Page 59 of House of Crimson Kisses
“Didn’t Amelia give you blood?” I ask.
“Yes, I took it.”
I replay her words. “It? As in, all of it?”
She nods.
“On top of the blood I gave you in the tunnel? And what you took from my wrist in the office?” I ask and take a step back. The heart rolls out of my hand.
“I did something. It wasn’t really healing. But it wasn’t not healing either.”
“The situation Erin mentioned?”
Red nods. Fuck. Amelia was right to go to the library. We do need to know exactly what this transition is going to do to her.
I’m not going to be able to keep up her feeding needs at this rate. She’s drinking like a newly turned vampire, and they are insatiable.
We’re not even going to be able to keep this secret from the rest of the teams or Mother at this rate, either. Shit. Heat pools in the room. Her eyes go from wet and watery to deep and hungry.
“How long ago did you take it?” I ask.
“Not long.”
I see.
She takes a step towards me, and I know where this is going, and it hurts. I want to fuck her, gods, I’d fuck her every day, every night. But even I can recognise when this is bad for us. And yet… it doesn’t stop me wanting her.
She steps into my personal space and looks up at me.
“I want to forgive you,” she breathes.
“But you can’t?” I say.
She looks away, her eyes trailing the now desiccating heart. “I don’t know.”
“And yet you want me anyway?”
“We’re completely fucked up,” she says. “I know you want me too. I know you’re fighting taking me right here in this room. I feel it here,” she presses two fingers over my heart.
I close my eyes. It’s true. I want her more than I want blood.
I’d kill for her, maim for her. Hell, I’d burn every last vampire in Sangui City for her. But what she’s asking… for me to break a promise I made to her,forher? Which her am I indebted to?
Is it better for her to love me because of a lie, or hate me because of the truth?
When I open my eyes, her lips are millimetres from mine. She brushes them across my skin, soft, needing.
Her caress is filled with many things. The agony of the lies between us, the electricity of surging want. The bond, the blood in her system.
“This is all I can give you right now,” she says.
And so I take it. Knowing that it’s all fucked up and that eventually this will come crashing down. But I’d rather have her wrapped in a lie now than lose her forever later.
I crush my lips to hers. She hops up into my arms, wrapping her legs around me.
We kiss and spin until I push her up against the wall. I slide my finger to her crotch and slit her trousers. Again. This is all too familiar, but if she must insist on wearing clothes that prevent me from touching her, what does she expect? I stretch the fabric, shredding it in two and then slide my finger between her folds.
She breaks the kiss to throw her head back, rocking her hips, begging me to give her more.
