The same confused frown puckered her brow as Claire unwound her legs from his waist. He set her gently on her feet and she leaned back against the wall, her arms still slung over his shoulders. “You think Vanessa is my daughter?” She choked out a disbelieving laugh. “I would have been fourteen when she was born!”
Now it was Mikhail’s turn to be confused. “You didn’t deny you had a child. And you said yourself that your child’s father was an asshole.”
Claire’s cheeks flushed with color. “I was talking about you. That caveman attitude of yours drives me up a wall sometimes!”
He was her child’s father? But the girl wasn’t her daughter.… The gears turned in Mikhail’s mind, slow to move. He took a stumbling step back and then another. The Collective stirred in his mind, coupled with the unidentifiable scent that clung to Claire. His gaze raked down the length of her body, pausing at the almost indiscernible curve to her lower abdomen. That fullness hadn’t been there before. Her breasts, though perfectly round, were in fact heavier than they’d been just two weeks ago.
“For someone with centuries under his belt, you’re a little slow to catch on, aren’t you?”
A bright smile lit her features as her hands wandered to her belly. Mikhail dropped to his knees before her, wrapped his arms around her torso, and pressed his cheek to her womb. “My child,” he murmured against her skin. “You’re carrying my child?”
Claire threaded her fingers through his hair as though to soothe him. “It’s a boy,” she whispered. “Don’t ask me how I know.”
His child. His son.
Emotion swelled in Mikhail’s chest to the point that he thought he’d burst. Claire had never belonged more to him than she did in this moment. “You hid yourself from me.…”#p#分页标题#e#
Her voice was rich with emotion as she curved her body over his. “I was scared. Confused. I still am. I don’t understand how I feel or why. Nothing makes sense except for the fact that I want you, Mikhail. I’ve never felt anything more true or right in my entire life.”
“I’ve lived for centuries. Fought. Bled. Sought pleasure when I wanted it. Watched the eradication of my people and lay helpless, entombed, unable to do a gods-damned thing about it. I’ve suffered. But never have I loved. Not until now, not until this moment, have I known what it is to truly love something.” He covered the curve of her stomach with his palm. “I love this child. I love you.”
Claire slid from his grasp, her soft skin brushing against him as she padded past him into the tiny living room. His gaze followed her, like a magnet pulling metal, as he admired her narrow waist that flared out at her hips and rounded the perfect globes of her ass. “You can’t be in love with someone that you don’t even know. You think it’s love, but it’s just the tether that makes you feel that way.”
Each syllable spoken was laced with a soft sadness that sliced through Mikhail’s heart, leaving nothing but bloodied tatters behind. He turned toward her and rose from his knees. “Have you ever loved, Claire?”
The delicate features of her face hardened to stone. “No.”
“Then how do you know I can’t love you and that you in turn can’t love me?”
Mikhail took in the sight of her, skin still flushed, her right breast and throat still showing signs of the marks he’d given her. She was sex personified. Glorious, sensual, and unashamed. The pregnancy had given her a roundness that she hadn’t possessed before. A softness that he yearned to stretch his naked body along.
She turned her back to him. He crossed the room to where she stood and molded his body to hers, cradling his still-stiff cock into the crease of her ass. At his gentle thrust she let out a shuddering sigh, and he reached around to take the weight of her breasts in his palms.
“You are made for me,” he whispered against her ear. “The gods have laid out our path and we have no choice but to follow it. How could I not love you? We are two halves of a whole. Now joined, we will never be parted.”
“I don’t understand any of it.”
With gentle strokes, Mikhail caressed the tight points of her nipples, plucking at them before working his way back over the puckered dusky pink flesh to the creamy porcelain swell that filled his palms. Claire let her head fall back on his shoulder as her eyelids drifted shut, the dark lashes fluttering against her cheeks.
“I wish I could make you understand how important you are, Claire.” He ventured downward, one palm sliding between her breasts, over the flat of her stomach and the slight swell of her lower abdomen. He slipped his fingers between her thighs and her swollen lips. A low whimper made its way to his ears, and Mikhail’s sac tightened at the sweet sound. “Your blood called to me. A siren song I was helpless to resist. And when I first took your vein that night, you awakened the seat of my power, strengthened me so that I might strengthen the whole of my people and replenish my race.”