Page 77 of Illusory

After how long it had been since he had done just that, I bit my lip, wishing he would.

He expelled a harsh breath and shook his head, his hungry eyes never leaving mine as I wondered if he could feel my want coursing through my veins just then. If he could, he wasn’t saying anything about it.

“We’re starting with your neck today,” he informed evenly.

“The neck?” repeated Trace and Gabriel as my lusty haze vanished like smoke on a windy day.

“There’s no way I’m biting into her neck,” protested Trace, sounding as though he were moving further away from us instead of closer. “I almost killed her the first time.”

“But you didn’t,” said Dominic as though that made the suggestion any saner.

I scowled back at him, my eyes zipping back and forthbetween them as all my false bravado began to betray me. Flashes of the first time Trace attacked me slammed into my mind and I shuddered.

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I whispered to Dominic.

‘He needs to do this,’he said to my mind, his voice a honeyed rasp against my nerve endings. ‘Do you trust me?’

Despite my fear, I nodded because I did trust him. Emphatically.

“He’s not ready for that, Dominic. It’s too risky,” argued Gabriel, his expression skewed and war-torn.

“Isn’t that precisely the same claim you made yesterday?” retorted Dominic, though he was still gazing down at me with the heat of a thousand volcanoes in his eyes. “And look how mistaken you were then.”

“It only takes a split second for things to go wrong. If he rips into her—”

“He won’t,” cut in Dominic as he reached out and grazed the back of his knuckles against my cheek, making me shiver from the brief contact. “He’ll bite where I tell him to, and he’ll listen to the sound of her heartbeat like his life depends on it. Won’t you, Romeo?” he asked without looking back at him. Like he already knew the answer.

I, on the other hand, needed to see and hear the answer for myself—withallmy senses.

Dominic may have been sporting enough confidence to cover the lot of us, but that still didn’t mean I was interested in playing fast and loose with my life.

My eyes slid to Trace, magnetizing to him so easily that you’d think they’d been cursed to do it. I supposed that had always been the root of my problem—the way my eyes moved so easily and interchangeably between the two of them.

A muscle feathered along the sharp curve of his jaw as I stared back at him with the silent question in my eyes. Henodded and I released the breath that had been trapped in my lungs.

“I don’t like this,” said Gabriel as he scrubbed his face with his hand. “Let it be known this instant that I am firmly against this.”

“It’s been noted,” said Dominic, his full attention still pinned on me. “Romeo?”

Trace swallowed nervously as he bounced a final glance back at Gabriel then slowly came to join me where I stood before Dominic like a fly caught in the most beautiful of spiderwebs.

My heart thrashed wildly in my chest as the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder before me, towering over me the way a pack of wolves stood over their catch as varying degrees of hunger flashed through their wanton eyes. The tension suddenly felt palpable, as though it was standing right there in the room with us, watching on curiously to see just how far we’d push it.

Oh, dear lord, what the hell had I gotten myself into this time?

“H-hi,” I said awkwardly as I crossed and uncrossed my arms like I had no idea what to do with them.

Trace pitched forward suddenly, grabbing the back of my neck and jerking me toward him. I wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss me or rip my head off. Fortunately, I didn’t get a chance to find out as Dominic had pounced just as fast and yanked him off me before he could close the deal.

“Easy now, Romeo,” warned Dominic, still gripping his arms as I tried to reign in my racing heart. “You’re going to frighten her away if you keep doing silly things like that.”

“Fuck,” hissed Trace as he continued backtracking away from me, distraught. His chest was rising and falling as though he’d just run some sort of vampire marathon my eyeshadn’t been able to keep up with.

“It’s okay, Trace—I’m fine,” I said, trying to reassure him enough so that he would stop retreating from me and stop looking so broken up about it. “It’s no big deal.”

Trace shook his head, his nostrils flaring wide.

“Take the helm and pull it together,” ordered Dominic as he shoved him back into one of the chairs he’d pulled up earlier. “This isn’t about slaying the beast. That demon you feel clawing inside of you? He isn’t going anywhere. This is about putting him on a leash. A leash that you control. Do you understand that?”

---