Page 81 of Marked
“I can’t. And you know that.”
“Why?”
He looks away. “You know why, Lilah.”
I watch him climb from the bed again, his broad back and tight ass flexing. “Do I? Do I really?”
“I can’t drink from you.”
“No, youwon’t.” I raise a hand. “Look, I know why you don’t want to. Because I lost so much blood yesterday.” He winces. “But I’m fine. And you clearly are not.”
He snarls. “I’m fucking peachy.”
“Says the guy that can’t orgasm without flashing long, pearly whites.”
His body leans down, long arms caging me in. “My fangs drop because you feel so fucking good that I can’t stop them. Your scent–our scents together ... the feel of you, your heat ... It all fucking does me in.”
I flush so fast it leaves me dizzy.
“Do you understand? I want to sink my teeth in that pretty neck of yours until you are marked inside and out withme. With this.” He motions between us. “I want to fucking brand you as mine in every way I can. That is why I don’t feed on you.”
My eyes remain riveted on his face.
Those chiseled plains are stark and almost slack with a need resting just beneath the surface. A very dark need. One that is nowhere near human. My stomach gives a little flip of nerves. “You’ve been holding back.”
It’s not a question, but he answers anyway. “I don’t want to hurt you, Lilah. Any worse than you’ve already been hurt by my kind, but being with you ... It’s testing every fiber of my self-control.”
I lick suddenly dry lips. “How much, Ruin? How much are you keeping from me?”
He pales. No easy feat for his gorgeous crème skin. He walks to the end of his bed, grabs a hold of one of the four-poster rails and snaps off a two foot section like he broke a toothpick.
There is no strain in his body. No difficulty. He did it like blinking.
I reach for the sheet and pull it up around my body as the enormity of the differences between us sinks in. He glances from me to the piece of wood and back.
“Not every human can be bitten by a vamp. And not every bite hurts.” My mind casts back to the excruciating pain of the newborn vamp at Lock Lake. He nods, almost like he knows what I am thinking. “I don’t know that my bite won’t be like that, baby girl. And I can’t do that to you. Not again.”
“Do you understand now?” he asks, almost angry. “I can hurt you, Lilah. Even without meaning to.”
I watch him. “But it’s my body. My choice.”
His head shakes. “Not with this, Lilah. Not with this.”
I huddle on the bed, pulse racing at the implications. He’s been rough-ish. But he hasn’t hurt me. Not really. His size, even when he moves excruciatingly slow and careful, fills me to a point that the pressure is this side of pain. But it’s been in a good way.
Always riding that line.
But what he just did … He hasn’t given me all of him yet. Hasn’t committed wholly to being with me.
We fall silent, simply staring at each other as the new found closeness seems to break and shatter apart. For the first time in years, I found something I want. Something that makes me feel alive. But it’s getting destroyed before it can ever begin.
“I’m going to go shower,” he murmurs and walks off, bed rail in hand.
I don’t get up to go after him. There is no reason to.
He’s made up his mind, and I don’t know how to change it.
But there may be someone who does.
