Page 66 of Skin Trade

“That’s what I thought. Now, please. Let me go.”

He didn’t. An iron grip around her arm, not painful, but too solid for her to move from. “I am vampire, Payton. If I do not feed, I die.”

“I know that, but it doesn’t mean you have to fuck them too.” Harsh words, but inside her, the Payton she hid from the world, the child version of herself, curled into foetal position.

He let go of her then, an abrupt movement that made her stagger. “You make assumptions and see them as true. There is nothing I can do about that.” He grabbed one of the towels off the drainer and walked out of the kitchen, leaving her there, her brain halting, stunned into silence at his words. Whatever they meant.

The door swung back behind him. One minute he was in the doorway and the next, nothing.

A heartbeat later she stormed out of the kitchen and pushed her way through the door that led back to the bar and threw her out into the throng of noise and partying. A woman sang on the main stage; her voice carried through the room like she could touch everyone with it.

“You okay?” Bobby asked as she paused, caught in the difference between the two places, and the mind-fuck her head was giving her right now as she tried to piece together what had just happened.

“I’m fine,” she said. She forced a smile to her lips as she searched for signs of Seth. He couldn’t have got through the crowd already, but he was nowhere. “I’m gonna go back to my room. Thanks for your help.”

Without thinking, or even caring, she pushed her way through the oncoming crowd and made her way back to the foyer. Her skin was hot, so hot, but not in any physical sense of the word. Hot because of Seth, because of Tasha.

“Are you okay?” Sky came running out from the reception area when Payton moved away from all the people coming and going. “I heard what happened.”

“Already? News travels fast in this place.”

“Well, Tasha was pretty pissed when she came this way a few minutes ago.”

“I’m fine.”

Sky ushered Payton out of the way as another group of people came into the foyer and headed towards the main entertainment room. This place was almost as loud as the bar area, except here, they didn’t have the lights down low or someone singing their heart out. “You don’t look fine, and you don’t…” She paused as if searching for the right words. “Feel right.” Sky’s attention was caught by something behind them. Payton had no doubt if she turned around, Seth would be there, but she couldn’t help herself and did it anyway.

It wasn’t him, or anyone that she recognised for that matter. Sky waved, and the man passing through nodded back to her. At least it was someone Sky knew and not Seth, although she had to admit, part of her deflated because it wasn’t him.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to force the sincerity into her words. “As fine as anyone can be after they’ve just been faced with two of those things.”

Sky glanced out towards the front door where they had seen a guard take one down. “I don’t know what’s got into them today. They’ve taken three out from the front of the place this evening alone. Mathias said there were loads more in the cellar.”

Loads more. She couldn’t imagine that. Didn’t want to. But Seth had come up fine, more than fine, so whatever was down there was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

By the time Payton got to her room, she’d already gone over Tasha’s words nearly one hundred times. She’d gone over Seth’s too and the way he had looked at Tasha as she’d spoken. It hadn’t been a look of a friend, or even a man caught out. No. It had just been Seth. She guessed she owed him respect for that. He hadn’t called Tasha out on her bullshit and he hadn’t made a scene about it. But he hadn’t denied it either. Just more games she couldn’t understand.

But she’d felt something the night before with him. She couldn’t deny that either, it had been more than a man taking his sexual pleasure from a convenient woman.

You are more than that. Those had been his words to her. They rang in her ears, the same way her arm still held the mental imprint of his hand on her. Anything he did, her body wanted to hang onto it and retain it for later torture. In the kitchen, he’d had the power to stop her if he’d wanted. She’d been so close to breaking her resolve.

Walking into her room, she half expected Seth to be there waiting for her. He was stubborn enough. She pushed the door open and a little piece of her sank in disappointment at the sight of the empty room. In her heart, she knew he wouldn’t be here. He wasn’t the kind of man to beg. Her expectation was nothing more than hope cleverly disguised.

Wallowing was going to do her no good, though. She had her plan—go to her father’s work, find him, and everything else would be over, forgotten. She pulled the two pieces of paper from her pocket and left them on the dressing table. Both of them were folded and crumpled, but still intact, and that was all that mattered. She grabbed a fresh towel from the linen shelf near the door and headed to the bathroom.

Despite what she was feeling right now, or what thoughts wanted to take a cruise in her head, she needed to change and clean herself up. If she’d not been coated in the creature’s blood, she would have gone over to her bed and lay down; just so she could close her eyes for a few minutes and give herself some respite from what had happened that day.

Seth had been upstairs already. When she opened the bathroom door a haze of soap-filled steam wafted out at her, bringing with it images of Seth in the shower just moments ago. She almost closed the door again, not sure if she was ready to face that. Climbing into her bed as she was, was looking more and more appealing by the second.

“Damn him.” Her head was about as twisted up as her heart and stomach felt. Everything in her body was on fire with so many emotions, it would have been hard to pick just one. She made herself put the towel on the rack and turn on the shower, but she also had to make herself not think of him standing in this very room naked and wet for the second time.

Although last time he’d had a shower, he’d walked out of the bathroom naked, and right now he was probably just on the other side of that door getting dried and dressed. She contemplated putting a chair under the door to make sure it stayed closed. Though she wasn’t sure who she was stopping going through it, her or him.

But it was better to face the demons, so instead of blocking the door, she went to it and knocked lightly. After several seconds and no sign of any movement in the room on the other side, she turned the handle and slowly opened the door.

Seth wasn’t in his room. No one was. His bed had been made up, the sheets all tucked in around the edges and everything made flat, wiping away the fact they’d been in there before. His entire room was spotless as if no one had been in there for a long time.

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