Page 12 of Mortal Blood
“It’s good to see you, too, sweetness. And your delectable blood.”
Oh. Fuck.
He ran his tongue over his upper lip and I blanched, even as my mind pictured his tongue doing other things. Fucksake, what was it about this vampire that got me all messed up? And how could I even be thinking things like that right now?
“How about a little taste to get me through the night?”
“Thaden, we can’t,” I said, backing away. He came with me, invading my space until I was pressed up against the wall, caged between his arms on either side of my face.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll carry you back to your mate so he can satisfy your more carnal needs…right after you’ve satisfied my needs, first.”
“No, I mean it, you can’t!”
His face darkened. “We had a deal, sweetness. This would not be a good time to renege.”
“I’m not…” It was almost impossible to get a breath with Thaden invading my space like this, his presence sending heatthrough me—which waspurelymy body’s conditioned response to the endorphins being fed on pumped into my system, andnothingelse—and my head felt fuzzy from his proximity.
“You’re not refusing me your blood, sweetness?” he murmured in my ear. “I’m so glad to hear it. A deal is binding in our world, and you wouldn’t want to find out what happens if you go back on your word.”
He bent his head to my throat and skimmed his nose across the delicate flesh there. My heart rate tripled and I could do nothing but lean into his touch as his lips made their home on my puckered skin. My eyelids slid closed in anticipation of the ecstasy about to fill me as the heat of his mouth teased me mercilessly.
No!
With a gasp, my eyelids flew open and I slammed my palms into his chest, breaking the contact between his mouth and the unbroken skin of my throat, and shoving him across the corridor. Tension roiled through his outline, and he canted his head a fraction, a predatory look lurking behind his eyes as he stalked back towards me, his long dark hair casting shadows across his face.
“You shouldn’t have done that, sweetness.”
“You need to listen to me,” I insisted, but my words were undermined by the jagged edge to my breathing.
“No, sweetness,” he said, looming over me. “Youneed to listen tome. We have a deal, and Iamtaking what I’m due…one way or another. I seem to recall you never had a problem with it before.”
That, clearly, was conveniently ignoring the whole partwhere I’d resisted him feeding from me with every part of my soul, where Cole had spoken up against his best friend to spare me from his attentions. Ignoring everything that had happened...before I’d come to crave his touch.
And it was completely irrelevant.
“I’m not what you think I am!” The words burst from my mouth just as he was lowering his lips to my throat again, and he froze, and then drew back a fraction to search my face with his eyes.
“You look like the pretty little mortal whose blood tastes like the tears of fallen angels,” he said, and heat smoldered in my core.
Dammit!
“Appearances can be deceiving,” I snapped, and ducked from between his arms. His hand snagged my wrist as I made to brush past him, jerking me to a halt and spinning me back around to face him.
“Yes,” he all but purred as his hungry gaze roved every inch of my body. “They can.”
“Stop this!” I yanked my arm from his grip. “I’m not good for you!”
His brow creased at my words, confusion puckering his decadent lips for a heartbeat until they quirked into a sinful smile.
“I’m a vampire, sweetness. I don’t do good.”
“You don’t know who I really am.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re mine, sweetness, that’s all I need to know. Your soul might be Cole’s, but your blood belongs to me. And don’t you forget it.” He closed the gap between us again, tilting his head to inhale the scent where my neck met my shoulder. “You might run with monsters, but you’re so decadently human.”
