Vampires Are Foreve(55)

Turning sideways on the bed, he watched her sleep, awed by the fact that he was lying there peering at the face of his very own lifemate. Despite the fact that Lissianna was four years younger than he and had found her own lifemate some years back, Thomas had expected to have to wait another century or so before finding his own lifemate. His male cousins had all been older when they’d finally found theirs. In fact, he was the youngest male Argeneau to find his lifemate that he knew of. And yet there she was. Inez Urso.

Thomas smiled faintly at the name. Urso was the one word he did know in Portuguese. It meant bear. He knew that because he’d had a friend with the same surname almost two centuries ago. A mortal friend, the only mortal friend he’d ever allowed himself. It was too hard to watch them age and die when you knew you yourself wouldn’t. Thomas had grieved the man’s passing, but now wondered if he might be an ancestor of Inez’s. Whether he was or not, the name Urso suited her. She was like a little she-bear when in a temper. He actually liked that. He’d found it adorable when she was babbling away at him in Portuguese, her little finger waving. Mind you, he doubted he’d have found her quite as adorable if he’d understood what she was saying.

Reaching out, Thomas brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek thinking she reminded him of an old painting he’d once seen, and that he’d be happy to wake up to that face every morning for the rest of his life. Thomas actually liked everything about Inez so far. He liked her feistiness and her intelligence. He even found her shyness adorable, and she was shy. He hadn’t realized that during their first meeting in New York. Inez had been the very personification of efficiency and command then, and she’d seemed to be pretty much in command and confident with him as well since he’d arrived in London, but he’d been coming out of the last bar when those three Brits had sat themselves at her table that night and her reaction hadn’t been what he’d expected.#p#分页标题#e#

Thomas supposed any woman might have felt a little leery of having three drunks pester her, but Inez had been more than leery. At first, she’d seemed completely shocked that they’d chosen to bother her, as if she had no confidence in her attractiveness. And then she’d shrunk back in her seat as if trying to make herself disappear from view. He hadn’t liked seeing her so obviously scared and uncomfortable, and that had been part of the reason he’d reacted as he had, that and the fact that she was his.

Of course, the S.E.C. probably hadn’t helped, it certainly hadn’t left him clearheaded enough to control himself and handle the situation as he should have. Or maybe he was fooling himself. Maybe his rage had been purely and simply because she was his lifemate. He had waited two hundred years for her and hadn’t liked seeing any other man trying to chat her up.

Grimacing, Thomas ran a finger lightly over her cheek, smiling when Inez shifted sleepily and instinctively turned her cheek into the caress. It was something else he liked about her, her response to him. He liked the passion she’d revealed both times he’d kissed her; when he’d kissed her the first time in London and when he’d pretty much attacked her here in Amsterdam. Inez had more than met his passion. It boded well for their future…as long as he didn’t screw it up and scare her off with he-man outbursts at bars or attacking her in alleys. So far, Thomas didn’t think he was doing a very good job of wooing the woman. That was something he’d have to work on. She obviously had some issues when it came to her attractiveness and he’d work on that as well, he decided as his eyes slipped closed.



Inez shifted in her sleep and murmured a grumpy protest as she bumped against something, and then sighed and snuggled into the warmth offered as that something wrapped around her. It was the scent tantalizing her nose that finally forced her out from under those last veils of sleep. She blinked her eyes open and peered at the black before her with confusion until she realized it was a black T-shirt, and then glanced up to find herself peering at Thomas’s sleeping face.

Inez sucked in a startled breath, her body stiffening with surprise, but not alarm. Alarm was curiously absent considering the circumstances, and the circumstances were that she had no idea how he had got there. In fact, she had no idea how she had got there either.

A glance around showed they were in her bedroom in the suite in Amsterdam, a glance down showed her that while Thomas was still completely dressed and sleeping on top of the covers, she was naked under the sheet and blankets covering her. However, she didn’t recall going to bed. The last thing she remembered was heading out to search for Marguerite after…