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“It was worth the wait,” I told him, laying a kiss on his throat.

He turned his chin away from me, exposing his neck for fully. “If you want to, Quinn, you can.”

My gaze dropped to the pulse beating in his throat and a familiar hunger rose up in me. I sucked in a gasp when I realized, for the very first time, that my fangs were out.

When had that happened?

I hadn’t even felt them drop.

I pulled back, but Derek put a hand on my chest and I stopped. He turned so that we were face to face on the bed, our naked bodies touching. “If you’re not ready for that yet, it’s fine. I won’t push.”

I stared back at him in horror, gesturing vaguely to my mouth. “How long have they been out?”

Derek’s brows knitted together and he shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. They’re a part of you, Quinn. You’re beautiful—all of you is beautiful.”

I tried to relax against his body, but what if I hurt him? What if I did something I couldn’t take back? What if I didn’t have control over myself? Was this a mistake?

“I trust you,” he assured me, as if he’d somehow divined my thoughts. Though, they were probably written all over my face. “And we seriously don’t have to do that tonight—or ever, if you don’t want to. But I’m willing to give it a try, whenever you are.”

I searched his gaze. “You’d really let me bite you?”

“I trust you,” Derek repeated. “And it’s supposed to feel good, if you want it to. That’s what everyone says. You’d need to be gentle, though.” He gave me a small smile, but I could see the trepidation in his eyes. The same way I’d felt, right before letting him make love to me. “It’d be my first time, too. I’ve never been bitten before.”

A new thought occurred to me—one that never had before. “If we did that,” I said slowly. “It would be the first step to establishing a blood bond.”

He nodded, unsurprised. But then, he was friends with enough vampires that he probably knew perfectly well, what he was suggesting. “I’m aware.”

It didn’t matter which order things happened in, or when it happened—even if it was months or years apart—but when a vampire meets their fated mate and exchanges blood with them, a deep and permanent telepathic bond forms.

There would be no more secrets between us, ever.

“You’re not… that’s not scary to you?”

He chuckled. “Not really, Quinn. I don’t have anything I’m hiding from you. Not anymore. And I’ve never minded being close to you. I’m in this for the long haul.”

I swallowed hard. “I can’t.”

An ordinary man might’ve thought I meant “not right now,” but Derek understood me better than anyone else ever had.

His brows drew together and his eyes filled with pain that made my stomach clench up. “Never?”

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I forced my fangs away with an act of will—oh, how I hated them—and laid my head down on his bicep.

“Listen, I’m not going to lie to you,” Derek murmured, finally speaking after what seemed like a long time had passed. There was pain in his voice, making his words a little thicker than they usually were. “I’m not going to pretend like it doesn’t suck that you don’t want to be connected like that. But I also get that this is how you feel and that matters more to me than anything. I’m not going to push you into anything you don’t want to do. This is a big, life-changing decision.”

And potentially a life-ending one, if I couldn’t control myself. Derek didn’t deserve that—no one had ever deserved the danger I’d brought into his life less than he did.

My eyes started burning and I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I merely nodded instead.

He slid his other arm around me, holding me close.

He didn’t seem to mind that he was cradling a killer.

“Why?” I said abruptly. The word practically fell out of my lips before I realized I was going to say anything. But once I’d said it, I realized that every part of me wanted to know. I wanted to understand what he could possibly see in me that would make him so gentle, so kind, so absurdly patient with me.

“You know why,” he chided me, landing a kiss on the top of my head. When he pulled back, he added, “And if anyone understands that it can be hard to let people in, it’s me.” He let out a long breath. “I spent a long time being Derek Evans. Even if I didn’t really want to be. I’m not even sure I know how to be Allen Nelson anymore. It’s not like a switch you can flip.”

“Allen Nelson,” I whispered. “Do you want me to call you that now?”