Vampire in Atlantis

no . . . I was in the bath . This is shockingly inappropriate. Release me immediately and leave the room.”
    He ignored her completely and instead tightened his embrace and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Then why are you crying as if your heart would break, my beautiful one?”
    She shook her head back and forth as the pain rushed up again to choke her, her childish concerns about her nudity forgotten. “The attack. The dead rebels. Jack. My sisters. The Emperor. What if I can’t find it, Daniel? My connection to it keeps growing weaker. What if I can never find it and the rest of the maidens die, too?”
    “You’ll find it. We’ll find it together. I swear to you that we will succeed. We’ll save those women, and you’ll be safe, and you can return to Atlantis and live a long and wonderful life.” His voice rasped as he said it, as if he were suppressing some deep emotion. He shifted his position sitting on the edge of the tub, still holding her, and the blood rushed to her cheeks again as she realized she felt a growing hardness under her bottom.
    “I’m sorry, Serai, but I am a man,” he said ruefully. “Some things are impossible to ignore, and you, naked in my arms, tops the list.”
    He stood and carefully released her, and then took her wet towel and handed her a dry one, but his searing gaze swept every inch of her body before she got a chance to wrap herself in the soft white cotton.
    “A gentleman would have closed his eyes,” she informed him rather breathlessly.
    “I’m not a gentleman,” he said, flashing that wicked smile of his that made her think of dangerous, seductive things. “I’m going to take advantage of every chance I get to see your gorgeous body, especially naked, you can be sure of that.”
    She blushed again but then frowned. “It’s not right. To think of . . . pleasure . . . when such bad things have happened.”
    He grabbed another towel and started to dry her hair for her. “It’s the most normal thing in the world, sweetheart. To affirm life in the face of death. To reach out for a connection to another—it’s entirely natural.”
    He tossed the towel on the floor and put his arms around her, pulling her closer. “Do you know what else is natural? This is natural.”
    He touched his lips to hers, and she stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped existing as a rational person as the sensation thrilled through her. He was kissing her.
    He wanted her.
    She didn’t know why, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care .
    She just kissed him back. She threw her arms around his neck and clung, just in case he changed his mind. She wouldn’t let go so easily. She kissed him with every bit of the longing she’d built up after so many years of missing him. Wanting him. Dreaming of him.
    All of those years of wishing, hoping—she put all that into her kiss, too. All of her enthusiasm, her passion; it had to make up for lack of experience, didn’t it?
    She hoped. She would—what had he said? Affirm life? Yes. She would affirm life with him. Enthusiastically.
    He groaned a little, deep in his throat, and she blushed. Maybe all that enthusiasm was a little too much. She didn’t actually know what she was doing, after all. Maybe she was—
    “Stop thinking so hard,” he said, his lips quirking up at the edges. “Kissing is more about feeling.”
    “How did you—”
    “I could tell. Am I going too fast?”
    “No! I mean, no, I just—you have probably kissed so many women, and I don’t, well, not that I should have, and what were you doing kissing all those women, anyway?” By the time she got to the end of that convoluted sentence, she was indignant and more than a little jealous.
    His eyes flashed with heat and maybe even a little amusement. “There weren’t all that many, mi amara . But if you want the absolute truth, there has never, ever been anyone who could compare to you.”
    She clutched the towel closer to her chest and stared up into his eyes. Nothing but absolute sincerity and that exciting glimpse of barely restrained hunger shone back at her.
    “My heart has waited for you all of my life. I feel like I’m learning what a kiss is for the very first time, and I want to learn it with you,” he said, and she fell.
    Fell out of doubt, out of insecurity, out of shyness.
    Fell into love.
    And knew, without a doubt, that she couldn’t let him know. She’d scare him away, with his stupid notions of honor. But she could find a way to show