Page 37 of Secret of the Vampire
“How do you know that?”
“I just do,” I told her. Pushing myself off the tomb, I came around to stand in front of her. I didn’t want to think about Marcus. “I’m still thinking about kissing you.”
Slowly, her hands came up between us and she flattened her palms on my chest. I closed my eyes, her touch burning through the thin cotton shirt I wore. I waited for her to push me away, but she didn’t.
“You said you wanted to talk,” she reminded me.
Lowering my head, I ran my nose along her hairline near her temple. Her hair smelled like coconut and some kind of sweet spice I couldn’t name. “I am talking. I’m talking about how much I want to kiss you.”
I felt her turn her face into my neck. “You smell so good,” she breathed.
My body hardened at her words. She’d spoken so quietly, I don’t think she’d meant for me to hear her. But I answered her anyway. “So do you. Although I think you probably meant it in an entirely differently way.”
She recoiled as far as she could, hiding her thoughts from me, but her eyes were on my neck and her fingers twisted in my shirt as she breathed in through her mouth.
“Go ahead,” I told her gruffly.
Her eyes flew to mine. “What?”
“If you want to feed,” I said. “I’m offering.”
She flashed her fangs on a hiss, and every hair on my body stood on end. My heart began to beat hard and fast, and she focused on the side of my throat, on the pulse pounding with the rush of my blood. My cock swelled to a painful state.
“I want to feel your teeth in me,” I whispered. “I want to feed you. Fuck, Kenya, it makes me hard just thinking about it.” Taking her hand again, I pressed her palm against the front of my jeans. “Do you feel that?” I asked her. “Do you feel what you do to me?”
With a groan, she flattened her back against the tomb behind her, drawing as far back as she could even as she squeezed the bulge in my pants. “I can’t, Alex.”
“Yes, you can,” I insisted. “It’s okay. I want you to.” And because I thought if I could get her to drink from me, she wouldn’t share that intimacy with anyone else. It was a fucked up reason, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be everything for her. It was more than attraction. More than the fact that I liked it. So much more.
Gods, I was about to come just thinking about it.
But she shook her head and pulled her hand away from my cock. “No. No, I can’t.”
Bracing my hands on either side of her head, I leaned down, touching my forehead to hers, unable to keep myself from touching her. “Why not?”
There was a long pause. “Because I don’t think I’ll be able to stop,” she confessed. “Please, Alex.”
She could’ve easily pushed me away from her. Hell, she could’ve sent me flying out of the cemetery. But instead, she was asking me to give her some space, and so that’s what I did. “Okay.” I back up a step, then two more just for good measure. I wanted to scream my frustration to the sky. I wanted to rail at her. Wanted to insist she admit she felt the same unexplainable yearning for me that I felt toward her.
Instead, I scrubbed my face with my hands. When I had myself as under control as I was going to get, I only said, “But stay with me a little longer.” Because I could feel the darkness welling up within me, and I needed the distraction.
Chewing on her bottom lip, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and looked up at the sky.
“We have hours until sunrise,” I told her.
“I can’t stay that long.”
“Okay.”
She exhaled loudly. I could see in her eyes that she was torn, and it gave me hope. “Okay,” she told me.
And so we talked. We talked about everything except the reason we were sneaking around to find time together. I learned we shared some favorite books, and what she did when wasn’t at The Purple Fang. I told her everything I could about my life and being a warlock.
And while we talked, I got the chance to hold her hand, to play with her fingers, to touch her face, her throat, to listen to her soft voice and enjoy the sound of her laughter. I got to see her as she finally relaxed around me. I got to see her as herself.
And she was more than I ever imagined.
“I need to go, Alex,” she finally said.
