Chapter 16

Rose P.O.V

I awoke with a sigh. I was so comfy and warm, and just happy in general. My head was resting on Dimitri's arm, my nose to his chest. Thankfully he was wearing a shirt, because I fear that I would reach out and lick his skin, just to see how he tasted. I was wearing another one of his shirts; they were so soft and smelled like him. "Rose," Dimitri groaned. I glanced up at him, startled, to see his gorgeous brown eyes staring back at me.

"What?" I asked, genuinely confused. Dimitri sounded exasperated. What could I have done, I just woke up?

"It is so hard not to just ravish you." My eyes popped wide. "You are irresistible, and I can only barely control myself." His eyes stared into mine. I never realized that I affected Dimitri that much. "It's worse now, now that you know that we're mates. Now you know that we are meant for each other and all I want to do is just take you here and now." I gasped lightly. "But I never would, not without your permission." He said to reassure me. "I just wanted to tell you what I was truly feeling, so you know why I might pull away sometimes."

"Pull away?"

"When we're kissing or touching, I might need to pull away so I don't do anything untoward you. I don't want to frighten you; I just want to realize that because of my vampire genes I want you so bad it pains me. And I'm not telling you this to pressure you into anything, either." He rushed to say.

"I trust you Dimitri, and you telling me this only allows me to trust you more. I know you won't do anything bad. And I'll understand it if you need to pull away. I'll probably pull away first. I… I want to go slow. I've never even kissed anyone before you an, though I love you, we haven't known each other all that long. I'm not ready, but you'll be the first to know when I am."

"I hope I'd be the first," He chuckled. When he sobered he brushed a strand of my hair out of my face and behind my ear with the tip of his fingers, barely touching my skin, causing a shiver to travel down my spine. "You are so beautiful." He practically whispered.

"And you are so handsome." I giggled.

"Oh, yeah, what's your favorite part about me?"

"You're very sweet to me." I said after a moment of thought, and then added to it. "And you are very intelligent. Oh, and I like that you are protective."

He laughed. "Thanks Roza, but that's not quite what I meant. I love what you said, but what's your favorite thing to look at about me; what feature?"

"Oh," I blushed slightly. "Well, I really like your eyes, and your body isn't anything to be ashamed about." I placed a hand upon said body, my palm flat on his abdomen.

"Well, I really like how independent and strong you are, your spirit is unbreakable. What I like most about your physical appearance would have to be your hair. It's so silky and looks like waves cascading down your back. And I love how it looks when it blows in the wind or when it fans around you while you're sleeping." He curled a lock of my hair around a finger, inspecting it up close. He brought it closer and sniffed it. "I also love your smell; it's intoxicating." He closed his eyes, and I decided to take advantage of that. I leaned forward and kissed his lips. He pulled back and I expected him to pull away completely and say something about his control, considering what we just talked about. But instead he reattached his full lips back to mine. My body went noodle-y. He rolled us over so he was slightly on top of me. I dragged my hands up his sides slowly as shudders went up and down my body from his hands. They were at my waist; he was pushing in with his fingers. He dragged his thumbs in circle, causing goosebumps to appear along my back.

One hand lifted my hips up and the other slid up the hem of my/his shirt. He pressed down with his hips at the same time and drew a gasp from my mouth. He hit that spot. I bent one of my legs at the knee. The hand that pulled the shirt up continued up to my ribs, his thumb just under my breast. I broke our kiss to get my breath and he dragged his lips across my cheek and down to my throat, sucking slightly. I locked my fingers into his hair and moan as quietly as I could when he pressed with his hips again. So much for going slow, right?

He nibbled on my ear lobe and when he pressed once more with his hips I couldn't help but push upwards into his, he groaned into my ear. I wiggled and another groan was pulled from his lips. I giggled and pecked his cheek. The hand under my breast slid down my side, over the curve of my hip and down to my thigh. Shudders shot down my spine, goosebumps rising. He lifted and hooked my leg over his hip. I arched my back, pushing our chests together. He sucked on my throat and pressed with his lower half again. This time it hit… perfectly. I moaned louder than I ever had before, and had a full body shiver.

And then he was gone.

He disappeared from on top of me and was at the other side of the room, panting. I was breathing raggedly. "Dimitri?" I called out.

"I'm okay, just give me a moment." I focused on trying to get my body under control. I felt hot, my cheeks flushed. I slowed my breathing and pulled down my shirt. My legs were still exposed, mostly, probably should get dressed to help Dimitri.

"I'm going to go get dressed." I quickly grabbed a dress and went into the bathroom. Probably wouldn't help him if I was showing a lot skin. Halfway through getting dressed I heard a knock at the door. "I'm going to go make breakfast."

"Ok." I finished dressing and went downstairs to the smell of bacon. Yum! I might have walked a little faster to get to the bacon. I practically skipped into the kitchen… to see Dimitri in an apron, a pink apron. I stared, open-mouthed.

"Before you start with the assumptions, it was a gift from Victoria." He explained without even turning around.

"Oh, ok, because that was definitely better than what I was thinking." I continued skipping until I stood next to him. "Just to warn you, my love for bacon is unbreakable. I might just leave you for some crispy bacon one day." I teased.

"Oh, would you?" He turned with a large spoon in his right hand. It had some remnant pancake batter that had stuck to the spoon. "Would you really?" he waved the spoon threateningly, and took a step forward.

"Dimitri, no, no," I backed up but for every step I would take backwards Dimitri would mirror, forwards. "Dimitri!" He lunged at me but I dodged to the side. I had no doubt in my mind that if Dimitri really wanted to catch me he could, but we were just playing. I ran around the island counter thing, giggling loudly.

"All you have to do is say that you love me more than bacon!" He called out.

"Never!" I made a mad dash for the living room. I made it but was thrown down onto the couch. I tried to scramble off, but Dimitri straddled my waist, and held both of my hands above my head with one of his. "I'll never say it, never!" I screamed, barely containing the laughter. Dimitri had a huge grin on his face while he lowered the spoon.

"Say it!"

"Never, bacon is my true love! You can't keep us apart." I exclaimed, unable to keep the smile off my face.

He lowered the spoon some more, right above my cheek. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Say that you love me more."

"Never," I growled.

He smeared the batter onto one cheek. It was wet, sticky, and cold. "You chose the hard way. Don't make me do it twice! Say it!"

"There's nothing you can do to diminish my love of bacon!"

"You asked for it!" He smeared the other cheek, creating a huge circle to cover most of my cheek. It hid my blush at least.

"Don't make me do it a third time!"

"Fine! No more. I admit defeat. Iloveyoumorethanbacon."

"What was that? I didn't quite catch that."

"I LOVE YOU MORE THAN BACON!" I screamed, giggling like a maniac. Dimitri let my hands go but I left them where they were. It was now that I realized just exactly how …precarious our position was.

"You better." He leaned down slightly and licked a stripe of the batter off of my face. My eyes closed as he continued to wash my face with his tongue. Maybe at another time I would have been disgusted but it didn't feel gross. It felt … I'm not exactly sure why I liked it. But his tongue was soft and his breath tickled my cheeks.

I also don't know why I did what I did. I stuck my tongue out and licked his face, despite the fact that his was void of any batter. He froze and then I did too, worried that I had done something wrong. I looked up at him and he looked…confused and shocked? I was about to ask what was wrong but then I smelled it.

Something was burning.

"Dimitri, something is burning!" And with that Dimitri was gone from the room. When I arrived in the kitchen, he was scraping the charred remains of what used to be a pancake into the trash. Thankfully the bacon was unharmed.

"Thankfully, we didn't start a fire, but it was close." He looked up at me with a huge grin before turning back to the stove and starting a new pancake, and taking the bacon off the heat and onto a plate. "Why don't you go set the table? This will only take a couple of minutes." So I went small dining room and set two places, across from each other.

In a few minutes he came in with two plates of pancakes, syrup and bacon. "I'm going to get fat if you keep doing this." I moaned when I took the first bite.

"What do you mean?"

"You keep cooking me these big, delicious meals. I eat myself full because they taste so good. This syrup is heavenly."

"We have our own maple trees, so we make our syrup here. And even I like it, and I'm not the biggest sweet tooth." The bacon was perfect, too. Crispy, just the way I like it.

"So, can we talk seriously for a minute?"

"Of course, Rose."

"So, what exactly is going to entail with me being your mate? Yesterday when you said you wanting to talk with me alone I assume it was about this."

"It was. I wanted to make sure you were ok with knowing, but by the way you're acting this morning I'm not worried anymore."

"I had thought about it before, when you first mentioned mates. I almost asked but I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. And now that I do know, it's more reassuring. I mean, of course I loved you before, but now I know that we were born for each other, and that one of us won't leave the other. That was what I was most afraid of. That you would leave after I had fallen completely head over heels for you."

"I'll never leave you Rose, you have to know that."

"I do, and I'll never leave you. Well, except for crispy bacon."

"Not this again, do I have to go get the batter!?" he exclaimed, making me laugh.

"No, no. I love you!"

"I love you, too, Roza." The intensity of his gaze made me look down at my mostly eaten pancake.

The silence was broken a moment later with a loud whoop. "Hey guys!" Victoria bounced into the room, holding a small present in one hand. "I can't believe you had pancakes without me! So rude, Dimitri, you know I love your pancakes." She plopped the wrapped gift in front of me. "Before you say thanks, it's not from me. It was on your doorstep, addressed to you."

Who could this be from? I've only met a few people, and only just yesterday. I pulled at the blue ribbon and there were three things I was able to comprehend in that moment.

I heard "No!"

There was a very loud, deafening boom.

And then there was pain.

I was slammed to the ground, Dimitri on top of me. My back and head hit first causing shooting pains. When everything was quiet, Dimitri eased himself off of me. The table and spot where I was sitting was on fire. The present had been a bomb.

I could see Dimitri's lips moving but heard him as if hearing him through a tunnel. I had to strain to hear what he was saying. "Go get … help…Guardians. I'm taking … Rose…. Go!" I missed a lot of what he said.

Dimitri picked me up gingerly and brought me to the living room, sitting me down on the couch. He kneeled in front of me. "Are you ok?" I could hear a little better. "Are you hurt?"

"I… I think I'm ok. My hearing is a little strange."

"That's ok; it'll be back to normal in a moment. Victoria went to go get the Guardians. They are the people who keep the peace, like police for the vampires. They'll investigate everything and everyone. I can't believe someone would do this. Mates, as I said before, are sacred. And no one really messes with anyone with a mate lest they accidently kill them. Because by killing one half of the pairing you kill the other half. You can't have one without the other. But this wasn't an accident. Someone wanted to kill you! I can't believe this. This is unacceptable. I'm going to find whoever did this and kill them for threatening your life."

"Dimitri, calm down. I'm not hurt." He was absolutely livid; I could see it on his face. He didn't look in control.

"But you could have been!" He yelled and I flinched. Not because I was scared but because my hearing had fully returned and the loud noise started me. But it seemed to pull Dmitri out of his anger.

"I'm sorry Rose; I don't mean to scare you."

"Dimitri!" I heard Victoria call out.

"We're in the living room!" He called back. He stood as three men walked in with Victoria.

"The others are checking out the dining room," she informed us.

One of the Guardians came to sit in front of me and started checking my vitals and to see if I had any injuries. Dimitri explained what happened. And now the only thing to do to was wait. The guardians continued to investigate the house. Dimitri and I sat in silence besides each other. Victoria walked around and paced and made many calls. But I heard nothing. Why would someone try to kill me? I did piss of Tasha yesterday but did that warrant my death? I laid my head on Dimitri's shoulder and just watched everyone do their things.

"Rose?" I looked up at him. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

A/N: I am so sorry that it took me forever to update. I had tons of finals and projects and stuff like that and only just got out of school on Tuesday. But I hope this chapter makes up for it.