She rested her cheek on his back as she watched the water and scenery go by on the narrow, winding roads. She savored the power beneath her legs and the strength of the man in front of her. Leaning back in the seat, she could no longer resist the urge to throw her arms out to the side as they drove through a less crowded stretch of road.
She laughed as the wind blew over her face, tickled her skin and plastered her clothes to her. It felt as if she were flying, as if she were free of herself and could do anything she wanted in this world. Her head tilted back as a gleeful shout escaped her. The last of the lingering tension and fear she'd been feeling over Tristan vanished like dandelion fluff in a storm. She was moving on, she was living life in a way she never had before, and it was the greatest thing she'd ever experienced.
She was still laughing as she lowered her arms and wrapped them around him again. "Feel better?" he asked as he briefly turned his head to look at her.
"I feel wonderful!" she cried. She hugged him tighter as they entered an area of the island she recognized as being close to where she was staying.
He turned down a couple of side streets before stopping in front of her house. Emma held onto him for a second before reluctantly releasing him. Sliding off the bike, she reached up to pull the helmet off, but he was already taking hold of the strap.
"I had fun today," she told him.
He smiled at her as he removed the helmet and placed it on the seat. "Good. That means you'll go to dinner with me tonight."
"I don't know; you might get sick of me," she teased as she bumped his hip.
"Never." It was the way he said the word with such conviction, more than the actual word itself, that caught her attention and caused her to flush with pleasure. "But I would like to change my clothes first."
"So would I."
He wrapped his arms around her waist as he bent to kiss her and lifted her as he straightened back to his full height. She loved the way he made her feel so small, yet so protected. He bent her back and kissed her deeply before setting her on her feet again.
Still more than a little dazed from his kiss when he released her, she took an unsteady step back. "I'll see you in a couple of hours?" he asked.
"Okay."
Turning on her heel, she shot a smile over her shoulder at him when he lightly slapped her behind. She practically skipped up the steps to the house when she heard the bike fire up and pull away from the curb. Opening the door, she stepped inside to find Mandy reading in the living room and Jill on the computer. They both focused on her as she shut the door.
"Did you have fun?" Jill inquired.
"A blast," she admitted as she hurried down the stairs.
Jill grinned at her as she closed her laptop. "Well, you definitely did something right last night."
Emma froze as she frowned questioningly at her friend. "What are you talking about?"
Jill pointed into the kitchen. Emma leaned around the doorway to see what Jill was talking about. Her mouth dropped open when she spotted the massive bouquet of colorful flowers sitting on the table.
"Those are for me?" she blurted as she approached the flowers.
She recognized half a dozen birds of paradise in the bouquet, but that was where her identification skills ended. There had to be at least three dozen flowers in the blue vase.
"Our names weren't the ones on the card," Mandy said as she approached.
Emma pulled the card from the plastic holder at the edge of the vase. All it had was her name typed on it. "I can't believe he did this," she muttered.
"You deserve flowers, and that boy knows it," Mandy said.
"Or maybe he couldn't believe you did something," Jill teased.
Emma rolled her eyes at her friend and shook her head. She smiled though as she leaned forward to inhale the heady scent of the flowers. Yes, she could lose her heart to him, she decided.
"Ethan." He had known Stefan was in the doorway before he spoke. "Can we talk?"
Ethan glanced at him as he tugged a clean shirt over his head. His hair was still damp from his shower, but it would dry soon enough. "Come in." Stefan glanced behind him before stepping into the room and closing the door. "Where's Isabelle?"
"Outside, on the phone with your mom."
"She'll be busy for a while."
"She will." Stefan agreed as he walked over and sat in the chair in the corner. "So are you ready to tell me what's going on?"
"I thought we'd already had this discussion."
"I'm not talking about Emma being your possible mate. I'm talking about you. Isabelle always assumed you were like her and trying to avoid finding your mate, but that's not the case, is it?"
Ethan studied Stefan as he leaned against the bureau. If anyone would have any understanding of what he was going through, what was inside him, it was Stefan.
"No, it's not," he admitted. Stefan's steady gaze was focused on him as he steepled his fingers before his face and waited for Ethan to continue. "It's the blood."
Stefan dropped his hands down. "The blood?"
"The humans. Even when I was in high school, I knew I was different from my siblings, my parents, and The Stooges. They could be around humans with far more ease than me, and even enjoyed them more than I did. There was always this hunger for them inside of me, this yearning to taste them, even before I reached maturity."
"And when you reached maturity?" Stefan prompted.
"And
