Page 53 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

His eyes, dark and intent, locked onto mine. “Because I find you incredibly attractive, and your blood is the sweetest thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of having in my mouth.”

Everything stopped—my heart, my breath, time itself. Warmth flooded my face and spread down my neck, across my chest.

The mug slipped from my fingers.

Seb’s hand shot out, snatching the mug from mid-air before it could smash against the floor. He placed it on the counter with impossible grace, as if catching falling objects was as natural as breathing.

I cleared my throat, willing my racing heart to slow. “Huh. And here I was worried that you were actually straight and this was all in my head.”

His mouth quirked up at one corner. “I’ve had lovers of each and every persuasion over the centuries.”

My mouth went dry. The casual way he dropped that information—as if centuries of sexual experience were nothing remarkable—made me feel impossibly young and naïve. Here I was, at twenty-five, with almost the exact opposite sexual history.

Here was this immortal being who’d probably seduced his way through history—artists in Paris, dancers in New York—while I’d barely managed a few fumbled blow jobs with sunburnt tourists behind the boat shed.

“Are you trying to perform a mental calculation, to see how many people I might have slept with?”

I shot daggers at him. “No. I don’t care about that at all.”

“I imagine the number is high. Very high.” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “My diaries inform me I had quite a lot of fun in Europe in the late eighteen hundreds.”

“You don’t remember?”

Seb’s face clouded over, his shoulders tensing. He shook his head, a strand of damp hair falling across his forehead. “My memory is tragically awful. Much worse than the average vampire’s. I think it might be because—” He pressed his lips together. “Anyway, they get fuzzier the further back I go. Only the last thirty-odd years are clear, and then thingsbegin to get murky. I have over a thousand diaries in room 210. They help me to remember things when I need to.”

I shifted my weight, trying to sound casual. “So, when was the last time you were with anyone?”

“Twenty years ago.”

“Twentyyears?” The words burst out before I could stop them. “What happened?”

“James.” His voice went soft around the name. “I suppose you could say that he broke my heart.”

“Did he… die?”

“Not yet. He lives with his partner in a cottage in the countryside. They have this dog…” Seb trailed off, and I stared at him. How did he know about all this? Was he having them watched? “Their children have almost grown up now.”

I bit my lip, trying to infer what he wasn’t explicitly saying. “Did he know you were a vampire?”

Seb burst into laughter, brightening the kitchen. “Yes. He knew. We were together for years. And we wanted…more.But that wasn’t something he was prepared to do. Nor I.”

Do?And more what? More time? So many questions lined up on my tongue, but I forced them down.

“After he left, I experienced a… rough patch, let’s just call it.”

The vulnerability in Seb’s expression tugged at something in my chest. Without thinking, I took a step towards him, wanting to offer comfort but unsure how. His shoulders had slumped, and those somber eyes held such ancient pain it made my own heartache from Tom’s rejection feel small in comparison.

“And I made a fewmistakes.”

My breath caught. The weight behind those words, the careful way he’d chosen them—ice slid down my spine as possibilities bloomed in my mind. Had he lost control? Gone on some kind of blood-soaked rampage through London, driven mad by heartbreak? The image of him earliertonight, throat stained crimson, flashed through my mind. How many others had met similar ends?

“I made myself vow I’d never drink from a human again. And to never get…entangledwith one either.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut. I thought of our late night chats, of the edge of devotion in his eyes when he promised to save me. I thought of his thumb against my chin, the heat in his eyes when he’d tasted my blood. What he’d said about my exposed skin, all the smiles he’d given me—the secret ones when no one was looking and the gentle ones that softened his whole face.

“But you’ve been flirting with me.”

His eyes narrowed. “I most certainly have not!”

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