Page 40 of The Final Deal

I trace the black outline of his beard I can make out in the darkness. I can barely make out his eyes, but I stare into them the best I can in the minimal light. “Tell me you love me.”

He comes closer until his lips press against mine. “I love you,” he murmurs. “I love you more than anything in this world, babe.”

“Even your precious Eclipse Custom ESP?”

He chortles, his grin apparent despite the darkness. “Way more.”

The longer we study one another, the more our smiles die down. They’re replaced with long kisses, the sweet and slow kind that you never want to end because you’ll always want one more.

I wish we could stay here forever.

“I love you more, Chiquito,” I whisper. I wrap my arms around him tighter and position my ear over his heart.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I breathe in deeply, the smell of Zak’s cedar-scented soap in his sheets and sex filling my nostrils. We’re all sweaty, but I couldn’t care less—I can’t get close enough.

Knowing we’re finally overcoming the vampire hurdle allows the beat of his heart to ease me into a twilight daze.

A hand pats my arm. “Don’t fall asleep on me, babe. Adrian will kill us if he finds us in here.”

I bury my face into his neck. “I don’t wanna leave.”

He sighs heavily as he strokes my back. “I don’t want you to leave, either. But you have to, for his sake, babe; you weren’t awake to see what he walked in on.” His fingers dawdle down my cheek and to my neck, where he traces the bite marks I’ve been covering with concealer. “We’re both trying to protect you.”

“I know,” I agree with a slightly annoyed tone. “But something’s gotta give. You can’t be so obsessed with my blood that you can’t function around me except while we’re working. Either you’re an uncontrollable vampire and we need to call it quits on everything, or… or you both realize you can handle a lot more than you think and work on being around me. You didn’t even lunge for me when I cut my finger the other night.”

Zak goes eerily quiet, but the silence answers for him: he knows he didn’t run because he caught himself in time.

“You’re right,” he admits quietly. His gaze meets mine as he traces my jawline. “But until Dree sees that I’m doing better, you gotta stay in the studio and away from me. Promise me you won’t give him too much hell, okay?”

“I won’t. I’ll leave that on you.”

“Gee, thanks, babe.”

Reluctantly, we both rise from the bed and redress. Zak reminds me to pee before I do anything else. It makes me roll my eyes, but it’s the little things, right? The ones that show your person cares about you more deeply than anyone else does, that they’ll remind you of the little stuff that ends up affecting you ina big way later on. Including peeing after sex to make sure you don’t get a UTI.

That’s the kind of person you want to be with forever.

We stand at the double doors in the bedroom that lead to a private section of the patio. My arms circle his neck to pull him close one more time.

Zak kisses me repeatedly, over and over until I’m giggling. “Let’s do this again sometime soon, huh?”

“Oh, definitely,” I tease with a kiss on his nose.

That earns me a hundred additional kisses until he opens a door. “C’mon, babe—git before Dree wakes up.”

“I love you,” I remind him once more with one last kiss.

His lips linger on mine for a moment. “Love you more, babe. Sleep good.”

With each step closer toward the studio, it feels like I’m being split in two. I might be on the same property and merely yards away, but it’s not the same as being inside with the twins, sharing a bed with them and being able to cuddle them in the middle of the night when I get too cold or need to feel their touch.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

I made sure that we didn’t have to.

Chapter 16

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