He spread his hands along the tops of her thighs, bracing her as she rode him, and he used his thumbs to stroke along the point of his entry into her flesh. When he reached her clitoris, her expression twisted with the most delicious agony. She ground down hard on him and sobbed for breath.

Watching her climax filled him with the deepest kind of pleasure. He whispered to her, small, gentle things, and when a tear slid down her cheek, he stroked it away.

When she finished, she looked down at him with such clear intent.

Then she bent forward and bit his lip, and he went crazy. Growling, he snatched her tight against him, one arm around her waist, the other gripping the back of her head, and he pistoned up into her tight, tight passage.

Truly, he couldn’t stand it—the pressure was driving him insane. He gasped in her ear, “You are so fucking mine.”

She lifted her head, with a look of surprise. “You said that in English.”

He paused, just for a moment, and surfaced somewhat from the passionate haze. “Well,” he said, even as he still moved inside her, “you really needed to know that.”

Her face lit with such beautiful luminosity. “I love you.”

Now, that was a gift he hadn’t seen coming. He pumped once, twice, three more times, and gave everything he had into her. It rode him hard, that climax, and he shuddered with the force of it.

Stroking his face, she rocked with him gently, until it had passed.

Me encantas, he whispered, kissing her temple. Te amo, querida. Te amo.

Sprawling across him, she laid her head on his shoulder with a sigh so deep, it shook down her entire length. He laced his fingers with hers, buried his face in her tangled hair and drifted into peaceful silence.

He could tell when she fell asleep. She did so suddenly, her body going completely lax. He could not quite join her. Once they stopped making love and the pleasure eased away, the dull, lingering ache from the poison kept him from truly resting.

He didn’t mind. He was too grateful to be alive, embodied and so intimately connected with her. Instead of trying to fight it, he surrendered to the experience, drifting with the ache, and relishing every moment of being with her.

They had survived. He would take her home. They would build something together. He didn’t know what. He didn’t really care. It would be some kind of definition that worked.

He would take her to his bed. They could sit on the veranda and listen to the wind play in the redwood forest.

And they would waltz. Yes, somehow they would waltz. Maybe she would like to join him sometimes in his study.

He remembered the book he had been reading when she had first come into his study, that old friend of his, Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy.

In his Meditations, Descartes had written one of the most famous tenets of modern Western philosophy.

Cogito ergo sum.

I think, therefore I am.

He had admired Descartes for many years, but while he stroked his fingers through Tess’s hair, patiently smoothing out every tangle, Xavier felt those words take an inevitable, gigantic shift into something profoundly different.

I love, he thought. Therefore I truly live.

Then he let it all go, gently, and was finally able to drift into a deep, dreamless sleep.

TWENTY

Tess slept for over thirty hours. When she woke up, she felt incredible. All of the myriad aches and pains she had accumulated over the last several weeks had vanished completely. She felt healthy, strong, fit and energetic.

Wow.

She rolled over to find Xavier sprawled on his stomach, fast asleep. Somehow he managed to take up most of the bed, while she had moved over to the edge of the mattress.

The discovery made her smile. She studied him with a drowsy kind of glee—it was the first time she had ever had the opportunity to watch him sleep.

His hair tumbled about his head and shoulders, the dark, glossy length shadowing his sleeping face. He had the gift that nature gave some men, ridiculously lush, long eyelashes that brushed his skin. His graceful, lean form disguised how defined his musculature was. Now she saw him nude, she could tell how much work had gone into the strength in his back and shoulders. He had flung one arm along the bed, as if he reached out to her.

From the terrifying monster she had first seen on the mezzanine level at the Vampyre’s Ball, he had grown truly beautiful to her. She could no longer connect to the person she had been then, and she didn’t want to.

She was tempted to take his hand but refrained. While she wanted to touch him, she didn’t want to disturb him. Instead, she slipped out of bed and went exploring in his walk-in closet. When she discovered a terry-cloth robe she quite liked, she slipped it on and went in search of food.

She found the kitchen by trial and error, and there she discovered Raoul sitting at a large, country-style table with several strangers. Outside two large windows, late afternoon sunlight shone on a well-tended, colorful garden.

Overcome with self-consciousness, she started to back away from the doorway, but it was too late. They had seen her.

Chairs scraped across the floor as they all shot to their feet. Raoul was the quickest. He strode over to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug. Remarkably moved by the gesture and somewhat uncomfortable, she patted his back awkwardly.

He pulled back, his face tense. “How is he?”

“He’s wonderful,” she said.

When she heard herself, she turned scarlet, but nobody gave her a chance to dwell on it for long. They were much too relieved, and they laughed, all these strangers who cared about her Xavier so much, so she relaxed and let Raoul pull her to the table, where she sat.

Eduardo, the cook, piled a huge plate of delicious seafood crepes in front of her. She met all eight of Xavier’s attendants who lived in San Francisco—Foster, Xavier’s secretary, Russell, the estate manager, Sergio, Jaime, Sidney, Ciaran and Mika.

“I’m not going to remember whose name goes with which face,” she said around a mouthful of creamy lobster. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay, nobody expects you to,” Raoul said. “There’s plenty of time for you to get to know everybody.”

He shooed everybody else out, and they went reluctantly, although Eduardo tried to insist he needed to stay in the kitchen to serve her more food. When they were gone, the tension between Tess’s shoulders eased somewhat.

“Better?” Raoul asked.