“Exceedingly so,” he answered, his head dipping to my neck. He breathed on the spot that never failed to send all my nerves into tingly overtime.
“We’ll both do it, all right?”
“That would seem fair. I get to go first, though.”
“You, sir, are a bully, and nothing but a bully,” I said, poking my finger into his chest. I stopped, eyed the chest, then spread my fingers along the wet skin, stroking the lovely muscled curves. He sucked in a lungful of breath. “What the hell. You go first; then it’ll be my turn.”
“Agreed.” He spun me around so that my back was to him, pushing me slightly forward so I had to catch myself on the rough lava rocks that lined our little lagoon. If you have the strength after I’m through with you, came an echoed thought.
“I heard that!” I said, but before I could protest any dirty tricks, all sane thought left my head as his teeth pierced the flesh of my shoulder at the same time he thrust hard into my body.
The warm water swirling around us, the sensation of bone-deep satisfaction that filled Kristoff and spilled out into me as he drank, the ever-increasing tension that wound inside me combining with his, pushing us both higher, joining with a million other sensations, threatened to overload my senses as I clutched the sharp lava rocks. But it was the more profound merging, the blending of souls as he both took life from me and returned it, that sent my spirit soaring. All the dark places inside him, all the inky despair, and pain, and shadows of loneliness that still remained were obliterated at that moment. I fed him not just my blood, but my very sense of being, filling him with light and hope and happiness. And as his tongue swirled a path of flame over my shoulder, as his body tensed in mine, I gave him the last thing I had.
“I love you,” I cried as he spun me around, his mouth muffling the words. I wrapped my legs around him when he hoisted me up, clutching his shoulders as his hips flexed with short, forceful thrusts, the muscles in his neck and shoulders as tight as steel. He growled deep in his chest, a primitive, earthy noise that pushed me over the edge. My muscles rippled around him as he gave in to his own climax, an echoed sense of wonderment filling my mind as he stood, legs braced apart, the water lapping at his hips, both our bodies trembling with delightful little aftershocks.
I gave his lower lip one last fond little nibble, then released it and looked down at him, my mind still swimming with our combined emotions.
He was flushed, his eyes glittering with heat hotter than any fire, and on the edges of his adorable lips was the beginning of a smile. No, not a smile, a smirk. Wholly male, utterly arrogant, and completely knowing.
“All right,” I admitted as I let my legs drop, aware that he could feel how the muscles in them trembled. “You win. I’m going to walk funny. But I’d like to point out that you did a fair bit of exploding, too.”
“Agreed. Where did you learn to do that?”
“Do what?” I asked, wondering if he thought Americans went to school to learn lovemaking techniques.
“When you gripped me like a vise.”
I took one step, stumbled, and glared when he snickered. The only thing that saved him from another faceful of mud was the fact that he scooped me up and carried me to the lounge.
“That, Boo, is the result of years of Kegeling. My mother told me to start young so that when I was an old lady I wouldn’t have to wear bladder pants like my granny.”
“That may be the result of years of intimate exercise, but you haven’t been quite so vigorous in the past.”
I grinned over the towel I was using to dry myself off. “Just so I know-are we thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the Kegel vigor?”
“Thumbs-up. Definitely thumbs-up,” he said, looking down at himself ruefully. Even quiescent, he was still impressive. “Although if you keep it up, you won’t be the only one walking funny.”
An unexpected sense of peace and happiness filled our remaining hours at the spa.
“How did your parents meet?” I asked after I had recovered enough wits to kick-start my brain into functioning again. I lay draped across Kristoff as he lounged on a plush red curved sofa, clad in one of the spa’s thick bathrobes. Kristoff was clad only in me, a fact I much appreciated as I traced the lines of muscles in his chest and upper arm. He was still too skinny for my taste, but I was happy to notice he was filling out nicely with regular meals.
He opened one eye. His hands were lazily tracing shapes on the outside of one of my thighs, the touch casual, but so sweetly intimate it made my eyes burn for a moment. “My parents?”
“Yes. You know, the people who gave birth to you and raised you?”
An odd sense of withdrawal touched my mind. I stopped stroking the muscle of his biceps and looked up at him. Both his eyes were open now, looking at me with suspicion.
“Why do you want to know about my parents?”
“Why shouldn’t I want to know about them? We’re bound together for the rest of time, Kristoff. I’d like to know more about you, that’s all. Is there something about your parents you don’t want to talk about?”
He sensed me sensing his emotional withdrawal, and stopped, but there was a wary edge to him, as if he were walking on the blade of a razor. “I’ve told you about my mother. My father was a tanner. He died when I was very young.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been hard for your mom. Were there any kids other than you and Andreas?”
He shook his head, and once again I felt a spike of awareness inside him. He was watching me closely as he spoke. “No. He was born later than me.”
“I gathered you were older than him,” I said lightly, continuing to stroke his arm with long, soothing touches, but wondering all the while what it was about his parents that had him so keyed up. “How much older are you?”
“Twenty-two years.”
“Really? Wow. That’s quite a difference.” I was silent for a moment, very aware of his now still fingers on my leg. “You said you were born human. How did you come to be a vampire?”
“I was cursed to it.”
“Cursed? Someone can do that?”
“It takes a demon lord, but yes, you can make a Dark One.” His voice was suddenly flinty hard. “Why are you questioning me about this?”
“All right,” I said, pushing myself up. I swung my leg over until I was straddling his thighs. “What is it that bothers you so much about me asking about your past?”
“Why do you care how I became a Dark One?” he countered, his eyes lightening a smidgen.
I pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare lighten your eyes at me, Boo! I have no ulterior motive in asking you about your origins other than curiosity about you. It may have escaped your notice, but I just announced to you that I’m in love with you.”
“It didn’t escape my notice,” he said quickly.
Pain stung me. Of course he hadn’t missed what I said, but being an honest man, he hadn’t lied to me and told me the feeling was mutual. “I’m interested in people I love. I want to know things about them, what they like and what they don’t like, and how their childhood was, that sort of thing. And you’re just going to have to deal with a whole lot of curiosity about Dark Ones, because up until two months ago, I didn’t believe vampires really existed.”
Mollified, he released the grip he had on my legs. “I am interested in you, too.”
“Good. I’ll tell you all about my boring life and family another time. Right now I want to know what happened that had you ending up a vampire.”
He was silent for a moment, reluctance thick inside him. “It was an act of revenge. Someone I knew injured another person.”
“Someone you knew?” I asked, puzzled why he would be the victim of revenge.
“My wife.”
I sat up straighter at that, my mouth hanging open in astonishment for a moment. “Your wife? You were married before me? That is . . . we’re not really married, but you thought we were getting married, so it counts.”