Jo was silent for a minute and then said, "So not being able to read or control someone makes them a life mate?"
He nodded. "It's how we recognize them. That, and old appetites awaken."
"I don't understand, what do you mean by old appetites?"
Nicholas smiled wryly. "After a couple of centuries, most things become boring. Places, jobs, and so on. We have to move every ten years or so to prevent anyone noticing we aren't aging, which helps somewhat, and most immortals change careers every fifty to a hundred years or so, some even more often. But there are some things that we just drop and don't bother with after the first couple of centuries."
"Like what?" Jo asked curiously.
"Food."
"Food?" she echoed with surprise.
Nicholas nodded. "Food becomes little more than a troublesome bother and we tend to lose our taste for it around one hundred and fifty or so."
Jo raised her eyebrows, but supposed she could un-demand that. There were nights when she was trying to figure out what to make for dinner for herself and it just seemed a big bother. She suspected after a hundred years, which would be around thirty-six thousand, five hundred dinners and as many lunches and breakfasts, she too would think, Why bother ? But… Her gaze slid to the empty chicken bucket between them. If Nicholas was truly born in 1449 he was well over the hundred and fifty marker, yet was eating. Jo didn't think for a minute that Charlie had eaten all that chicken on his own while she'd slept.
"And sex," Nicholas said suddenly, drawing her attention again.
Jo's eyes were incredulous as she asked, "Sex? You can get tired of that?"
He shrugged and said almost apologetically, "With non-life mates, it starts to become a lot like masturbation after a while."
"Oh right, you can control them and make them do what you want," she realized, and frowned, wondering if he'd done that with her. Had her passion been real? It had certainly felt real. She'd ached for him with every part of her body. Or thought she had. "So, was what we did—"
"It was real," Nicholas interrupted firmly. "I ca—didn't control you or put thoughts or feeling in your mind. I never have with any woman, at least not intentionally," he qualified with a frown.
She relaxed under the knowledge that he hadn't controlled her, and she did believe him when he said that. It might be foolish, she hardly knew the man, but when it came right down to it, Jo trusted Nicholas and had from the start. Just as Charlie did.
"So, sex can become boring," Jo commented, finding it hard to fathom.
"I'm afraid so," Nicholas said solemnly. "The best way to explain it is that it becomes just a function; repetitive and boring. There's no real feeling for the other person when you know you can read and control them, and once you've sown your wild oats, so to speak, it's just not that interesting anymore." He frowned and then glanced down and muttered, "Until you encounter your life mate."
"And what's it like with a life mate?" she asked quietly.
Nicholas sighed and looked unhappy as he admitted, "Then it's all brand-new again; incredible, passionate, all-consuming, and addictive. You can't get enough at first. Being in the same room with them makes your body hum and ache. Their scent is like an aphrodisiac, their smile makes you want to rip their clothes off, their touch makes you want to bury yourself deep inside them and stay there forever."
Jo swallowed. The man had lifted his gaze to her halfway through his words and his eyes were flaming that silver she'd noted earlier. She supposed it must have something to do with the nanos and the night vision thing, but didn't ask. The hungry look in his eyes was making her squirm in her seat and goose bumps rise on her skin. Jo was pretty sure her nipples were suddenly erect too; like a dog salivating at the sight of food, her body was responding to just his look.
"You can't read me," she said abruptly.
Nicholas stilled, his eyes losing some of their silver sheen and going wary. "What makes you think that?"
"Oh, I don't know," Jo drawled. "Maybe the fact that you said, 'I can't read you' last night in this kind of wondering tone after trying to send me back to the house."
"I was hoping you hadn't caught that," he muttered, flopping back unhappily in his chair.
Jo blinked. "Let me get this straight. You can't read me, and your appetite for food and, I'd say," she added dryly, "sex has returned?"
"Yes, but—"
"And according to you these are signs of a life mate. Yes?"
"Yes, but—"
"Also according to you," she continued over him, "life mates are rare and as wonderful as an oasis in the desert?"