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Sliding his arm around her waist, he closed his hand around one of hers, but left it on his chest, war it between those two parts of him as he moved her into an easy three-step rhythm, mindful of the dimensions of her room It had been a while since he’d done it, but it was easy with herwith him, her body close froht scandalous when it was invented, because it allowed men and women to stand close to one another, and required the man to put a hand on the woman’s waist?" Elisa tilted her head, an innocently coquettish gesture "When I was younger, I re boy and young girl, teenagers, on the train I don’t think their parents knew they were sweethearts, but I could tell They were sitting in the seats behind their parents and I was across the aisle I re armrest and she put hers next to it, and for so , they kept their hands like that, no more than a half inch between thein the air, and it just got heavier and heavier At last, when I think they could bear no htly For just the barest second, he put his ser over hers The look on her faceit was as if he’d kissed her soundly and"

Her cheeks flushed then, but he saw it in her esture"

She nodded "Soive me one look, or you touch ’s work, and the heat lingers inside of ave a quick s, so romantic andfull Don’t pay any attention to ht now?"

27

HE stopped, dropping her hand so he could put both at her waist, his fingers flexing During the dancing, she’d becoh, she was practical, flatly reasonable

"Would that work for you?" he asked curtly "Get it off the to-do list, and then you can go beat rugs with Kohana, or cook eggs?"

She blinked "Since you caet it done"

He did, daht fro his brow to hers, he gave her unexpected tenderness As a result, her blue eyes flitted up to his, uncertainty replacing that veneer of efficiency "I do But I want you to feel, Elisa I want you to feel all of it Even if you choose to go home afterwards, I’ve bound you to me the way no other vampire ever will In the eyes of the vanificant"

"I know" Petulance gave her tone a snap She closed her eyes "I want you to just do it I don’t want to feel, because it’s not real, you know I belong to you, but you’ll never belong to h she wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t already known about her, about what she truly wanted "But someone will I told you, there will be other entle hands--"

"I don’t want another Willis There was only one of him, and he’s here, in my heart I don’t need another man like that I don’t need--" She drew a breath, tried to back away, but he held on to her arle, see it, but he saas beneath it as well When he saw her answer, his va to take, claiether as she beca up into her throat When her back hit the wall, he lifted her up against it, sliding an ars naturally curled high on his thighs to hold on

"Elisa, do you want to be my third-marked servant, bound to me forever, subject to my will for you, whatever thatabout what I will or won’t do for you and your fledglings This is your choice Is it what you want, or not?"

"I needtime"

"No, you don’t It’s just a matter of whether you accept it or not"

"Is it what you want?" She stared at him "You’ve never had a third-mark servant Why do you want e to think about that side of it, ot others in her calculations In fact, the decision to keep the record player to herself, even for a ht, was the first ti for her own