“Yes, I am. I just happen to believe you’re worth it.” He brought a hand up to cup my face, his thumb running over my lower lip. “I don’t care what your secret is. It’s not going to change how I feel about you.”
“You don’t know that.”
He caught my chin between his thumb and finger, forcing me to look at him. “Yes, I do. You are it for me, Danielle. And nothing is going to change that. You could tell me you have a secret life as an assassin, and I would still love you. You could be a hundred-year-old vampire, and I’d still want you.”
My lips parted at his words. Did he really mean that? It was almost scary how close to the truth he was. Sure, I wasn’t a vampire or a hundred years old. Yet. And I’d never thought of myself as an assassin, but that was what I’d been training for in the past four years I’d belonged to the secret order. It was almost like he knew…
But he couldn’t.
I’d been so careful. I didn’t even spread my wings outside of Youngblood. Not for anything. I hadn’t healed even a bruise on Hayden, or Miles for that matter, since the time I’d saved his life.
I was being paranoid. That was all.
“Danielle?” Hayden stroked his thumb over my jaw. “Where did you go?”
I blinked, refocusing on him. “I’m right here.”
“Are you ready to go to bed?”
I nodded and followed him up the stairs. I’d been up here before to do my laundry, but I’d never set foot in the master suite. Not even when we’d been dating before. Hayden had come to me, not the other way around.
The master bedroom was simple, everything in some shade of gray. Two of the walls were made up of glass windows just like the living rooms downstairs, with gray curtains pushed aside to show off the view of the Charles River and the city lights.
My gaze landed on the giant bed in the middle of the room, much bigger than the one we’d shared at the beach house. Everything about this space was big. And empty. There were almost no personal touches anywhere. It looked kind of like a hotel room—tasteful but impersonal.
“Shit, we didn’t grab any of your stuff…” Hayden’s words trailed off as I unzipped my dress and let it pool on the ground at my feet.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a tight voice.
“I’m not sleeping in that dress.”
“While I appreciate your confidence in me, I don’t actually have an unlimited amount of self-control.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to stay in control.” If I was going to lose him—lose everything—I didn’t want towaste the time I had with him. I wanted to experience everything I could before it all came to an end. It didn’t matter if Hayden was my mate or not. He was my choice. I might never get another chance to have this physical connection, and I was just selfish enough to take the opportunity while I had the chance.
The reality was that if Beelzebub killed me tomorrow, my one regret would be never taking the next step with Hayden, not giving him everything I had to give.
“Don’t fuck with me, Sunday School.”
“I’m not. I want you. All of you.”
TWENTY-ONE
Hayden
Danielle’s wordslanded somewhere between my heart and my soul.
I swallowed hard as I drank in the sight of her body—her perfect breasts, her slim curves, her toned stomach that suggested she was much stronger than one would assume, the white lace panties that hid her pussy, the thick garter strapped around one thigh. There would be no going back after this, but I didn’t want to go back. I wanted her forever. I’d already known nine months wasn’t going to be nearly enough time with her, but now I wasn’t sure an entire lifetime would be enough.
I closed the space between us and cupped her face between my palms, hoping she couldn’t feel the way my hands were trembling. What the hell was wrong with me? I wasn’t even this nervous my first time. My own inexperience had never terrified me nearly as much as the idea of taking Danielle’s virginity. I’d never been awoman’s first before, and Danielle wasn’t just any woman. She was everything I’d never dared to believe existed.
“Hayden,” she murmured, “are you okay?”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
Her fingers curled around my wrists. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
