"The smile."
I felt the expression widen on my face. "I'm just reminding myself how lucky I am."
"Lucky?"
"To have somebody who is willing to put up with the crazier moments in my life."
He held out his hand. "Come. Let us get the rest of that glitter off you."
I placed my hand in his and he led me to the bathroom. He moistened a facecloth and worked at gently removing the remainder of the powder Stacy had blown at me. He stroked the hair off my face and ran the warm cloth over my forehead, my cheek, my neck, and even down between my breasts.
"Wow, she got it everywhere, didn't she?" I breathed. This was starting to feel better than a general cleanup should.
"She did." He pulled the thin red strap of the dress off one shoulder and slid the cloth over my exposed skin there before moving to the other side. That strap fell away as well.
He moistened the facecloth again under the tap water and pressed it against the faint mark of my stake wound. His silver eyes flicked to mine.
"How does this feel?" he asked.
"Really, really good."
His lips twitched into a half smile. "No, I meant your wound. Does it still cause you pain?"
I looked down at the mark. My borrowed red dress had pulled away enough that I was barely covered. The pink mark from the wooden stake was now pale and shiny in the bathroom light.
"I barely notice it anymore." I was such a liar.
He moved the cloth away and stroked his thumb against the mark. "Your healing abilities have greatly increased."
"Another plus to being a vampire."
"Yes. But my blood has allowed you to heal much more quickly than I even thought possible. In this case, I think it's a very good thing."
My dress slipped another inch. His fingers then grazed against my left breast. I think it was intentional. The heat of his touch felt as if it was branding me. His gaze locked with mine again. "I almost lost you that night," he said.
"I'm hard to lose."
"I don't like feeling so powerless to help you. I don't know who this Red Devil really is, but he has my eternal gratitude for saving you."
I could barely concentrate on what he was saying. I was sort of focused on what his right hand was up to. "He… he should get a medal or something."
"Or something."
I licked my lips and tried to focus, but his fingers were circling my entire breast now and I wasn't thinking straight. "Have you ever been staked?"
He nodded. "Several times. None of my wounds have come as close to being fatal as this one did, though. Too close." The dress slid down to my waist as he leaned forward to kiss my chest over the wound. Over my heart. I leaned my weight against the bathroom counter, feeling a little lightheaded and warmer by the second.
"Your heart," he said, "is beating very fast for a vampire."
Your average vampire's heart beats approximately forty times a minute. Slower than a human's. When I was human my regular heart rate was about seventy beats a minute.
However, thinking about little facts like this wasn't helping my heart rate go down from its current one-fifty. I was like a half-dressed hummingbird.
He moved as if to release his hold on me, but I grabbed his hand and pressed it against my chest again. He looked down at the connection, and then into my eyes.
"I never did get that chance to thank you for my beautiful new ring," I said, and then reached around to the back of the dress and unzipped it. With a small shrug it slipped past my waist to pool on the floor at my feet.
Thierry's gaze slid down the front of me. "Sarah…"
I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed it.
Then I moved my hands up into his dark hair and pressed my now dress-free body against him. Without my stilettos our seven-inch height difference was evident, but I could manage. I pulled his face closer to mine and brushed my lips against his.
"I love you," I told him. "Even in this lousy little motel room."
With a flick of my hands over his broad shoulders, I removed his expensive black jacket, which joined my dress on the white-tiled floor. It was Hugo Boss. He had ten of them exactly the same in the closet at his townhome. I'd counted. Then I pulled the black shirt out from his pants, unbuttoning it from the bottom to the top, and it joined the clothes party on the floor.
Thierry's pale chest had a light sprinkling of dark hair on it. He was toned, but he didn't have a bodybuilder physique, which was fine with me because I wasn't into the big and bulky. His muscles were lean and hard and felt good under my touch. In the center of his chest were some faint scars left over from when he'd been human. He'd been left for dead when Veronique had found him and sired him. This was what was left from his own near-
death experience at the hands of the people who'd nearly killed him. I kissed his chest, running my mouth over the scars.
Then I led him to the bed, and I sat down on it and slowly undid his belt. Black, of course, like the rest of his wardrobe. I slipped my hands under the waistband and slid his pants over his hips, and he leaned over and our lips met in a kiss that made my mind go blank to all other worries or stresses. When Thierry kissed me there was only him, the taste of him, and the need for more and more.
After a moment he broke off the kiss, but kept his mouth close to mine so I could feel his warm breath on my lips. "It's been a difficult evening. If you wish to wait until we get back to Toronto, I would understand."
I grinned at him. "And let this fabulous room go to waste?"
I scooted back a bit to make room for him and felt the bed dip as he kneeled on it in front of me.
"An excellent point." He lowered himself on top of me and I felt his hot mouth slide over my collarbone, then down to my breasts. My hands tangled in his hair. He trailed his hands lower over my abdomen to the top of my panties, which he quickly and efficiently disposed of. They were red to match the dress, because matching inner wear to outer wear is very important to me, for some strange reason.
I loved it when he touched me like this. His hands and mouth could do things to me that they should teach men in school. I arched off the bed and stifled a gasp at his intimate touch. After a moment he returned to my mouth and kissed me so deeply I thought I would pass out.
"Thierry—" I kissed him back just as hard and wrapped myself around him to pull his body even closer.
I will tell you a secret about Thierry de Bennicoeur. Being a master vampire automatically made him cool with his emotions and actions. It was difficult to get used to, since I was accustomed to dealing with such things as blind dates who wanted to get into my pants an hour into the first date.
Thierry wasn't like that. He was respectful. He was cool and reserved. He was—
I moaned as he slowly entered me. —he was a freaking sex god.
Some relationships got boring after a while. The physical relationship gets tired and dull.
But every time with Thierry—and admittedly it was not a daily, or sometimes even weekly occurrence—but every damn time was better than the time before.
Like tonight.