He looked down without moving his head. The view gave him a slice of her face: one brow, the bridge of her nose, a scoop of dark lashes. Constance was right where she ought to be, where he could keep her safe.
He’d lost his humanity, but he’d gotten laid. There had to be some cosmic meaning there. Or not. He didn’t feel like picking holes in the first good thing that had happened to him in a long, long time. Talk about a silver lining. Thinking about it was making him horny.
Constance lifted her head, her gaze tentative. “Hello.”
He grinned. She looked sleepy and tousled and terribly cute. “Hello.”
She folded her arms on his chest, resting her chin on the prop they made. Her bare arms were slender, but he could see the muscles in them. She’d worked hard when she’d been a human woman.
They looked at each other for a long moment. He could see all the usual post-lovemaking questions written on her face, and for some reason it made him happy. If she cared enough for all the usual womanly fretting, that made what they’d shared real. “You belong to me now,” he said, figuring that covered all the important points.
“I do?”
The way she said it, both relieved and resigned, made him stop and think. She came from a time of slaves and servants. “I don’t mean that I literally own you.”
She looked perplexed.
Caveman was messing with his words again, making them come out like he was some knuckle dragger fresh from the How to Discover Fire seminar. He tried again. “I mean anything you want, anytime you’re in trouble, I’m here.” He wound a finger into her hair. It ran over his skin like dark, heavy silk. She was the sort of beauty anyone would be happy to have on his arm. The sort that would stop a room cold.
Her gaze searched his features. “You’ll rescue Sylvius?”
“I keep my promises.”
“Good.” The word was heavy with more nuances than he could guess at. Maybe she wasn’t used to people keeping their word.
“Once that’s over with, you really should come see my world sometime,” he said. “You’d have fun.”
She hesitated, objections, then uncertainty, filling her eyes. “I’m sure that would be nice.”
“I’d make sure you had a good time.”
The look she gave him was pure female. Her thigh shifted against his, severely distracting him. “It couldn’t have been better than what we just did. I never imagined ...”
He put his finger on her lips. “There’s more ahead.”
She blinked at that. “What I meant to say is that you were kinder than I deserved. I did try to bite you before.”
Mac laughed at that. “True, but you didn’t this time.”
“I was busy. I’m only half a vampire, I think that made it easier to hold back. Plus, you’re not really food anymore.”
“Maybe.” He wound another piece of her hair around his fingers, using it to draw her in for a kiss.
“You were good to me,” she said.
“You were good to me.”
They kissed, taking their time over it.
“You left me that book about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy,” she said.
“Did you like it?”
“I did. I liked everything about it.”
“Like what?”
“It wasn’t just about one or two people; all the folk fit together. It reminded me of so much of my old life. There was the wise sister and the foolish sister, the pretty one and the one you just knew would never make a match. And the men had fine families, too, although they weren’t altogether what I would call easy sorts to get along with.”
Mac was enchanted. “And were you the pretty sister, or the wise one, or both?”
“I was the baby straggling behind the rest.” She smiled ruefully. “All my sisters were wed. Only the last of the boys were still at home. I wished I would’ve been older, when there were more of my family in the house. Still, it was grand at celebrations when everyone came home. That’s what I’ve always wanted—everyone around the table, eating and laughing.”
Such talk of domestic bliss was enough to make most men bolt. Mac was too comfortable to move.
“What about you?” She blinked away a strand of hair that was hanging in her eyes, tangling in her lashes.
He brushed the hair away. “There was just me and my mom.”
“Just you? No one to share the chores?”
“It’s not so bad when you live in the city.”
“All the same, lucky for your mother you were there!”
“So she liked to remind me. She’s gone now.” He paused. “But say, I brought you another book. I’m not sure what it’ll be like because I picked it up in the grocery store. It has a pirate on the cover.”
“A pirate?”
“With no shirt. He’s going to get a sunburn.” She gave him an incredulous look. “He’s daft! Even a sailor can afford a shirt. I’m not sure about your pirate.”
“But you’ll give him a try?”
She gave him a wicked look. “If you insist. Although he’ll have to cut a fine figure to shoulder past Mr. Darcy.”
Mac rewarded that look with a kiss.
“Do you know...” she said, trailing off into an uncertain sigh.
“What?” He touched his finger to her chin.
“I want you to know there’s a place you can always lay your head.” She shimmied up his torso until her face was poised above his. “Wherever I am. Sometimes it helps to know where you can go when everything else turns upside down. I’ll always take you in.”
“Would you?”
She hesitated. “You don’t have a family standing behind you. Everyone needs a family. You’ll get lost if you’re all alone.” Her eyes were serious.
Just like that, she had turned the tables on him. He had promised her protection. Now she had just done the same. The solemn look on her face said she meant it.
Mac felt a pang of tenderness in his chest. She’d found his soft, marshmallow center and sunk her dainty fangs right in. Crap, I am lost. But he didn’t care. Not one little bit. A dark yearning stirred inside, but it was dark and sweet at once, like melting chocolate.
Constance survived in a violent world. She might be small, but she had to be tough to have made it this far. Clever and stubborn enough to keep her values in one piece. That moved him.
Logic said the bond they had formed was instant and intense, the kind that happened during wars and disasters. Perhaps there was something supernatural to it, too—the result of the room, or his new body, or her vampire nature.
None of that mattered. He knew one thing with conviction, something that no sorcery could ever change. He wasn’t letting Constance Moore slip out of his life. In the most unlikely place of all, he’d found a forever kind of woman.
Chapter 16
“You did what to my sister?” It was the closest Holly had ever come to a shriek.
Alessandro was fairly sure he’d made a tactical blunder. “She’ll like it in the Castle. There’s lots there to kill.”
“When did you put her there?”
“Right after she tried to stake me. And bit me.”
Holly’s angry eyes seemed to fill her face. “What. Time. Did. It. Happen.”
Alessandro balked. The housekeeping spell Holly had laid on the vacuum cleaner suddenly wound down. The motor died with a sickly wheeze.
“Um. This afternoon.”
Holly clenched her teeth. “She’s only human, Alessandro. She doesn’t even have her witch’s powers anymore. She’s my big sister. She used to read me stories.”
He sighed, but it was an angry sound. “What should I have done, Holly? She tried to kill me in my bed. She damned near succeeded.”