“My father’s entire estate—mine now—was sold, the investments liquidated. At a considerable loss, I’m certain, but we didn’t care about that. Or Lucien didn’t. I didn’t care about anything at that point. It took several months, and I had to make a few appearances before the authorities, but eventually it was done.”

“What about the Frenchwoman? How did they punish murder back then?”

“I don’t know what they would have done,” Sophia said dismissively. “I didn’t leave it to them. I killed her. She was my first.” She glared at Colin, daring him to dispute her right to exact revenge on her children’s killer.

Colin’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You mean your first vampire kill?”

“It was a long time ago, Colin. Things were very different than they are now, especially for vampires.”

He gave her a knowing smile. “I’m guessing not everyone you kill becomes a vamp, then. I can’t imagine you giving that bitch immortality.”

Sophia met his smile with a grin of her own. “You’re right. I killed the whore outright, and I made sure she knew I was the one doing it, too.”

Colin gave a sideways tilt of his head. “Sounds good to me. What about your husband? What happened to him?”

“I have no idea. I wanted to kill him, too, but Lucien wouldn’t let me. Teodosio had no part in the deaths beyond lust and stupidity. And few men would be alive if that were a killing offense.”

“I think I’m offended,” he said thoughtfully.

Sophie smiled wearily. The memories no longer had the power to make her weep, but the emotions were still powerful, the loss still keen, and it was exhausting to talk about it.

Colin stepped even closer, his body radiating heat like a furnace, the thump of his heart loud in the sudden quiet.

“I’m sorry I made you talk about it,” he said. His hands hung loosely at his sides, fingers flexing over and over as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

Sophia met his eyes. “I wanted you to understand,” she insisted. “You asked for the reason I left, the reason I let you think I was dead that night.” She reached up and gave into temptation, touching his cheek, letting her fingers linger on his lips when he surprised her by not pulling away. “Do you know, I still hear that café exploding in my dreams. I was blocks away and still the street buckled so hard I nearly fell. Everyone was screaming and I looked up and saw the flames and I knew. There were the rumors—we’d even talked about them, you and I—that certain people were unhappy with the government, unhappy with foreigners suddenly appearing all over the country, and I knew they’d attacked that damn café and that you were in it.

She shook her head, remembering. “I ran as fast as I could, not bothering to be discreet or to hide my vampire otherness the way Lucien had taught me. When I reached the café and I saw the flames . . . I was back in that garden all over again, watching fire take someone I loved. I nearly went in after you. I didn’t know if I could survive it or not, but I didn’t care. I just knew I couldn’t live through that again. But then I saw you standing across the square. I saw your friend hanging onto you, dragging you away as you fought him, and I knew the Fates had given me a second chance.

“I had lost my precious children. There was nothing I could do about that. But you were alive, Colin. Your life had been spared, and I wasn’t going to ruin the chance I’d been given, that you’d been given, by dragging you into the drama of my life. I was a vagabond, traveling from place to place. I couldn’t go back to the United States with you. The U.S. vampire lords would never have tolerated my presence. And we were never going to have that white picket fence you’d talked about. There would be no children, no picnics on the beach in the sunshine. I had nothing to offer you but blood and darkness. So I let you walk away, and I told myself it was what the Fates wanted, that I’d done the right thing.”

Colin reached out at last, his arms tightening around her, his breath brushing against her hair when he asked, “And what do you think now, Soph?”

She sighed and spoke without lifting her head, afraid of what she’d see in his face. “I think I might have been wrong about what the Fates were telling me back then. Or maybe I just don’t care anymore. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved, Colin Murphy, and I’m tired of living without you.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Colin swore softly under his breath, cursing himself for every kind of fool as his body reacted to Sophie’s words. If what Leighton had told him about vampiric senses was true, Sophie probably already knew that his heart was thudding and his breathing was so fast he was almost hyperventilating. And she sure as hell couldn’t miss the erection trying to bury itself in her soft belly.

“Sophie,” he murmured.

She lifted her head to look up at him, her beautiful, brown eyes full of questions.

“I probably should have told you this earlier,” he began. Her eyes grew wider and a little fearful, and he hurriedly added, “I love you, darlin’.” He stroked the fingers of one hand down her soft cheek. “I loved you then, and I’ve never stopped.”

He lowered his head, intending to kiss her gently, soulfully. Something appropriate to this special moment. But his body had its own ideas. His mouth touched her lips and raw desire swept over him, tightening his gut and hardening his cock like a steel rod. He’d missed this for nearly ten years, missed Sophie, with her lush curves and tender mouth, her gorgeous breasts . . .

She moaned softly, her fingers tugging his hair and forcing him closer. He grinned against her lips. And, yeah, he’d missed that, too.

His mouth never leaving hers, he swept her up into his arms, carried her into the bedroom and lowered her to the bed. Her fingers were scrabbling fitfully at his shirt and he shrugged out of it. She switched to his jeans, undoing the button and tugging at the zipper. He reached to unzip it himself, but paused to appreciate his Sophie, as she shimmied out of her tight jeans and tugged her sweater over her head.

He knew the fashion these days was for thin women with narrow hips and tiny asses. But that wasn’t for him. He loved the feel of soft hips and a rounded belly beneath his fingertips, of succulent breasts crushed against his chest as he sank into a woman’s warmth. In short, what he liked in a woman was Sophie.

She stretched out on his bed, preening beneath the heat in his eyes, proud of her curves and wearing nothing but lace, a matching set of panties and bra in warm pink that made her skin look flushed with health in the light of his single bedside lamp.

“Take them off,” Colin growled, his hands on the zipper of his jeans.

Sophie gave him a wicked grin. “I will if you will,” she purred, climbing up onto all fours and crawling across the bed toward him.

Colin watched her come, her large breasts threatening to spill out of their fragile confinement, her hips shifting enticingly with every movement. When she reached for his zipper, he grabbed her fingers, his eyes flashing up to meet hers.

She laughed, a low, sultry sound that took his breath away. “I’ll be careful,” she promised and bent over to kiss his cock through the denim, giving him a tantalizing view of her perfect ass.

Colin fisted his fingers in the thick strands of her long hair as she slowly lowered his zipper. He groaned out loud when his cock was free at last, when Sophie’s delicate hands brushed against his hips as she pushed his pants down to his thighs.

He twisted her hair in his hands, holding it back from her face so he could watch as she began licking him slowly, twining her tongue around his cock, her fingers reaching beneath him to cradle his balls. He sucked in a hard, fast breath when she took him in her mouth, when she tilted her gaze upward to watch his reaction as she began to move up and down, his cock sliding in and out between her plump lips. He began to move his hips slowly, going deeper into her mouth and throat with each thrust.

His cock touched the back of her throat and Sophie moaned hungrily, the sound vibrating along his shaft like a tuning fork. Colin closed his eyes and began thrusting harder, his sac tightening beneath the caress of her fingers, her tongue stroking him as her mouth sucked harder and faster.

Colin groaned. He wanted to fuck her, wanted to be inside her and he’d never—

Jesus Christ!

Sophie ran a fingernail along the taut skin of his sac, a sharp, intense pain that sent every one of his senses into overdrive. He gave a hoarse shout as all thought disappeared, as every nerve ending suddenly centered on his cock and the need to come now. His orgasm roared through his body, boiling out of his balls and down his cock in a rush of pure, heated pleasure. Sophie drank it all in, her fingernails digging into his ass as she held onto him, as she kept him from flying apart.

* * * *

Sophie twirled her tongue around Colin’s softening cock, smiling as he shuddered one more time. His fingers were still wrapped in her hair, but they were massaging gently now as his big body relaxed one muscle at a time.

She pulled back with a final lick, coming up onto her knees. He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face against her neck, kissing gently, moving up her jaw to her mouth. His hands dropped to her bottom, squeezing softly.

“You have the most perfect ass,” he murmured.

She laughed. “So do you.” She kissed him lightly, biting playfully at his lips. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

He lifted his head sharply, blue eyes hot and intent. “You first.”

Sophie trailed her fingers across his broad, muscled shoulders and down his arms, loving the hard feel of him. She moved back a few inches and sank down onto her heels, caressing herself, her hands moving slowly over her lace-covered breasts, down past her narrow waist to the fullness of her hips, along the outside of her thighs. Colin’s gaze followed every movement, narrowing as she dipped her fingers to the inside of her thighs and spread her knees wide, smoothing her hands sensuously along her tender skin and over the pretty triangle of lace covering her sex.