“One way or another, Miss Bennet, I will succeed.”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you can’t always get what you want?”

“No,” he said simply. “She knew better than to think I’d ever give up on that which I truly want. You will learn that as well.”

“I’m not a thing or a that.”

“Oh, I know, believe me I am fully aware of who and what you are. And I’ll be here until you come to realize it as well.”

That statement should have sounded threatening or stalkerish. Instead, she’d taken a sort of perverse pleasure in it.

She had called Peter as soon as she got home that day, though, and asked him how he thought telling people about not just her in general but more specifically her whereabouts was keeping her safe. He’d apologized profusely, but assumed (correctly) she’d like the opportunity to talk to someone like her.

She just hadn’t expected him and even if she had. Well, she never would have been ready for him. She noticed him immediately. He was hard to miss. He walked with an air to him that drew attention, though she wasn’t sure why. She just knew that of all the guys outside the mall that day she didn’t notice any of them except one.

Adam.

He was the one everyone’s mother warned them about. Good looking. Smart. Entirely too sure of himself and unafraid to let everyone around him know that. Confident and not at all ashamed of being that way.

Most importantly, or frighteningly depending on how one wanted to look at it. He was focused on Claire Bennet. She couldn’t possibly know that Peter’s slip about her existence had saved lives. Armed wth the knowledge that there was someone else like him, he’d changed his course of action and come to California.

For her.

He wanted her because he was like Claire in a way no one else was.

Invulnerable. Some might say immortal. Claire wasn’t ready to admit that quite yet, though Adam was pretty convincing evidence of that fact.

Gods.

He’d said they were like gods, because no one but gods lived forever.

She’d laughed at him.

She hadn’t lived long enough to think about forever or what her life would be like thirty years from now let alone three hundred years from now.

She was curious, though, so despite her father’s misgivings she accepted his request of a date when it was clear he wasn’t going away. He hadn’t been very discreet about his intentions either. She didn’t have to be the most experienced person in the world to know what he had in mind. Going out for dinner and a movie wasn’t it either.

Her brother told her when she was getting ready that Adam looked at her as if he was going to devour her. She imagined that was supposed to frighten her, but it did just the opposite. She liked that he looked at her that way. It was different than how West looked at her.

It was more than pent up desire, because she had no doubt that he could find release anywhere. There was something specific he wanted from her.

Sex.

She’d heard friends talk about it. Most of them she could tell enhanced their experiences, built it up so that they wouldn’t look bad. Not everyone in the world had great first experiences. She’d read and heard too many stories of sex gone bad to believe that every one of the people she knew had escaped the comedy of errors that could happen.

So, when Adam picked her up for the night she was nervous. There was no uncertainty or anything and he didn’t frighten her. She just didn’t know what to expect.

She’d played hard to get for a while and he’d gone along with the game. Perhaps he knew as well as she that she would eventually give in, but needed to know that at least she meant something to him. She wasn’t expecting love or a proposal. No, nothing like that. She just didn’t want the attractant between them being merely the fact they shared the same ability. They’d gotten to know one another somewhat, so he wasn’t a stranger.

She wasn’t at all surprised when their date turned out to be dinner in his room. She’d known when he picked her up that accepting the date was accepting everything about what he wanted from her.

Devouring. Most importantly, her desire to be devoured. By him.

Surprisingly, she was the one who initiated contact between them. Dinner had been eaten, the room service cart (because of course he stayed in a place nice enough to deliver it on a cart) put out in the hallway followed by the Do Not Disturb sign being hung from the door knob.

Hiking her skirt up so she could straddle him comfortably had surprised him. She liked that she could do that. This man who’d seen everything had never come up against Claire Bennet before. So he had no idea that when she put her mind to something it got done. They were alike in that it seemed, she just didn’t have as much life experience to know what all she wanted.

Right here, though, she knew exactly what she wanted.

Her mouth touched his and that was when his careful control broke. Despite Lyle’s comment about Adam wanting to devour her, she’d never really thought of sexual need being the same as normal hunger that everyone feels every day.

His mouth was everywhere. Kissing, licking, nipping, and biting. Like him, he knew that no matter what he did there’d be no evidence moments later.

She knew now that going so long having to hide your true self from others built up something that only she held the key to.

Allowing him to be himself. Not having to hold back. Not having to worry about explaining why a scratch here or bite there was gone when the good sex was over.

They both knew.

Pain.

There was some, but not in the way most would expect from her first time. Instead it was of the giving as good as she got variety. She tried to echo the urgency he felt, the desire her being in his life had unleashed, and harness it into something incredible.

She lay next to him in bed, his leg draped possessively over hers preventing her from moving. As if she could move just now even if she wanted to. She tried to catalog her feelings. They were a jumbled mess, still raw from everything they’d done.

Nowhere in there was cheap or used, though, because even if this was it for them she knew she’d given him something no one else could.

She smiled to herself a little, though, because she knew something he probably hadn’t thought about. Assuming the sex was as good for him as it was for her anyway.

He’d been waiting his whole life for her and while he thought he would be spoiling her for any other who came after him it was she realized quite the opposite.

Now that he’d had her he would do whatever was in his power to ensure she stayed with him.

Oddly, despite some arguing she was too young or too inexperienced at life, she was all right with him using his power to do just that.

~The End~

Story ©Susan Matthews/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com