Page 23 of Pretty Poisoned

"What do you mean?" I ask. "How?"

"Blood is the life force behind everything. It's liquid vitality. In ancient Rome, when a gladiator was slain, the crowd used to descend on them to try to consume that same vitality and make it a part of themselves. There's a reason war brings prosperity to the lands of the victors—to the ones who spill the most blood onto the soil. When you drink someone's blood, you take some of the power, and when you give them some of yours, you become a part of them, too."

"They take your power," I say.

He nods. "You give it to them. And then they take it. There's a high in it—in knowing they're taking your life force as it spills from you or that they're willingly cutting themselves open and give you their own." He takes a knife from his pocket—the same one from earlier—and flips open the blade. He runs the bluntside over the swell of my breasts and in between my cleavage, then up my sternum to my clavicle. "It's erotic, don't you think?"

Fuck me.

I suck in a breath. "I'm not sure," I say. "Are you going to cut me now?"

"No," he says, lowering the blade. "You'll bleed for me, Teagan. But it will be because you want to. You'll choose to, or you'll beg me to take it. Do you want to get on your knees and beg me now?"

"No," I tell him. I've never begged a man for anything and don't intend to start now.

He laughs—actually laughs at me—as if I can see my internal struggle and then walks back toward the booth.

"Hey," I call, stopping him with a hand on his arm. He eyes that hand with disgust—as if I've committed some heinous offense by touching him—before I let it fall away. "You said I got three questions. That was two."

He doesn't respond but stops, waiting for the third.

"What's your drug of choice?" I ask.

"It's power," he says. "I'd think that'd be just as obvious as yours."

"What do you think mine is?"

"Attention," he says. He half smiles before walking away, and I'm left standing there alone, offended and fuming again.

Attention?Fuck this asshole. I don't give a shit about attention. I went through the majority of my life without getting any kind of fucking attention.

I do my best to reel it back in and then return to the booth and sit between Eli and Brady.

"Hazel," Declan says. "Come sit on my lap."

She walks over to him, and he grabs her by the hips and pulls her down onto his lap, facing him. Her skirt rides up enough that I can see her black lace thong.

He leans in and whispers something in her ear, and she laughs and nods, then he flips open that same knife and hands it to her. She brushes her hair away and tilts her chin up, then drags the knife across her neck lightly, but enough that it makes a thin cut about two inches in length.

The blood comes fast, running down the side of her throat, then onto her collarbone and down her cleavage. Declan takes the knife from her and slowly drags his tongue over the blade, licking it clean before placing it on the table. He kisses her on the mouth before pulling down the front of her dress down over her tits, licking and sucking the blood from her skin. Hazel throws her head back and moans, grinding her pussy against him while he runs his hands and his mouth over her bare tits. He sucks and bites on her nipple, causing her to gasp, then makes eye contact with me before moving up the length of her throat and closing his mouth over the wound.

He's looking for a reaction from me. Maybe he's seeing if I'll look away or leave the table; maybe he's hoping I'll try to join in. I don't plan on doing any of those things.

But if it's just that he's hoping to prove a point—to show me how erotic it is—he already made it. I squeeze my thighs together, hoping to bring my wet, aching pussy some relief as I watch her now-bare ass as she rolls her hips against him.

A couple of minutes go by like this before he clears the table and lays Hazel flat on her back. He pulls her underwear down over her sneakers, tosses them aside, and then drops to his knees.

No way. He's not really going to—

But he spreads her legs wide and dives in, running his tongue up and down her slit.

"Oh, Declan…" she moans. "Fuck."

I watch as she digs her heels into the table, arching her back, moaning and wriggling her hips against his tongue.

Jesus Christ.

I avert my eyes only for a second, running them over her body, over her bare tits and that place on her neck that drips blood onto the table now.

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