“Oh, Deus,” Inez moaned.
Thomas opened his eyes as the last of it passed and said, “I love it when you talk dirty.”
A breathy laugh burst from her lips, and she informed him dryly, “I said, Oh God.”
Thomas grinned. “No. I’m not God, but I can understand how you’d mistake me for Him after the mind-blowing sex I just gave you.”
Inez snorted.
Expression growing more serious, Thomas peered down at her and said solemnly, “I’ve never had a lifemate before. I’ve heard about the sex, though, and how overwhelming it can be. I was afraid it might scare you, so I tried to keep my guard up as long as possible. And then I realized how foolish I’d been starting it in the bathroom like that. I was afraid one or both of us would be hurt when we fainted so tried to move it to the bed, a nice soft, safe surface to faint on.”
“But I was too heavy for you to carry me that far,” she said with an unhappy nod.
Thomas stared at her incredulously. “What?”
“Well, that’s what you meant when you said it was as far as you could get us…isn’t it?” she asked uncertainly.
“Inez,” he said patiently. “You saw me lift up that blond guy one-handed in Amsterdam. He had a good eighty pounds on you. You aren’t too heavy for me. You aren’t heavy at all.”
“Oh…right,” she murmured, obviously recalling the incident, but then she frowned and asked, “Then what did you mean by ‘it was as far as you could get?’”
“I meant that I couldn’t wait any longer,” Thomas said dryly. “I was all out of self-control. I couldn’t walk one more step with you rubbing against Little Thomas and driving him crazy. I—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” she interrupted with a laugh and then arched an eyebrow and said, “Little Thomas?”
“Hmm.” He shifted, nudging Little Thomas against her. “He says hello, and wants you to know he’s very enamored of you.”
“He is, is he?” Inez asked with amusement and then said softly, “Well, I find him very interesting too, almost as interesting as Big Thomas.”
“Do you?” he asked with a grin, and then said, “Well, that’s a shame, because the smells coming from the food cart in the living room are driving me crazy.”
“You can smell it from here?” Inez asked with surprise.
Thomas nodded. “Yes. And I fancy eating in the traditional immortal fashion.”
“What is the—” Her question was interrupted by a gasp of surprise as Thomas launched himself to his feet, pulling her up with him. Once upright, she finished—“traditional immortal fashion?”
“Oh, that,” Thomas said lightly, retrieving both of the fluffy white hotel robes supplied with the room. He slid into his own as he walked back to her, then helped her into hers before scooping her up in his arms and heading for the door.
“Thomas?” Inez prompted as he carried her into the living room where the food cart with their meals waited. “What is the traditional immortal fashion?”
“Eating it off your naked body,” he answered.
“It is not!” she protested with disbelief, and then asked uncertainly, “Is it?”
“No,” Thomas admitted with a grin. “But we can always start a new tradition.”
He wiggled his eyebrows and leered.
Inez laughed and said, “I love—”
Thomas felt his heart stutter as she suddenly hesitated. A full minute passed before she finished in more solemn tones.
“Being with you.”
That’s a start, Thomas told himself, and hoped his disappointment wasn’t showing. For one moment he’d hoped…But it was early days yet, everything would work out. She was his lifemate, after all, he reassured himself, and tried not to think about the fact that he’d known times when it hadn’t worked out. When the mortal lifemate refused to be turned and become immortal as well.
Twelve
“This is it.”
“A terraced house?” Inez asked with surprise as Thomas urged her up a short walk to one of many such houses on a residential street in York. Her gaze slid over the stone façade and she wondered if it looked less grim in daylight. They’d caught the seven P.M. train from London, arriving in York just after nine.
“Terraced house?” Thomas asked with surprise as he looked it over. “We call them townhouses in Canada.”#p#分页标题#e#
“But why a whole townhouse for just the two of us?” Inez asked.
“Bastien said all the hotels inside the walls of the city center were booked,” Thomas said with a shrug as he removed the arm around her shoulders to take the paper out of his right hand and leave it free to knock on the door. “He thinks Aunt Marguerite, Tiny, and the Nottes will be staying inside the walls and wanted us to as well. He figures they probably had to rent a townhouse too on such short notice. That would explain why there’s no hotel charge on the credit cards. Some of these places aren’t set up to accept credit cards. They might have paid by check.”