Chapter 23
twenty-three
BLAIR
Damian sent a message asking for food as we headed into our room.
“I feel disgusting after being there during the fight, so I think I’m going to shower,” I said, releasing his hand and heading for the bathroom.
“I’ll join you.” He tossed his phone onto the bed and followed me.
“Is this a thing we do now?” I teased, slipping my shirt over my head.
“I hope so.” He skimmed his hands over the bare curve of my waist before finding the buckle on the back of my bra and unhooking it. The fabric fell away, and he tugged it down my arms, baring me further.
My eyes closed as his hands moved over my breasts, teasing my nipples.
His lips brushed the side of my throat lightly.
My stomach tightened as thoughts about my realizations earlier came to mind.
My feelings.
His emotions.
All the uncomfortable things I didn’t want to discuss, but needed to.
Letting out a soft breath, I opened my eyes. “Hey, Damian?”
“Mmhm?” His eyes were on his hands, on my breasts.
“I think we should talk tonight, instead of screwing.”
He blinked, then met my gaze. “Talk about what?”
Some inner part of me cringed, but I forced myself to say the word. “Us.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Should I be worried?”
“I don’t think so.”
He dipped his head. “Then we’ll talk. But I’m still going to play with your nipples.”
A quick laugh escaped me, and his lips curved upward.
We finished stripping, and stepped into the shower together. His hands were on my body almost the entire time we were beneath the water, touching me and teasing me while I washed. Knowing he wasn’t trying to turn me on, but just wanted to feel my skin, did strange things to my stomach.
By the time we stepped out, I was even more nervous than earlier.
What if he wasn’t ready to acknowledge his emotions?
What if he didn’t even realize he felt them?
What if he just wanted our relationship to revolve around sex, and I screwed everything up?
Shit, maybe I’d made the wrong choice.
I reached for one of my oversized sleep shirts, but he grabbed one of his t-shirts off a hanger and tugged it over my head before I got the chance.
“No panties allowed,” he said, pulling my hair out from beneath the hem of the shirt.
“Maybe we should just have sex after all, and talk another time?” I suggested.
He finished freeing my hair and grabbed a pair of his underwear. “No. We’re not avoiding the conversation if there’s something you want to talk about.”
I sighed, but didn’t argue.
We did need to talk, despite my fear.
He stepped into his boxer-briefs, then captured my hand and towed my reluctant ass to the bed. Rather than sitting in our usual places, he took a seat on the edge of the mattress, and pulled me onto his lap.
His hands caught my hips, and mine landed on his shoulders. “Alright, little siren. What do we need to discuss about us?”
I hesitated.
He stroked my hips lightly, despite the fabric separating him from my skin. The man was clearly not in any kind of a hurry.
I wrestled with my thoughts for another minute before I finally said, “It feels like you think of us as real mates when I drink from you.”
He blinked, his hands going still for a moment.
“I’m not saying that’s a bad thing,” I added hastily. “We just haven’t talked about what it means. And I know you might not have realized what you’re feeling, because sometimes sirens find emotions that are buried so deep, but?—”
“I’ve never thought of us as anything other than real mates, little siren.” He finally resumed stroking my hips, his steady gaze meeting mine.
“Oh,” I said, my heart beating hard.
“Oh,” he agreed, his lips curving upward. “Do you want to tell me how you think of us?”
“Not particularly.”
His lips curved further. “Can I finally tell you how I feel about you, then?”
“Yes.”
He released my hips and cupped my face lightly. Gently. Carefully. “I love you, Blair. Deeply. Intensely. In ways I never expected I could when you kissed me in that nightclub. I wasn’t looking for a mate—but now that I have you, I would do anything and everything to keep you.”
“Even build a massive pool and piss off all of your vampires by refusing to build a golf course?”
His lips stretched in a grin. “Even that.”
“I found a better place for the mini-golf course. I’ve been texting our assistants about it. The roof will be perfect for it.”
He pulled me closer to his chest. “I don’t give a damn about the mini-golf course. Build it if you want. Don’t if you don’t want to. But right now, we’re talking about us.”
I nodded, emotion flooding my throat. “I didn’t want to fall in love with you.”
“I’m aware.”
“Love is dangerous,” I added, my voice growing softer. “I’ve seen the way it hurt the people I loved most. My mom warned me not to let myself fall for anyone, over, and over.”
Damian nodded.
He knew that, too.
“But loving you doesn’t feel like putting myself in danger. It feels… safe. Somehow, in all the fighting and craziness of being bonded to you, you’ve managed to make me trust you with my heart. I don’t know how, or why. And most of me is absolutely terrified—but I do. I trust you. I want you. I love you.”
Emotion burned in those gorgeous blue eyes, and he kissed me.
Something about the position brought me back to that night in the club.
The way he’d made me feel at ease.
The way he’d solved my hunger without pressuring me for more.
And for the first time since I’d met him in the Manor, I let myself admit the truth:
He was always the same with me as he had been in the club that night.
Playful. Protective. Charming. Fun.
Sometimes, protecting me meant pressuring me into forming a mate bond with him.
And Damian was the vampire king, but more importantly, he was mine. Forever. The bond made that a certainty.
He released my mouth with one last lingering kiss and finally tucked me against his side, settling on the mattress.
“Why did you stop?” I asked. I enjoyed the snuggling, but I thought he was going to have his way with me.
“I was told we were talking tonight, not screwing.”
“We already talked,” I pointed out.
“There are at least a hundred other things to talk about if you’re finally agreeing to be real mates.”
“Like…”
“Like kids. How much responsibility you want when it comes to the Manor. Whether you want to be involved in every communication with the other leaders or want me to handle it. How involved we want to be in public relations with the other wings of the Manor. If?—”
I sighed. “Maybe we shouldn’t be real mates after all.”
He laughed, pulling me closer. “There’s no getting free now, little siren. You love me too much.” His words were playful, but he was right.
“I know. Alright, let’s figure everything out—and then, we’ll screw.”
“Agreed.”
He grabbed the tablet I’d left on one of our nightstands and opened it up to the notes section, making a list of the first handful of discussion topics.
“Kids?” he asked me.
“We can rediscuss that in like five years,” I said bluntly. “Right now, it’s an immediate no. I’m not bringing more sirens into this world while my sisters still have to hide among the vampires.”
Damian agreed. “Alright, next topic.”
We moved down the list, with a pause to eat dinner in bed again. The further we went, the more I realized that he didn’t particularly care about most of the questions. He just wanted to figure out how I felt.
“You know you’re allowed to care about this stuff,” I told him, gesturing to the list. “If you passionately want me to take on a certain role, I can handle it.”
“Right now, the only thing I want passionately is your body wrapped around mine every day. Twice a day.” He considered it, then corrected, “ Three times a day.”
I laughed.
We had a lot of sex, but usually not that much. And we both knew he was joking, but that just made it more fun.
“And a bathing suit. For the love of magic, a bathing suit,” he added.
“I already agreed not to swim in the nude anymore,” I teased.
“Unless we’re alone.”
“Then, all bets are off.”
He kissed me lightly. “Now, back to the list.”
I started drifting off as we neared the end of the topics he’d written out. I was sure we would come up with more—there was plenty we hadn’t discussed—but we’d covered a lot.
Even a few that Damian did care about.
Considering the way he let me make the decisions for most of them, I had no problem agreeing that if one of us had to meet with a clan outside of Mistwood, we would go together.
Or that we would make financial decisions together.
Or that we would combine our bank accounts and actually become a team, the way a mated pair was supposed to. That one was a little harder to accept than the previous two, but when he explained his reasoning, I understood.
I mumbled my answers to a few of the final questions before I actually fell asleep while he wrote them down.
I couldn’t have said how long I was asleep—it could’ve been a few minutes, or a few hours—but the slow drag of something warm and silky against my clit made me suck in a breath. My hips arched, and I wrestled my eyelids open, meeting Damian’s hot, sleep-laden gaze.
Some part of me recalled his promise to give me a chance to turn him down when I was uncertain about letting him wake me up like this.
That part of me was a fucking moron.
I grabbed his hair and pulled him back down between my thighs, earning a low chuckle before he licked me again.
My hips arched and rocked as I panted and cursed. He lifted me long enough to roll onto his back and pull me onto his face, like he’d mentioned so many times.
I lost control on his tongue twice—and then he finally gave me his cock.
Instead of taking me hard and fast, he drove into me slowly.
Deeply.
Intimately.
It was so, insanely intense.
And when we came together, I couldn’t help but realize that we hadn’t just screwed.
We’d made love.
And that was enough to make me want Damian even more.
Then again…
Had I ever not wanted him?
My lips curved upward.
Even when he’d pissed me off, I was still attracted to him.
We were made for each other—it was as simple and complicated as that.