Again.
Unless…
Tenzin ran her tongue along her bottom lip and let her fangs grow.
Ben blinked, his eyes drawn to her mouth. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
She nicked the corner of her lip with her fang and let her blood well, and his eyes glazed over. “What?”
Growling, Ben slapped her ass with the flat of his sword before he leapt on her. “You fight dirty.”
“That isn’t a win!” she managed to yell before he tackled her to the ground.
His mouth locked on hers, and he sucked the drop of blood into his mouth. She wrestled him to his back, only to have him flip her over and spread her legs with one knee.
Were they wrestling or was this foreplay? She often had a hard time distinguishing between the two.
The low, happy growl that came from Ben’s throat told her that it was foreplay.
Excellent. Sex would be much better than losing to him in another duel. It had happened twice now, and she was worried it would become a habit.
He had the advantage in strike distance now, and it was highly annoying. She had to stop agreeing to fights on the ground. It was far easier to fight dirty in the air.
She wiggled away from him and ran up the stairs, eager to see if he ran or flew trying to catch her. More and more he defaulted to flying, which delighted Tenzin.
The wind loved him. It danced around him in flight, played with his hair, and lifted him with a manic kind of glee. The wind had always been her comfort, but for Ben, it would be his joy.
Mood swings still happened, and Ben still had dark nights. He’d seen his father driving a cab on Houston Street three nights before and sank into a sullen mood he’d only shaken when he woke that night. She was hoping that challenging him to a duel he was likely to win would brush the last of the shadows from his eyes.
Judging by the low chuckle behind her, the idea had worked.
She flew up to the loft and crouched in the corner, daring him to come in.
Ben set his toes on the edge and hovered. “Tell the truth—you did that because I was going to win.”
“You wish.”
He smiled, and the beauty of it made her forget to breathe. Seeing Ben happy had become her obsession.
He fell on the mattress he’d dragged up to her loft and tugged her hand. “Come here.”
Gladly.
She jumped on him, bracing herself over him as he stripped the clothing from her body. They rolled and tumbled in the bed, falling out once, only to have Ben float them back.
Their coupling was fast and full of laughter. Though Ben was still learning her body, he knew what brought her pleasure quickly and what would draw out sensual torment.
That night he wrapped her in his embrace and pinned her high on a wall, wringing a climax from her before he found his own release. It was fast and intense, and she took his blood as he came, drawing out his pleasure as long as she could.
They floated back into the loft and onto the new bed. Tenzin lay on him, aligning her body along his, skin to skin, as their amnis twisted and hummed.
She kissed along his jaw. “You’re better tonight.”
He played with a strand of her hair. “Sorry about the cranky mood.”
“It’s fine. You’ve put up with more than one of mine over the years.”
“True.” He didn’t say anything more, even though it sounded like he wanted to.
She poked his side. “Speak.”
“I’ve lived here for what? Five years? And in a city of eight million people, I’ve seen him three times. What are the chances of that?”
“It’s really not that big an island. It is bound to happen.” Tenzin wanted to say, Shall I kill him for you? But she didn’t. That would probably be considered a backslide when it came to personal evolution. Chloe would not approve.
“We can move,” she said. “We have options.”
“I like New York. And Cormac has finally stopped giving me dirty looks when I run into him.”
“Do you want me to find your father and strongly suggest he move back to San Juan?” With amnis. Not that she wanted to subject the lovely island of Puerto Rico to Ben’s father.
“I don’t think he’d do anything but make my grandmother’s life miserable.”
She laid her head on his chest. “Why does seeing him bother you so much?”
Ben didn’t say anything for a long time. He stroked his thumb along her hip and stared at the ceiling. “Did you have children when you were alive?”
Tenzin stopped breathing for a moment.
He looked at her, and there was a challenge in his eyes. You want me to show you mine? Show me yours.
Poke. Prod. Stretch the skin and shed it. Leave the old behind.
Growth was painful, especially in moments like this.
“I had three children.” She took a slow breath. “A girl who died and twin boys. I think possibly one of them might have lived to adulthood, but I don’t know because I was abducted by raiders when they were babies.”
The challenge in his eyes fled, and Ben wrapped his arms around her in an iron grip.
“My father is such a shitty person, and he still got to have a kid. I’ll never have children, and I think I’d be so much better at it than he ever was. For some reason, in the past few months, that has been pissing me off. And then I saw him and it was just like… a slap.”
Tenzin examined his expression. She sensed no hidden meaning or prevarication.
“It is ludicrous to say that you will never have children, because you are immortal now and you know that many of our kind adopt children. You don’t know what your life will be like in ten years, let alone in one hundred or two hundred.”
He stroked the back of her neck. “Would you have children again?”
“Not now, and not anytime soon.”
He nodded.
“But I will
