Page 13 of The HalloQueen

“Yeah,” I felt her tense slightly and I pulled harder at her energy until she relaxed, “what happened with that?”

I shrugged and felt the desire to place a kiss on the top of her head, surprising myself at the casual intimacy I craved with her. “I actually don’t know. I woke up one morning and they were gone.”

She tensed again, “They? Like your wife and kids?”

“Non, I don’t have any children. Never got around to it.”

A laugh bubbled out of her and it warmed me, “you say that like you’re a million years old. You’re what, in your thirties? Men can have kids when they’re like eighty; you’ve got time.”

“Non, I don’t think so. That ship has sailed for me.”

I felt Annabel's hand slip into the back pocket of my jeans, “so what did you mean ‘they’ left?”

“It was not a relationship of only two people.”

She paused our walk and turned to look at me, “Wow. You had a triad that worked for that long?”

I nodded, “the three of us balanced each other very well and when we came to Boston our relationship was fairly new. The drastic change probably linked us together more than if we’d stayed in France since we needed each other.”

“How long were the three of you together? You said they left at Christmas?”

“Oui. We were together too long for me to dump all that on you on the first night. Tell me more about you?”

She shook her head and pulled herself into my body, “Can I say something absolutely insane?”

“More insane than telling me to kiss you in a room full of people?”

A delicious blush crept across her cheeks, “Sorry about that.”

I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers again. She had wonderfully soft lips. The bottom was deliciously plush and I wanted to allow my fangs to drop so I could drag them across it until she was panting. Her hips were so wide, wider than anyone I’d ever held against my body like this, and the feeling of my cock against her luscious body was decadent. Hard and soft. Life and death. The girl and the raven. Balance. She moaned slightly against my mouth and I gripped her ass to hold her against me.

“I will never accept an apology for any reason that allows your body to touch mine. If I could take the feeling of the warmth of your skin and carry it within me all day, I would in a heartbeat.”

“You’re intense.” She looked up at me with embers crackling in her green eyes.

“And you’re perfect. You can’t blame me for wanting to make sure you are aware of it.”

She scoffed and shook her head in disbelief, “I’ve never met a guy that just…says shit like that. I feel like I should be concerned that you’re some kind of insane man whore and you’re playing me like a fiddle-”

“Non, Annabel.”

She gave me a soft smile, “but, the insane thing I was going to say before is that for some reason I feel so,” she paused to search for the word, “calm, and safe with you. My instincts aren’t typically wrong when it comes to people, and something feels right when I touch you.”

I felt the energy circling through our embrace, me pulling her anxiety out and putting peace back in. Part of me felt bad about manipulating her feelings, but I’d never felt energy like hers before. It also didn’t seem to be draining her like it typically would. I’d taken and channeled more energy from her in one day than I ever do and yet she was still standing there, kissing me when she should have probably passed out somewhere. I knew I was funneling energy back into her, but I was positive that I was taking more than I was giving. There was the moment earlier when she yawned like I’d pulled too much, but since we kissed she’d been able to give and give and give. She was like a bottomless well of delicious fuel.

“You say I say too much, but I can already feel myself becoming addicted to you, Annabel. You are,” I hesitated, but it came out of me anyway, “sunlight and stars. You feel like a soft breeze on a hot day. Your spirit sounds like the ocean caressing the sand. You fill me up.”

She arched a brow, “You can hear my spirit?”

I froze, thinking maybe that was time I’d said too much, but I quickly gave her a nonchalant laugh and responded, “French, remember?”

She laughed back, “I didn’t know that being French meant that you could feel souls and energy.”

I shrugged and raised one of my hands to hold her neck again, loving the softness of her skin, and the extra waft of her scent that came when I moved her hair away from her pulse point, “I’m just special I guess. Annabel-”

“Do you want to come to my place to watch a movie or something? It’s a little cold down here by the water,” She interrupted me, and the beast inside of me froze. She was inviting me into her home. She wasinvitingme.

“Are you sure? Your home is your safe place.” I couldn't help but give her the subtle warning, “I do not want to impose on your hospitality.”

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