Page 18 of Flirting with Darkness

“You could stay,” he said. “If you would prefer to wait until morning to leave.”

He looked as surprised to have said it as I was to have heard it.

I arched an eyebrow. “Well, Vale, you already had one houseguest this—”

“Not like that,” he huffed. “The house guest is gone. I offer you your own bed. Though”—and here his voice lowered, slightly—“if you wanted to share mine instead, I wouldn’t object to that, either.”

I stilled. Words evaded me. I searched his face for any one of the many signs I’d memorized that someone was making fun of me, telling me something that wasn’t true, and I found none of them in Vale’s expression.

That surprised me almost as much as it surprised me that I was considering it.

That I found myself, far too vividly, imagining what it might have been like to be in that woman’s place—to feel his hands over my body, pinning me. To feel the size of him inside me, feel what it would be like to be taken that roughly, that hard. I’d been fooling myself if I thought I had put him out of my mind. If there was any part of me that wasn’t thinking, just a little bit, about the sheen of sweat over his bare muscles with every movement he made tonight.

I cocked my head and stared at him.

“Vampires have a good sense of smell, don’t you?” I said.

He had moved a little closer. “Yes.”

“Do you smell me?”

My voice was low, rough.

“Yes,” he said. “Acutely.”

“Is it… difficult for you?”

“What does that mean?”

I didn’t answer, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you asking if I’m tempted by you?”

He leaned closer still. My back pressed to the doorframe. I remained very, very still, even as he stepped closer, our bodies almost—but not quite—touching. He lowered his head, so his lips nearly came to my throat.

I didn’t move.

My breath had gotten shallow, my heartbeat faster. Some primal thing within me reached for the surface of my flesh—reached for the surface of his.

His mouth did not touch me. But I still felt the vibration of his voice, deep and low, over the fragile skin of my throat.

“I smell you,” he murmured. “I smell your blood.”

“What does it smell like?”

It sounded like someone else’s voice.

“It smells like honey. Like… nightshade. Sweet. Perhaps with a bitter bite.”

I heard his voice dip a little at that last part. Amusement.

“And?” I said.

“And I smell the beat of your blood through your veins.”

My pulse quickened a little, as if stirring beneath his awareness. His hands braced against the doorframe now, so his body enveloped mine—though, still, without touching.

“And you know what else I smell?” His face ducked a little closer, voice lowering to a whisper. “I smell that you want this.”

I let out a rough breath.

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