Page 15 of A Bond Beyond Blood

He cursed under his breath, and then I was alone.I knew it by the emptiness left in his wake and the depth of my body’s longing for his touch now that it was gone.

When I opened my eyes, I flicked on the overhead lights and frantically searched for him, but Vinny was nowhere to be found.

The disappointment and desire created an overwhelming urge that propelled me forward—

Just as I reached the door, I stopped abruptly, eyes wide as I shook my head.

“Goddammit,” I whispered into the empty shop.I’d almost chased after him, almost begged him to come back.

Icouldn’twant Vinny Ricci.

Wanting a vampire wasn’t just against mybeliefsbut against the law itself.The treaty was quite clear and acutely specific: vampire and human unions were strictly forbidden.

But even scarier than the law, were my two older brothers.Getting involved with a vampire was one thing, but aRicci?

I laughed as I raised my hands in surrender.Not today, Satan.Not.To.Day.

Chapter Six

Vinny

Two days had passed since she kicked me out of her shop, but the sting of Jacqueline’s rejection hadn’t abated.She wanted me, I knew that much to be true, but I couldn’t figure out why she fought that fact with every fiber of her being.It was inevitable; we’d been working toward this point since the day we met.

It couldn’t be the treaty, could it?Did she really care that much about an outdated law when vampires and humans circumvented the treaty all the time?Unless something went horribly wrong—a vampire accidentally draining his human bride on their wedding night, for instance, which happened a few years back and caused quite the stir in both communities—most interspecies relationships were overlooked or ignored.

Ours wouldn’t be any different, if she’d just give us a damn chance.

The night she walked into my gym, I knew she’d be mine.Even as Jacqueline explained how much she loathed my kind and wanted to protect herself against monsters—no offense to present company, she’d said—she’d looked at me with a hint of wonder in her bright blue eyes, and more than a hint of lust.

And I’d been a goner ever since.

But I was also a patient man.I may only be twenty-four years old, technically speaking, but the past half-century as a vampire taught me patience, if nothing else.She had too much anger toward my kind to come around quickly, but I’d waited.

With Jacqueline, it was a long game.

One I intended to win.

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