“Constantine,” Lance says, bobbing his head.
“Lance. Would you excuse us, please?” he says. “I need a word with my wife.”
“Of course.” He smiles at Constantine, who smiles back, and then with a smile at me that chills me, he stalks off.
Constantine takes my arm and Teleports us to our bedroom. I am glad to note the brand-new sheets.
“Aefre,” he says. “I don’t know what is going on with you lately, but you need to stop this. Your mood swings are extensive, and you are being willful and careless and not at all like yourself.”
“Maybe I am being myself, for once,” I say back to him, hands on my hips. “I am tired of having to be so perfect all the time. I am tired of being told what to do and how to act. I want to have fun, I want to relax, I want to make love in a barn. I don’t want to be on a schedule and have everything organized down to the last millisecond.” I move closer to him knowing that everything I have said is true. I want a piece of her life for myself. “Please, my love. We need to take a vacation. Just the two of us.” I would rather it be the three of us, but I know he won’t refuse me if I exclude Sebastian.
“We have already discussed this,” he says with a frown. “You said you wanted to go to Miami.”
I did? Or more like, she did? That sneaky cow. She was already making plans to go and find Cole.
“Just the two of us?” he repeats quietly as I remain silent, still reeling from this news. The sex aside, she appears to have interacted with him far more than I am comfortable with. I nod and he closes his eyes. “Oh, Aefre, I want that. I really want that. Just the two of us.”
“Please say yes,” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says before he kisses me. “I will go to Miami or anywhere else you want to go.”
Oh, we are going to Miami all right. I have already checked, and Cole is there in this world. He is there working on a movie, just as he is in her world. I am going to find him and turn him and be with him forever. He will be mine. Truly mine, and no one will be able to take him away from me.
?
??Make love to me,” I whisper. “Like you used to, slow and passionate.”
He takes my hands and leads me to the bathroom. “After a shower,” he mutters, and I sigh. Just this once, I wish he had taken me spontaneously.
As it turns out though, this works out nicely in my favor, as he not only joins me (I can’t remember the last time he did that), but slowly washes every inch of me, driving me into a lust-fueled frenzy. Then he sucks on every part of me, from my toes to the back of my knees, all the way up to my nipples before he drops his fangs and feeds from me so slowly, I never want him to stop. He pulls back and kisses me sweetly and I feel his love for me, and it wells up in me. I do love him so much. I always have and I always will. I want to please him, so I drop to my knees and take him in my mouth, and he shivers at my touch, at my mouth on him. The water is pounding down on us and it is incredibly sexy. He is incredibly sexy.
He pulls me up before he can finish and leads me back out of the shower. He picks me up in his arms and, soaking wet, he places me on the bed and sees to me just as I asked him to: slowly and with such an intense passion that only he can give me. I come several times before he slowly slides into me and wraps his arms around me tightly as he moves inside me.
“I love you, Aefre,” he whispers. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, Constantine. I want to please you,” I murmur to him and roll us over so I can ride him. I run my hands over his chest as I move my hips over him. He grabs my thighs and I pull him up, wrapping my legs around him so I am so close to him. I drop my fangs and feed deeply from him as we both come together. I pull back, panting, and lean my forehead on his, holding him tightly.
“Do you truly forgive me?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I say straight away. I had already decided back in her world that I would forgive him, but she took that away from me. I am glad he asked again, and I could give him my absolution. Her opinion doesn’t count, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t have a right to forgive his hurtful actions.
“Thank you, my love,” he says. “I was so worried that this time I had lost you forever.”
“Never,” I say, meaning it completely. “Yes, you hurt me terribly, but I know I hurt you too, and for that I am sorry.”
“No, Aefre, don’t say that. You do what you must. I understand it, I really do.” He pushes my hair out of my eyes with a look of such longing it makes me want to cry.
“Sometimes I wish we’d had more time,” I say, taking his face in my hands. “More time to just be us.”
“You do?” he asks, surprised.
“Yes, don’t you? We had almost no time after you turned me, everything happened so quickly. I was expected to be so much when all I wanted was to enjoy you. To enjoy what we were, what you made me. There wasn’t enough time,” I say sadly.
He crushes me to him as he kisses me. “Oh, Aefre. I know exactly how you feel. I just didn’t know that you felt the same. You seemed to accept what you became with such ease and I just accepted it too. I wanted more time with you. I needed more time with you,” he whispers.
“Then let’s take it. Cassis is more than capable of running the Empire. We can go and travel the world, properly this time. Let’s take the time to just be with each other.”
He looks at me as if I just handed him the moon, but then his eyes cloud over. “Just the two of us?” he asks again.