Page 49 of Skin Trade

Reaching for the robe she’d thrown on the other side of her bed, she pulled it to her and put it on before getting out of bed. She’d take a bath. That was sure to lull her to sleep with the heat.

She put the plug in the bath, turned the hot tap on and added some of the scented salts into the tub from on the shelf. The bath, of course, sat on Seth’s side of the bathroom, taunting her and making her step into his domain even though she didn’t want to. There was no escape from him. His shirt hung on the back of the door, worn, giving off the scent of his cologne even from where she stood. It was tempting to grab it and bring it to her face and inhale, but that would just set every hormone off in her body and she’d be worse off than she already was.

Leaving the shirt on the door, she went to go back to her bath, but paused. This door led to his room. He was just in there, on the other side, asleep. She bit her lip, and despite every thought in her body screaming at her not to do it, she eased the handle around and inched the door open.

His room was dark, so dark it was almost black save for the sliver of light Payton cast into the room from the open bathroom door. She couldn’t see him from this angle and at first her pulse hitched with disappointment. Maybe he wasn’t in there, but as she stepped into the room, she caught sight of his sleeping form.

The blankets were gathered at his slender waist, and she had to put her hand to her mouth to keep herself quiet. He lay on his front with his arms tucked under the pillow. It made the muscles of his back look bunched and defined. His face was angled towards her, but his eyes were closed, and he didn’t move.

She dashed back into the bathroom, shut the door a little louder than she liked and waited on the other side, her heart hammering with what she had done. Sure, she had just woken him with her almost slamming of the door. But then she remembered, he was vampire. Dead, not asleep.

The thought made her open the door again. He was dead—undead, but either way, gone right this moment with no chance of waking up. When she went into his room a second time, he hadn’t woken, or even moved, of course. For some reason, she expected him to have, maybe to have turned over with her disturbance.

This time, she left the safety the bathroom offered her and went fully into his room. But the closer she got, the more she came to her senses. What was she doing in here? She had no right to be in here. This was his private area and he had the right to keep that to himself. Still, she wanted to touch him. Just once, her fingers along the flesh of his back.

No. She couldn’t

Fighting herself, she moved away and went back to the bathroom. This time, with sheer determination to do the right thing, she shut the door behind her and tried to push from her mind that he was in there. Perfectly formed, perfectly half-naked. She needed to move before she started to drool or something equally bad.

“Oh, shit.” The bath. She dashed to the tub. The water was almost at the top. There was no overflow for when idiots came in and left the tap running. She turned the tap off and plunged her arm into the water. “Shit.” She said, yanking it back. The water was too hot. She couldn’t put her hand in and pull the plug a little to let some of it out. This would have been good trying to explain in the morning, or evening as it were, why the bath had overflowed. Oh yes, I was watching you sleep and forgot about it. Not creepy at all.

The chain attached to the plug was at least out of the water enough so she could grab it and tug the plug free and let some of the hot water out. There was no way she could get into the bath without adding a lot of cold water now.

When she’d let enough water out, she tried to use the suction of the escaping water to get the plug back into place, but the flow kept knocking it out of the way. “God damn it,” she said when it wouldn’t hold.

“You know, all this noise is enough to wake the dead?” Seth said from behind her.

She yelped. “Jesus Christ. Will you stop doing that? You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“Do not worry. I am quite good in the art of mouth to mouth.”

Her cheeks flamed at his words and at the memory of earlier when he had done almost more than that.

“I was just taking a bath,” she said. “Or trying to. I’ve managed to overfill it with hot water. I didn’t mean to wake you.” A long pause as she stared at him, all that male perfection wanting to take her breath away as he stood wearing nothing but a pair of pyjama pants. They hung loose from his hips. She made her gaze meet his and forced her stupid brain to focus. “I thought your kind couldn’t be woken once you’ve gone into that sleep. I thought--”

“We can’t, or at least, we’re not supposed to. Once I am out, I’m out.” He strode over to the bath, brushing past her as he did. He did that on purpose. He plunged his hand into the water and put the plug back where it belonged. “Perhaps next time you want a bath, do so at a decent hour?”

He wiped his hand on the towel she was going to use when she got out of the bath. Fine lot of good that was going to do now for her and her sleep problem. She’d have to get another one or she’d have the same problem as before. He staggered as he moved. Staggered enough that Payton reached out for him to steady him.

Big mistake.

The moment her hand touched his skin, every sensation she’d been trying to deny, ignited with a rush of heat through her body. It sent shivers along her spin in a mixture of ice and fire, all at the same time.

“Sorry,” she said, letting go, but he took her hand.

“I’m not.” He was on her, like before. His mouth against hers, all firmly pressed and demanding. The only difference was, she wore a flimsy robe and his chest was bare and as he pulled her right against him, she could feel his skin against her.

He ran his mouth from her lips, along her jaw and she felt the tip of his fangs, but something else too, something wet.

“Seth,” she said and touched her fingers to her own neck. Her fingers came away red. “Seth, you’re bleeding.”

“What?” He paused, and she grabbed the towel he’d just hung back up and wiped it under his nose. It streaked with blood as it came away. As if he didn’t believe her, he wiped at his nose with the back of his hand and sighed. “I’m not meant to be awake. Something …” He closed his eyes, winced as if something hurt him. He gripped Payton’s arm as if he might fall if he let go and she was the one thing keeping him steady. “The sun. It’s heat. I feel it in every part of my body.” His words were tired, slurred a little. There was nothing she could do as he dropped to one knee.

“Here,” she said, wiping more blood from his nose, his chin now. “Oh, God. Your ear.” Blood spilt a little from the inside of his ear, trickling down to his well-defined jaw. “What can I do?”

“I need to feed,” he barely managed. “I need live blood in my veins.” His hand shook as he took the towel from Payton and tried to stem the bleeding himself, but it was no use. The blood was thick, dark red and spilling, not just from his nose and ears, but now the corners of his eyes. The whites of his eyes had gone red, thin red lines etched themselves around the irises. “Get Tasha, or Sky,” he said. “Someone …”

He fell forward, catching himself on his hand. This was her fault. Her stupid fault for going into his room and waking him.

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