Page 20 of Burn for the Dragon
Hawke raised his head so she could see his words. Something he should have warned her about before things went this far. He knew she had her suspicions, but she didn’t know. “Vampire. I’m a vampire, Everly. And right now I want you so badly I don’t think I can stand to stay anywhere near you if you choose to deny me.” No. He would have to leave if she didn’t want this. It was the only way he’d be able to control himself. “But I will leave, if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t want you to go.” The words were frantic and taut with a mixture of chaotic emotions he could feel through to his bones. But her eyes were steady as they wandered over his face. His face that, right now, would scare most anyone else.
A low growl rumbled through the room and his upper lip rose in a semi-snarl, exposing his fangs, tasting her scent in the air.
Everly’s eyes dropped to his mouth and widened. Her heartbeat sped up. And the blood…gods, the blood. It sang through her veins, a song warmed by his kiss and his touch, and flooded his senses until there was nothing else but her.
Everly.
Chapter 10
A vampire.
A vampire held her in his arms. Everly’s heart pounded and she felt so lightheaded she didn’t think she’d be able to stand without him holding her. But not from fear. Well, maybe just a smidge from fear. But it was more lust than anything else. “I don’t want you to go,” she repeated.
Hawke appeared to grow larger—harder—before her eyes. Muscles, already impressive, strained his shirtsleeves. His chest rose and fell with ragged breaths beneath her hands. And his olive-toned skin grew pale and pulled tight across the bones of his face. His upper lip lifted, baring fangs longer than she’d ever seen them. And the irises of his eyes, normally a dark brown anyway, deepened and expanded until they were nearly black. Yet they glowed with a vulnerable desperation and hunger. A hunger that echoed inside of her.
He was scary and exciting and breathtakingly beautiful.
“I don’t want you to go,” she told him again. An answering tremble ran through her when she felt him shudder beneath her hands. “And not because I’m trying to get you to help me.” She felt it was important he knew that. “That has nothing to do with this. With what’s happening now.”
“I know,” he told her. “I can feel your honesty.”
It was hard to read what he was saying with his fangs in the way. Everly wasn’t sure she’d understood him correctly. “You can feel me?”
He gave her a nod. “I can feel your emotions when they’re strong enough.”
“Can you feel everyone’s emotions?”
“Not like this.” He bent his head forward, his nose skimming the length of her throat.
Everly felt his chest rise and fall as he inhaled deep. His lips moved against her skin and words rumbled beneath her hands. Words she couldn’t hear. And then he was kissing her again.
Hawke pulled her into him until her toes were barely touching the floor, and Everly kissed him back with everything in her. The twinge of fear she’d felt was gone. She didn’t feel nervous. She didn’t feel less than because of her disability.
She felt like she was home.
He shifted his hips and the hard length of him pressed against her stomach. Hugging her arms around his neck and lifting one leg, she wrapped it around his hip, positioning him against her core. Her body tightened and a shudder ran through her when he moved his hips again, hitting the exact spot she needed him, and she must’ve moaned aloud for he tightened his arms around her back and hips.
Everly had had a good number of lovers. Mostly in her younger, rebellious days while she was being transferred in and out of foster homes. But she’d never—ever—reacted like this to any of them. She’d been ready for this before he’d ever touched her, from the moment she saw him standing outside her apartment door.
He suddenly broke off the kiss and she sucked in a breath. Pushing her sweater from her shoulders, he kissed and nipped every inch of newly exposed skin. Vibrations tickled her nape. He was saying something. She shook her head with frustration. “I can’t?—”
The air cooled her skin, damp from his kisses, when he lifted his head so she could read what he was saying. “I want to see you, Everly.”
Wordlessly, she nodded.
“I want to take you to bed.”
Again, she nodded.
He didn’t smile or have that look of satisfaction men got when they knew they’d succeeded in their conquest. Instead, time froze, the world fading around them as his eyes roved over her face, blinking in an expression of near disbelief. Sliding one hand down her arm, he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a reverent kiss to the pulse on the inside of her wrist.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The next thing she knew, they were in her room standing beside her bed with its colorful patch quilt and mismatched pillows. She didn’t even know how they’d gotten there.
Hawke gripped her hips, all of his focus on her. “Are you absolutely sure about this, Everly?”
