Page 103 of The Monster and the Last Blood Match

She removed the handkerchief and stared down at her own dried blood. The cut had stopped bleeding already. It had been small to begin with, but still that vampire had been able to smell her. Beckham had been able to smell her.

“Here.” She offered the handkerchief back to Beckham.

He frowned, taking it from her. “We should burn that.”

“Burn it?” she asked. “Beckham, what is going on? That woman had the same reaction to my blood the vampire had outside of the club, but you claimed it didn’t smell any different.Doesit?”

Beckham was silent for a few more blocks. She was starting to wonder if he was going to answer. This was the treatment she was used to having from him, after all. She had known it would be too good to be true for him to start telling her everything like he had promised. He was used to his secrets. Perhaps he had too many to divulge them all.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Your blood smells… I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. Sweet. But not sweet. Powerful and enticing. It draws you in.”

“So, I smell like a steak?”

Beckham laughed the most beautiful laugh. “I suppose you do, but a hundred times more desirable.”

“Is that uncommon? I mean, doesn’t other blood smell good? I don’t think all our food smells the same. I really don’t know how any of this works.”

“It does all smell different. Some is more or less potent. If it’s tainted by drugs, alcohol, disease, death, each has its own smell, besides the human pheromones attached to it. But you—” His eyes cut over to her, and she saw hunger written all through them. “You have the most amazing smell in the world. It’s alluring and hypnotic. Which is exactly why we need to burn this handkerchief and get you cleaned up. I don’t want anyone else to smell you. If they smell you, they will want to taste you.”

“But not you?” she asked, thinking of all the times he had smelled her blood and not been tempted.

He inhaled deeply. “I couldn’t imagine what you taste like.”

Reyna tried to hide her smile but failed. “You could, if you wanted.”

“Don’t dangle temptations in front of me, Reyna. I have very little control.”

She snorted. “I disagree.”

“I lost count of the number of lives I took because I succumbed to my nature and didn’t want to stop.”

“Those two things are really different,” she told him. “Before the cure, you didn’t want to stop. That was the animal in you. Now you have control in spades, I might add, and you wouldn’t do it again. I’d bet you haven’t done it since the cure.”

He shrugged. “I don’t like to take chances. It’s easier.”

“Well, you’re taking a chance with me, and I trust that you won’t lose control.”

He didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to. She wasn’t frightened, because he wouldn’t hurt her. He was doing everything he could to protect her at this point. If he ever drank from her, she was sure he would find this control he claimed to lack.

She was totally lost when Beckham stopped in front of a boarded-up store on a random street corner.

“Come in here.”

“In where?” she asked, sizing up the building.

He opened a black gate and gestured her inside. They went up a flight of stairs and into an empty one-bedroom apartment. The only objects inside were a mattress on the floor and a safe in the corner. Beckham pushed Reyna toward the bathroom while he found a lighter in one of the kitchen drawers. He lit the handkerchief on fire and then threw it in a metal trash can on the floor.

Reyna stood there, wide-eyed, wondering if he’d done something like this before. He was so precise. “What is this place?”

He shrugged. “Safe house.”

“Safe for who?”

“Right now? You.” He rummaged through the medicine cabinet over the toilet.

He tilted her chin up, and she stared into those bottomless onyx eyes, lost to his touch. How gentle he was when he swabbed the cut clean, how precise he was in all of his movements, how much he cared for her pain and discomfort.

When he finished, his eyes found Reyna’s. They locked on each other for a split second, understanding passing between them. This was the real Beckham Anderson. This man was hers.

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