk draped the bed. On the floor before the fireplace was a cushioned next of fluffy pillows and even more crimson silk. It looked so romantic, so inviting.
A room intended for lovemaking.
She took a step farther inside. Behind her, the door closed softly on its own.
No, not quite on its own. Lucan was there, standing on the other side of the room, watching her. His hair was damp from a shower. He wore a loosely tied, satiny red robe that skated around his bare calves, and there was a heated look in his eyes that melted her where she stood.
“For you,” he said, indicating the romantic setting. “For us tonight. I want things to be special for you.”
Gabrielle was moved, instantly aroused by the sight of him, but she couldn’t bear to make love the way things had been left between them.
“When I left tonight, I wasn’t going to come back,” she told him from the safety of distance. If she went any closer, she didn’t think she’d have the strength to say what had to be said. “I can’t do this anymore, Lucan. I need things from you that you can’t give me.”
“Name them.” It was a soft command, but still a command. He moved toward her with careful steps, as though he sensed she might bolt on him at any second. “Tell me what you need.”
She shook her head. “What would be the use?”
A few more slow steps. He paused just beyond an arm’s length. “I’d like to know. I’m curious what it would take to convince you to stay with me.”
“For the night?” she asked quietly, hating herself for how badly she needed to feel his arms around her after what she’d been through these past several hours.
“I want you, and I’m prepared to offer you anything, Gabrielle. So, tell me what you need.”
“It was too late to stop now.
This kiss had damned them both.”
“If you would just listen to me . . . if you would just look at the pictures I took—”
“We’ve seen them, Miss Maxwell. Several times already. Frankly, nothing you’ve said tonight checks out—not your statement, and not these grainy, unreadable images from your cell phone.”
“I’m sorry if the quality is lacking,” Gabrielle replied, acidly. “The next time I’m witnessing a blood slaughter by a gang of psychos, I’ll have to remember to bring my Leica and a few extra lenses.”
“She tried to tell herself he hadn't made any promises to begin with, but that made her feel like a bigger fool. He had never asked her to put her heart under his boot heels; she'd done that all on her own.”
“God, was this what Savannah meant when she said the blood-bond would enhance lovemaking? Gabrielle looked at Lucan with pure carnal need, hardly knowing where to begin with him. She wanted to devour him, worship him, use him up. Slake the coiling need that was churning inside of her.
“You should have warned me you were feeding me an aphrodisiac.”
Lucan grinned up at her. “And spoil the surprise?”
“Laugh it up, vampire.” Gabrielle arched a brow, then gripped his stiff erection and sheathed him to the hilt in one long move. “You just promised me eternity, you know. I can make you live to regret it.”
“Yeah?” The word was more of a strangled groan as she rocked on him, making his hips buck sharply beneath her.Eyes blazing now, he gave her a glimpse of fang as he smiled, clearly enjoying his torture. “Breedmate, I’m going to love seeing you try.”
“Jesus," Dante interjected when the heavy quiet in the vehicle seemed endless. "All this touchy feely is making me itchy to kill something. How about we quit jerking each other off and go blow the roof off this mutha?”
“Apparently it was very lucrative to be a vampire.”
“Her baby wouldn’t stop crying. She’d started fussing at the last station, when the Greyhound bus out of Bangor stopped in Portland to pick up more passengers. Now, at a little after 1 A.M., they were almost to the Boston terminal, and the two-plus hours of trying to soothe her infant daughter were, as her friends back in school would say, getting on her last nerve.”
“The clearest sensation that a human being has when he experiences the holy is an overpowering and overwhelming sense of creatureliness. That is, when we are in the presence of God, we are humbled and become most aware of ourselves as creatures. This is the opposite of Satan's original temptation, "You shall be as gods.”
“Now you're just being silly. He's a mercenary- he's not going to go about penning love letters, and really, what would he write? 'Anna...love you...grrr?'" Olivia to Annalia”
“What was leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason?”
“Durante a rápida estação em que a mulher permanece em flor, os caracteres da sua beleza servem admiravelmente bem à dissimulação à qual a sua fraqueza natural e as leis sociais a condenam. Sob o rico colorido do seu viçoso rosto, sob o fogo dos seus olhos, sob a fina textura das suas feições tão delicadas, com tantas linhas curvas ou retas, mas puras e perfeitamente determinadas, todas as suas comoções podem permanecer secretas: o rubor então nada revela, aumentando ainda mais cores já tão vivas; todos os focos interiores concordam tão bem com a luz desses olhos brilhantes de vida que a fugaz chama de um sofrimento aparece apenas como um encanto a mais. Por isso, na da há mais discreto do que um rosto juvenil, porque também não há nada mais imóvel. A fisionomia de uma jovem tem a serenidade, o polido, o frescor da superfície de um lago; a das mulheres só se revela aos trinta anos. Até essa idade, o pintor só lhes acha no rosto róseos e brancos sorrisos e expressões que repetem um mesmo pensamento, pensamento de mocidade e de amor, pensamento uniforme e sem profundidade; mas, na velhice, tudo na mulher fala, as paixões incrustaram-se-lhe no rosto; foi amante, esposa, mãe; as mais violentas expressões de alegria e de dor acabaram por alterar-lhe, torturar-lhe o rosto, formando aí mil rugas, tendo todas uma linguagem; e uma fronte de mulher torna-se, então, sublime pelo horror, bela pela melancolia, ou magnífica pela serenidade; se se permite desenvolver esta estranha metáfora, o lago seco deixa então ver todos os traços das torrentes que o produzi ram; uma fronte de mulher velha já então não pertence nem ao mundo, que, frívolo, se assusta de ver a destruição de todas as idéias de elegância a que está habituado, nem aos artistas vulgares, que nada descobrem por aí; mas, sim, aos verdadeiros poetas, àqueles que possuem o sentimento de uma beleza independente de todas as convenções sobre as quais repousam tantos preconceitos sobre a arte e a formosura.”
“I walked into my parents’ bedroom and called my Dad for help. And that’s when it hit me—staring at their empty room. He wasn’t there. He’d never be there again. I collapsed on the floor and sobbed like a baby. Over a jar of pickles.”
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