“You were actually Keith?” I asked again.
He nodded again. I started laughing hysterically. Lucian was trying to control his own laughter.
“So the erectile dysfunction thing was your way of keeping me off him?”
“Yes.” He chuckled. “I’m not proud. Lies, Evey, all lies. I regret getting myself into that mess.”
I stopped laughing. “Why didn’t you just make love to me as Keith? I was obviously willing.”
“Yeah, you were all over him.” He seemed irritated by that fact.
“Why didn’t you let him make love to me?”
“It wouldn’t have been love for you, not with him. And if I had gotten out of his body and let you guys… you know? It wouldn’t have been love for him either. I had overheard him earlier. He wasn’t into making love that night. He just wanted to have sex with you. I’m sorry, Evey. I hate telling you that. I was trying to protect you.”
“So he wasn’t into me?”
“He was into you. You’re beautiful. No man on this planet wouldn’t be into you, but that night Keith wanted to party. It would not have been special for you or for him. Trust me.”
“Maybe I didn’t need special.” He grimaced. “Anyway, I sensed that it was you, once we were in the club,” I said. “You could have made love to me as Keith.”
I was lying in bed, naked, next to this celestial creature, and he was just a man to me. A beautiful, jealous, kind, loving, possessive man.
“I wouldn’t have been able to satisfy you as Keith.” He smirked. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
Then we were kissing again.
Of course I had a lot of questions. Questions like, “Am I dreaming? Is this possible?” I’d had a hard time believing in the tooth fairy as a child, let alone the fact that someone or something had been following me around my entire life and that that something or someone looked like this guy. When I was a teenager, I had actually thought that the government was a sham, so religion was total fiction to me. That’s how cynical I was. I had thought love was a choice not a feeling. Of course that could have been due to Brooklyn’s negative influence after we had become old enough to date. Somehow, every guy, regardless of how much I liked him, eventually turned into a buffoon by the end of the night. I wondered though if maybe Lucian had more to do with that than Brooke.
“So why Beckett? He was a good guy,” I said.
“Evey, Beckett is the worst kind. I know messing with him the way that I did was not right. I blame the whiskey, but I’m glad I did. Beckett is not what you think. He had a date lined up after you. He was texting her in the bathroom.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No.” He frowned. “I hate telling you stuff like that. There’s no reason for it. It has nothing to do with you.”
“It seemed like he liked me.”
“He did. He liked you, and he liked some girl named Karla and another girl named Michelle. It’s just his age. He gets a lot of attention, and he likes it. He’ll always be that way though. I’ve been around for a long time. Men like that don’t commit because they need a lot of attention, all the time. He’s like Brooklyn’s male counterpart.”
“Well, that makes sense.” And it did, once I thought of Beckett in those terms. “Maybe we should set him and Brooklyn up.”
“No, they’d fight over who had more prospects.” He laughed.
“True. But I don’t believe that Brooklyn will be single forever. I think her whole MO is just a front.”
“Maybe. I don’t think she’s a horrible person or friend, Evey. I just think she’s taken you for granted.”
“How do you feel about me?”
He rolled onto his side to face me while brushing the hair out of my face. I studied his angled jaw, his black hair, his piercing eyes. “Evelyn, I’ve existed for more than two millennia. In two thousand years, I have watched over so many lives. At times, more than five souls were my responsibility alone. I’ve watched all of them die. I’ve held many of them while they were dying. It’s in my nature to do that, to give peace to my souls, to look out for them when I can, to sway the good ones to do the right thing, and to protect man and life here on Earth. I’ve watched over stunningly beautiful and brilliant women, but I have never felt love for any human the way I feel it for you. You are literally the air in my lungs.”
I was breathless for a moment. “You don’t have to say that.”
“It’s true. I want you to understand the difference, the magnitude. When you started dating, I went crazy. I was drinking every day, all day, worried that some asshole was going to break your heart, and at the same time, I was jealous that I couldn’t be with you, that I couldn’t be the one you laughed with, the one you made love to, the one you shared your life with.”
“Lucian…”
“Listen”—he put his hand on my cheek—“I can’t bear being without you. I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but I’m willing to risk it all, my life ten times over, to be near you. Watching you with other men was torture. I couldn’t take it, Evey, so I made the decision to reveal myself to you. I wanted to get banished or be resigned. I never expected that I would get to be with you this way. I feel alive now. I regret nothing.”
I wanted to reciprocate. To tell him the pull toward him was so strong it haunted my dreams, but he already knew that. I didn’t have to say anything. I kissed him gently, tugging at his beautiful bottom lip. When he closed his eyes, I said, “So you meant to show me who you really are? It wasn’t an accident and you knew there would be some consequence?”