Chapter 22

Ipaused outside Eden's door, an insulated picnic bag in my hand, edgy as a guy on a first date. I blew out a breath.

You're thirty-nine years old, for fuck's sake, and Eden's just a thrall.

I'd stashed her in a private suite like a sultan with a harem of one, restricted her movements, confiscated her money. Yeah, it was punishment, but the vampire in me enjoyed having her on a short leash.

Now, though, I hungered to move on. To make her happy. To have her laugh with me like she did with Rio, loud and uninhibited.

Because Eden wasn't just a thrall to me, was she? She was…more.

"I want to get back what we had."

That night she'd told me that, I'd figured it'd never happen. But now I wanted it, too.

I'd always liked Eden, but her time away from the island had changed her. She was more mature, with unexpected layers. Look at how she'd more or less adopted Rio. A street rat, and she'd taken him into her apartment, housed him, fed him.

Believedin him, which I knew from experience was what he'd needed most of all.

The old Eden wouldn't have done it. At least, the Eden I'd thought I'd known wouldn't have.

And this new, more complex Eden drew me like a bee to honey. I itched to peel those layers away and find the woman at their heart. Itched to know her better.

But it wouldn't happen unless I opened up a little myself. Showed her that I cared about her, that she wasn't just an obligation.

So I'd pulled Twilight aside to see if she had any ideas, and she'd suggested a picnic. Which was why I was loitering in the passageway, clutching a snack packed by Rio.

Enough.

Disgusted with myself, I unlocked the door with a wave of my hand over the sensor and went inside.

Eden was on the living room couch, frowning down at the beaded fabric in her lap. Her light blond, black-tipped hair had grown out in the three-and-a-half weeks since I'd brought her back to Lilith Island, giving her a softer, just-out-of bed look.

My dick twitched.

Picnic first, damn it.

She broke into a smile when she saw me. "Hey. You're early tonight."

I showed her the bag in my hand. "I'm taking you on a picnic."

"You and me?"

"Mm-hm. Get your coat."

"Sweet!" She did a happy little dance on the couch, which didn't help my hard cock. No, I pictured dragging her onto my lap and ordering her to do that sexy, wriggling dance—naked.

Down, boy.

"Okay, just let me tie this off." Clearly unaware of where my thoughts had gone, she finished affixing a silver bead to the filmy gray material and laid it on the coffee table.

I picked it up. It was the beaded shirt Rio had insisted on bringing from New York. "You're repairing it?"

"Yeah. Just be careful, all right? It's fragile."

I gently set it back on the table. "To wear?"

A shake of her head. "It wouldn't fit."

"So you're going to give it away?" I asked, curious now.

"Or sell it."

"To sell?"

She shrugged like it didn't matter, but I could tell it did matter. "I hate to see clothes like this—vintage, maybe even hand sewn—thrown out."

I frowned. "But anything you want, you just have to ask. I told Rio that. And I put the money you earned as a thrall in escrow. That's yours—I'm planning on returning it eventually. You don't have to fix up old clothes and sell them."

"I'm not doing it for the money."

"Then why?"

She looked down and I thought she was going to shrug again. Instead, she ran her palm over the beading.

"Explain it to me," I coaxed. "I want to understand."

"Someone spent a lot of time on this. This is hand beading—I can tell because of the way it was tied." She turned the hem up to show me the tiny knots on the inside of the fabric, beneath a silky inner layer. "The fabric is still good. There was a small tear along the seam and half the beads had fallen off, but I was able to find some almost like the originals to replace them. If I repair it, someone can wear it. I feel like that honors the original designer, the person who created and sewed it in the first place."

Her sparkle was back in full force, her beautiful face animated, her blue eyes gleaming. I gazed down at her, drinking in her enthusiasm like it was a glass of blood-champagne.

Something clicked. "That's why you were working at that store. You didn't need the money—you wanted hands-on experience."

"Oh, I needed the money. You know how expensive it is to live in New York City? And I was afraid to touch what I hadn't already withdrawn because—well, you know. But yeah, I went to every vintage clothing store in the city until I found one that would hire me. Someday I want to open my own store. But that was before—you know." She looked away.

"I see." But I didn't, not really.

Eden didn't need to work. On top of the money she'd already earned, she'd get more for each year she was a thrall, cash she could access as soon as I trusted her again. Plus, there was the baby. Even I knew a new mother didn't have much time.

My fingers tightened on the picnic bag. Maybe it should've occurred to me that Eden had dreams, dreams she'd never shared with me.

Not that I'd asked.

She scooted to the edge of the couch, preparing to rise, and I moved to help her. She stretched up to kiss me, her gaze sliding to my hand. "What's in the bag?"

I held it away from her. "A surprise."

She lunged for the bag, and almost got it, too. I raised it higher, out of her reach.

She pouted, then giggled. "You're no fun."

An answering smile claimed my face. I pulled her in for a one-armed kiss, then smacked her butt and released her. "Put on your hiking boots, too. We'll be in the woods."

She nodded and went into her bedroom, returning in sturdy hiking boots and a yellow down jacket. She could barely close the zipper over her abdomen.

"You need a bigger jacket," I told her, frowning. "Have Rio order it."

"I'm okay." Finally getting the zipper over her stomach, she pulled it the rest of the way to her neck. "I can wear this one unzipped with a sweater underneath."

"The hell you will. I can afford to buy you a fucking jacket." If I wanted to, I could buy the whole goddamn manufacturing plant.

Her jaw set stubbornly. "But I like this jacket, and it's only for a couple of months. After I have the baby, it will fit again. It's not because I think you can't afford it. It's because I'm against throwaway, fast fashion. That's what I've been trying to tell you."

I grunted noncommittally. I heard her, but we were on an island in the North Atlantic and tomorrow was December first. She needed something warm, something she could zip up for Lilith's sake.

In the castle courtyard, a driver was warming up a syndicate SUV for us. He exited the vehicle, leaving the key inside.

"You can go about your duties," I told him as I helped Eden into the passenger seat. "I'll return the SUV to the garage myself."

He dipped his chin. "Very good, Lieutenant."

We drove out of the courtyard under a cloudless sky. Last week's snow had melted the following day, and nothing had fallen since, leaving the streets clear except for a few dirty piles along the shoulders. I took the cliff road south. To the east, the moon floated above the ocean like a fat gold balloon.

Just before we reached the turn-off to my mom's house, I swung onto a dirt road lined with sugar maples, their smooth gray trunks skirted with a fine mist.

Eden glanced around, her pretty oval face alight with interest. "I don't think I've ever been down this road before."

"No?" I navigated the last hundred meters of mud and gravel. "There used to be a sugar shack back here. This guy named Magee owned it, and I'd help him in return for a couple of jugs of maple syrup. When he died, no one took it over."

"That's too bad. My dad had a friend who made his own, and me and Freya used to help tend the fire. It was the best."

"I used to love maple candy." My mouth watered, remembering.

"Really? Me, too. Sugar or cream?"

I slanted her a look. "Both. Why choose?"

She snort-laughed. "I like how you think."

That silly snort fell on my soul like rain on a desert. I made a mental note to have Rio grab Eden a big box of maple candy in Bluebeard's Cove.

The road ended next to an old sugar shack. The roof had caved in during a tropical storm a few years back, and all six windows were either broken or missing all together. A maple sapling had found its way inside, its branches pushing through the window frames and out the roof.

I took the insulated bag, a small flashlight and a waterproof picnic blanket from the backseat and met Eden at the front of the SUV.

"Where are we going?" she asked, pulling on her striped mittens.

"A creek I found back when I was a kid. We're not far from where I grew up." I handed her the flashlight. "There's a path—just follow me."

"Okay," she said cheerfully, switching on the flashlight.

I hesitated, belatedly questioning the wisdom of taking a pregnant woman over rough ground, but the creek was only a short walk away, and Eden was more animated than I'd seen her in a week.

"Stay right behind me, all right?" I told her. "And be careful."

She brought the flashlight to her temple in a smart-ass salute, the beam sweeping over the crumbling shack. "Got it."

I started off at an easy pace, glancing over my shoulder every few steps to see how she was doing.

"I'm fine," she told me the third time I did it. "I walk for at least an hour every day."

"That's in the daylight."

She picked up the pace, coming up next to me so she could slide her arm around my waist. "Better, Grandpa?" she asked with a sidelong grin.

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Behave, woman."

She chuckled and snuggled closer.

Five minutes later, we reached our destination, a moonlit glade next to the creek. A light frost glittered on the dormant grass. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted.

"Oh." Eden switched off the flashlight and turned in a circle. "It's…magical."

My breath hitched. She was so beautiful, her short hair bleached silver by the moonlight, her eyes dark and soulful.

The hunger awakened in me. Just like that, I was semi-hard. I busied myself with spreading out the blanket and put the bag on top of it.

Eden slipped the flashlight into a jacket pocket and moved to the creek bank. "Did you come here a lot when you were a kid?"

"Yeah." I joined her. Together, we stared down at the water tumbling over the rocks. "It's peaceful, you know?"

And I'd needed that, especially when Esposito was in the house, stirring up my mom, oozing fake charm. Inserting himself in my life, making me and my mom count on him…and then taking off again.

Magee had been more a father to me than Esposito, so even after joining the syndicate, I'd kept coming. Carrying buckets of maple sap, chopping wood, monitoring the fire—it takes hours of boiling and 40 gallons of sap to make a single gallon of syrup—until the winter he died.

"It is peaceful." Eden turned and put a mittened hand on my chest. "Thanks for sharing it with me."

"My pleasure." I covered her hand with mine, happy that she seemed to like it as much as I did. "Want to see what's in the bag?"

"Yes, please."

"Sit down, then." I helped her settled onto the blanket, then stretched out alongside her.

The bag had two insulated compartments. In one was a hot chocolate, in the other was a carton of Moon Mist ice cream.

I offered her both. "What are you in the mood for?"

"Ice cream." She pulled off her mittens and took it, squinting at the label. "It's Moon Mist! How did you know?"

"Rio told me," I said. The ice cream was a Nova Scotia specialty, a blend of grape, banana, and bubblegum flavors.

She pried off the lid. "I've had such a craving for Moon Mist, but you can't find it in the States. Please tell me you brought a spoon."

Returning the hot chocolate to the bag, I dug one out. "Here you go."

She took it and dipped it into the Moon Mist. As the spoon slid between her lips, her eyes closed in pure bliss. "Oh. My. God."

Thank you, Rio.

The kid had been feeding me information about Eden for reasons known only to him. I owed him a bonus.

Eden opened her eyes and caught me looking. Her smile widened. "Don't laugh. It's so good."

The corners of my mouth tugged up. "I'm just glad you like it."

Eden licked the spoon clean and went back for more. I settled onto my forearms as she devoured half the carton. Watching her was almost as good as sex, each lick and suck going straight to my dick. I reminded myself that it was cold out—for a human, anyway—and I hadn't brought Eden out here to fuck. I'd brought her here to get to know her.

She eyed me, and then with a wicked little smile, slipped the spoon between her lips and made a show of pulling it out…slowly.

Her lips clung to the tip, then she released it with a pop. My breath shuddered in.

Sitting up, I cupped her chin, my thumb tracing the seam of her lips. "Are you going to let me taste?"

A slow dip of her head.

I leaned in. Eden's lips parted and I licked into her mouth, tasting the sweetness on her tongue. I hummed low in my throat, then with a restraint that should've won me a damn medal, pulled back.

Her dark, spiky eyelashes fluttered.

I retrieved the spoon from her lax fingers before she dropped it. "More?"

"More?" She followed my gaze to the spoon. "Oh, you mean ice cream. No, I'm full," she said with a regretful look at the Moon Mist. "I can't eat another bite."

I replaced the lid on the carton and returned it with the spoon to the bag. "There are three more cartons in your refrigerator."

"Really?" She grinned. "You're going to make me fat."

Oh, yeah, I definitely owed Rio. And Twilight, too.

"Not fat," I said, laying back down and bringing her with me. "Beautifully round."

"Good answer," she returned and snuggled into me, her head on my shoulder, one knee bent, her thigh resting on my leg.

She was soft and warm, her belly pressed against my side so that when our son shifted his position, we both felt it. The hungry thing let out a breath, content for now. I gathered her closer and gazed up at the multitude of stars, happier than I would've believed possible when I'd left for New York four weeks ago.

Eden's breath tickled my neck. "This is nice—being alone with you out here."

"You're not cold?"

"Nah. I run hot these days."

"I know." I turned my head so I could look at her. "I like it. There's nothing I like more than being buried in your heat."

She screwed up her nose and laughed like she thought I was joking with her; and I was, a little. But it was also true. I rolled her onto her back and came over her, forearms on either side of her head, my body planked above hers.

"I mean it." I teased her lips with my tongue. "You…warm me. I can't explain it. You just do. And not just when we're having sex."

I felt the shape of her smile against my mouth. "Really?"

"Really." The confession left me feeling exposed, so I kissed her, slow and deep.

No one saw that vulnerable side of me. Ever.

I didn't stop until she was breathless and moaning, her lips kiss swollen. Even though my whole body was tight with need, too, it eased the vulnerability, to see her so wrecked by me.

When I came off her, she winced and shifted on the blanket. When I eased her back onto her side, she reached beneath her jacket to rub her lower back.

My brows pulled together. "You're hurting."

She shook her head. "Just stiff."

I brushed her hand away and took over, massaging the sore spot with the heel of my hand.

"Mmm." She relaxed, resting her head on her bent arm. "That already feels better."

"Massage helps?" Kneeling behind her, I lifted the back of her jacket and continued working on her lower back.

When she nodded, I said, "You should've said something sooner. I'll have a therapist come to your suite. How many times a week?"

"That would be awesome. And I don't know—maybe once a week?"

"Twice a week," I decided. "And if you need them to come more often, let Rio know."

"Thanks," she said with a yawn.

"C'mere." Angry at myself for keeping her out too late, I scooped her up along with the blanket and the other gear and started back to SUV.

"I can walk," she said around another yawn. "Olivia says it's good for me."

"Quiet." I nipped her lower lip. "I want to, okay?"