Page 29 of Paramour of Sin
Every last barrier between me and the woman I desired needed to go. I wanted to be the man touching her, not the one watching her touch everyone else.
For the fifth time, Guinevere danced away from her partner, back into the pulsating mass.
I gritted my teeth and edged forward, following her passage through the dancers. She draped against another guy, arching her back so that her breasts pressed against his chest. I barely contained my rage as he leaned in to speak into her ear and both his hands skimmed high on her rib cage. She laughed, though I couldn’t hear it over the pounding bass, but I knew immediately it wasn’t a real laugh.
She wasn’t feeding from any of them. She was no closer now than she was an hour ago to picking her prey.
What the hell, Guinevere?I thought irritably, inching forward past a crowd of giggling twenty-somethings holding pink bubblegum drinks. Every woman’s head turned to watch me pass, each of their auras spiking with lust, but their presence was akin to background noise. Like the sound of thunder on the horizon too far away to matter.
I was hyper-focused on Guinevere. On the way she continued to waste time, making me watch her when all I wanted to do was ruin every man who touched her.
Just pick one, dammit.
But she twirled away from yet another guy and into a new pair of waiting arms.
Snarling low under my breath, I plunged into the crowd. It parted around me, a sea of gazes—both female and male—noticing me likeIwas the storm passing through.
Maybe I was.
When I reached Guinevere, I gripped her dance partner’s shoulder and manhandled him back into the crowd before he even had a chance to protest. Then I wrapped my arm around her waist and yanked her against my body.
Guinevere pressed her palms against my chest and glared at me, her lower lip jutting out. “That was rude.”
She was flushed from the cardio, and her dark waves spilled around her shoulders like silk. I wrapped my fingers around the mass and pulled it into a ponytail with my fist, tugging with enough pressure to tilt her head back and under my control.
“What’s rude,” I bit out, “is making me wait while you sample every available treat in this nightclub. I need you to pick.”
She pinched her lips together, saying nothing.
I yanked on her hair, pinning her with my gaze. “Guinevere, what’s the problem?” I demanded. “We’ve done this countless times before.”
“Yes, but their lives were inmyhands before,” she said hotly. Even with her face angled toward the ceiling and my fingers wrapped tightly around her hair, she continued gyrating against me to the thumping dance beat, but her eyes stared daggers at me. “Now… now it feels like I’m subjecting someone to death, and I have no control over the outcome.”
I sighed and released her hair. Sliding both my hands to her hips, I rocked against her, trying desperately not to think about how good she felt against my cock, even with my blue jeans separating us. “Lord Zebulon already said there will be a Tracker on whoever you pick.”
“I know,” she admitted. Her gaze roamed the crowd around us. “But whoever I pick is bait and it feels wrong.”
“It’s the best way to find out who is doing this to you, Gwen,” I whispered against her ear, my hand going to the small of her back to hold her closer as the beat changed overhead to a more sensual rhythm. “The Tracker won’t let anything happen to him.”
“How can you be sure of that?” she countered. “We don’t even know what we’re facing, or who.”
“Which is exactly why we’re doing this,” I replied, nipping her earlobe on instinct. It was a punishment of a sort for not trusting the process. But also a gesture I just felt like doing. She rewarded me with a shiver, one that excited my inner demon. Because that was a shiver of interest, not fear.
“I need you to pick someone.” It came out harsher than I wanted. But I needed her to focus so I could put some space between us.
Which happened to be the exact opposite of what was currently happening. Her torso practically melted into mine, our hips joined in a manner that could only be described as fucking through our clothes. If we were naked, I’d be inside her already. And that was precisely the wrong path for me to mentally walk down.
“Guinevere. Pick your bait.” I uttered the words through my teeth, not because I was mad but because if I kept this up, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d never be able to stop touching her. Not until I took her for my own.
I moved to release her and give her a nudge back into the crowd, but Guinevere latched on to my casual blue blazer. Her fingers dug into the fabric, knuckles visibly turning white despite the dim club.
“I don’t know if I can feed like this,” she admitted, her lips parting as she gazed up at me.
I raked my gaze over her mouth, momentarily distracted by her lips. In the rotating colors from above, her skin shone and her cerulean eyes looked like precious gemstones. But as I studied her, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before—Guinevere was suppressing her lust.
Son of a bitch.How had I not caught onto that?
Her fear was plain as day once I managed to see beyond my own lust.
