Author's Note: As you may have noticed, the rating on this fic has been raised from T to M, and this has happened entirely on account of this chapter and possible future ones of a similar nature. So, that said, the following contains a scene of fairly graphic sexuality. If you are uncomfortable with this, I'd suggest not reading further.

Rome, 1816

It had been ten years since that first hunt, and ever since Katherine had slowly become more accustomed to this new lifestyle. She was still plagued by revulsion following each time she fed off of an unsuspecting victim, but she no longer broke down in tears. Likewise, the constant moving that was necessary to keep people from becoming suspicious also had become second nature. The fact that Darien had various lodgings already bought and paid for, five centuries under his belt had allowed him to become a man of means, scattered across America and Western Europe made things a tad easier. Although it wasn't just the circumstances that she found herself adjusting to, but the company as well.

Her hatred for her sire, which had been so strong those first ten years, had slowly started to fizzle out. If you asked her, she couldn't entirely explain the reasons behind this phenomenon beyond the argument that, upon close inspection, he wasn't the ruthless sadist she had first thought him to be. The man was in fact capable of compassion, as Katherine had discovered the evening of her first kill, and even, she began to suspect, deeply suppressed remorse for his actions. It wasn't that he particularly enjoyed murdering innocents, it was just that he had reached the point where he could do it without flinching. Had it been right for her to initially condemn him as a monster for that reason? She was beginning to think not, even if she wasn't sure she could ever quite get to that point herself.

Moreover, Darien, despite the circumstances, was a gentleman. He wanted her, that had been blatantly clear from the beginning, but he had not made any move to touch her in a way that was inappropriate. For all the frustration that they no doubt caused him, he had accepted the boundaries she had placed between them as they were. It had been twenty years now and any other man in that situation might have reacted violently, might have taken her against her will, but not him. It was somewhat a strange paradox that a man could kill without even batting an eye, but wouldn't cross the line of rape. That was the way it was, however, all he ever did was look-and she eventually found herself enjoying the fact that he did.

He was attractive in a suave, distinguished way if not in the fashion of a Grecian god; well built if not overly muscular. It was that penetrating gaze of his that drew her in, much like it had been that gaze that had unnerved her when they first met. But it wasn't so much fearsome as alluring now that she had stopped feeling as if she was some coveted prize and more as if she was merely what he clearly saw her as: a desirable woman. Whenever they were in the same room, she could feel him watching her, sense those eyes of his rove all over her body, and knew he was mentally undressing her. As time went on, she found her body responding instinctively to those looks just as they would to a tender caress, and sometimes got so aroused that she had to slip away to compose herself and cool down.

One such moment arose one evening in mid-winter when they were tucked away in Darien's villa right outside of Rome. Snowflakes were falling in abundance outside the big bay windows, and Katherine was seated on the window seat, watching them in an absentminded fashion. Charlie was out, leaving the two of them alone in the parlor, the only sound that of the fire crackling on the hearth. Darien was sitting by the fireplace, taking up the pretense of reading, but had soon abandoned it in favor of watching her. As always, his gaze was all-encompassing, roaming over every inch of her, and she soon felt the familiar warmth of arousal start to spread down between her thighs. Shutting her eyes tightly for a moment, she shifted a little in her seat, but stood her ground. No, tonight she wasn't going to flee, she decided. Tonight she was going to face this head on; tonight she was going to succumb.

Very slowly, she rose to her feet, turning to face him so that their gazes locked, and for a moment, they were both still, silent. "Do you ever get tired of only being able to watch?" Katherine finally inquired, her voice low, as she took a step towards him.

He arched an eyebrow mildly in response to the question, leaning back in his chair, and said, "What else would I do, my dear?"

She gave a shrug of her slender shoulders, moving closer to him still. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "You could touch me. Allow your hands to travel the same path your eyes just did."

Surprised, followed by an obvious spark of lust, flickered briefly in his eyes at that suggestion, but he kept his expression carefully guarded. "That begs the question of whether or not you'd want me to do that, Katherine," he murmured, watching her carefully. "I'd never do anything to you of that nature if you didn't wish it."

"I know," she replied softly, settling on the arm of his chair. "You've made that quite clear." There was a brief pause, then, before she reached out to lightly touch his face, running her palm along the curve of his cheek. Leaning in a little, she added in an even softer, albeit one graced with an inviting tone, voice, "But what if I said I did wish it?"

His gaze didn't waver as he gently took her hand in his, turning it so that he could press the lightest of kisses to her palm. "Then I wouldn't be able to refuse you," he murmured simply.

A tiny smile played on her lips, hazel eyes flashing with desire, as she only whispered, "Good," before leaning in to press her lips to his.

He responded to the kiss instantaneously with great tenderness, slowly wrapping his arms around her waist. When he received a faint sound of satisfaction upon nibbling lightly on her lower lip, he took this as incentive to deepen the kiss, tightening his hold on her as he pulled her into his lap. Katherine, for her part, didn't resist in the slightest, winding her arms around his neck in turn and opening her mouth with a pleased sigh once his tongue began its quest for entry. As the kiss was deepened even further, the passion that had been simmering between them now slowly coming to a boil, she found herself pressing her body against his, at that moment desiring the feel of it above everything else.

Darien's hands eventually loosened their grip in favor of slowly running up and down her back, fingering the fastenings of her gown. "There is nothing I want more than to take you right here, right now," he murmured, his voice huskier than ever with desire, against her lips, pulling her even more tightly to him so that she could feel how he had already hardened in want of her. "Nothing on this earth."

"Then do it," she breathed in response, the words punctuated by a soft gasp, as she wound her legs around his middle. "Please. It's been too long."

"Too long since you've had a man?" He inquired in clarification, finally breaking the kiss to start trailing kisses along the side of her neck, already unfastening the hooks of her dress.

"Yes," she sighed, arching her neck and assisting him in removing the impediment of her clothing, pulling her arms out of the sleeves. "Not since you turned me."

He was smirking a little against her skin as he murmured, "And whose fault is that?"

She swatted at him, but was unable to do much else in the face of the fact that he had just slid a hand between her legs, pressing against her through her undergarments and earning a sharp gasp. Her legs tightened even more securely around his waist as she moved to strip him of his shirt, running her fingers over his bare chest once it was revealed.

"Shall I have you now, then?" He inquired, his voice low with longing, his breath hot on her skin, as he tugged the gown down around her waist. "Right here on the floor?"

"Yes," was all she could breathe in answer, her grip on him only tightening, and she was nothing but yielding as he lowered them both to the floor. There, on the plush carpet before the fireplace, they began to make love for the first time. Bending down to graze her collarbone with his lips, he pulled her dress off of her the rest of the way, leaving her in her underclothes.

"Beautiful," he murmured against her skin, his hand slipping beneath her back to start unknotting the lacings of her corset with a skilled determination. Winding her arms around his neck and lifting a little to give him easier access to both her flesh and to the laces, she clung to him like a vine to a wall. Her only verbal response to his flattery was a deep sigh of desire. Once he has succeeded in releasing her from the corset, he tugged at her shift, freeing it from where it was tucked into the waistband of her petticoat, and pulled it up over her head, exposing her upper body to him entirely.

Darien couldn't suppress the low groan that escaped him at the mere sight of her, and wasted no time in kissing his way down her chest, pausing to take the nipple of each breast in his mouth in turn, relishing the feel of it hardening beneath his tongue as he swirled it around the sensitive flesh. Katherine gasped, arching up into his mouth in ecstasy as her head rolled back, her fingernails digging into his skin. Still lavishing attention on one breast, he moved to remove her petticoat, her bloomers, and thereby rid himself of the last obstacle keeping him from her womanhood.

Shifting down to press the softest of kisses to where the pale flesh of her stomach met the v of her thighs, causing her to shift beneath him in the painful ecstasy of anticipation, before pulling back to shed his pants as well as his own undergarments. For a moment, he was still, and all she could do was stare at the wholeness of him, then her gaze flitted back up to meet his, the two locking with each other and translating a shared current of electric need. Their eyes still locked, he moved to, at last, enter her.

Katherine could only give a sharp, whimpering mew in response to the sensation, bucking beneath him as her hips jerked reflexively. Never before had she experienced such a heightened sense of arousal as the kind she was experiencing then as he moved within her, his fingers just as busily locating her core and lavishing it with tender caresses all the while. The arousal was so strong, so painfully intoxicating, that was afraid that she might start weeping for want of an orgasm, thinking that the point of climax couldn't come fast enough.

When it eventually arrived, she was not disappointed, the explosion of pleasure all the more intense as a result of her now-heightened senses. A louder cry than she thought she was capable of making escaped her, nearly a shriek, and she drew blood when she instinctively bit down on her lower lip to muffle it; the accompanying tremor that coursed through her body so strong that, even well after the orgasm ebbed, she was certain that even her very bones were quivering. So enthralled was she by her own climax that she was lost to his, but when she gradually came back to her senses, she would see that Darien, too, was slowly coming down, his expression somewhat hazy.

When he finally gathered his composure enough to start to pull out, she stopped him, only pulling him down for a passionate kiss and murmuring only, almost to her own surprise, "Again," into his mouth, too greedy to allow the experience to end so quickly. Darien, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and spreading to his eyes, is quick to comply and takes her again, twice more, right there. Still, neither of them were completely satiated, and it took two more rounds, one up against the wall on the staircase and a final one on his great bed, before they both collapsed, not physically worn out, but unable to take anymore pleasure.

Rolling onto his side to face her, Darien reached to smooth a few lustrous locks of auburn hair, damp with perspiration, back from Katherine's brow, studying her face in silence. "Should I take this to mean that you've stopped hating me?" He finally inquired, his voice a low drawl, a hint of a smile in his eyes, running his fingers lightly over her bare thigh.

A hint of a smile played on her lips as she looked up at him, hazel eyes dancing playfully. "I suppose you could say that," was all she murmured, reaching out to trace patterns on his chest with a slender finger. "If you're feeling overly confident, that is."

"When am I ever not overly confident?" He responded wryly, earning a soft laugh in answer. Smiling a little, he bent down to graze her lips tenderly with his, enveloping Katherine in an embrace, content to merely hold her to him now that his urges had been satisfied. "I love you," he murmured, his voice quiet, upon breaking the kiss, his gaze locking with hers again.

Katherine's eyes widened slightly in surprise, for although she had begun to suspect as much, actually hearing the words from his lips was an entirely different matter. Moreover, she was just as surprised by the answer that rose instinctively to her own lips, crossing them almost unconsciously, but ringing no less true for this:

"I love you, too."