Page 65 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
“A vampire of the female persuasion.”
“Why isn’t that just vampire? Do you say poetess too? Seems a little sexist, Angel.”
“You’re avoiding the question about your abnormally large bed, which I find suspicious.”
“The bed, or the avoidance?”
“Both. I also find your choice of black and red as a palette for your boudoir suspicious. Especially when you’re trying to convince a person that this is heaven, which I’d like to think is decorated in more cheerful tones.”
“Boudoir?” he repeats, sounding insulted. “I’m a badass, sweetheart, not a French escort. This is called a bedroom. And it’s awesome.”
Ignoring his obvious delusion, I point with my foot across the room. “What in God’s name is that?”
“You’ve never seen a grand piano before?”
I exhale with what I hope is sufficient disgust. “I’ve never seen one in a bedroom before. It’s ridiculous. I’m picturing you in a velvet smoking jacket, serenading your harem of vampiresses with a little post-bloodsucking Rachmaninoff.”
Ryan kisses the top of my head. “You’re delirious. It’s probably the proximity to all this grade A testosterone I’m manufacturin’.”
“Undoubtedly,” I say, trying hard not to find him charming, but failing.
“Let’s get you to bed.”
Without waiting for an answer, he strides over to the black behemoth and gently deposits me on it. He kneels at my feet, unlaces my boots, and pulls them off, then peels off my socks and tosses those aside while I watch in something like shock. Only achier.
He glances up and catches me watching him. “What?”
“What are you doing?”
He looks at my feet, then back up at my face. He answers like he’s speaking to someone very drunk. “I’m takin’ off your shoes, darlin’.”
“No.” I close my eyes, inhale, then make a little motion with my index finger indicating the two of us. “What are you doing?”
When he squeezes my ankles, I open my eyes. Looking straight into them, he says, “Takin’ care of you. And before you ask why,” he says when I open my mouth, “the answer is because that’s what I’m gonna do from here on out. Take care of you. You’re the priority now. You’re mine.”
I mull over this ludicrous pronouncement.
Is he a professional stalker? Does he have a screw—or ten—loose? This can’t possibly be how he lives his whole life, just making one rash decision after another, with no more forethought than you’d give what pair of socks you were going to wear.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know,” he says warmly, pulling my hoodie over my head. “But you will.”
“How can you just decide like that?” I ask, sounding petulant as he discards my hoodie. I stare at my bare feet. They appear startlingly vulnerable, naked and pale, a visual metaphor for my heart. “We don’t even know each other,” I insist.
When I see that dimple appear in his cheek, I mutter “Biblically doesn’t count.”
The dimple turns into a pit you could fall into and disappear. “So says you. Lie down.”
I’m gently pushed onto my back. Swimming in confusion, I stare at the ceiling but find no answers there, probably because ceilings generally aren’t good for that sort of thing.
Ryan unbuttons my jeans and drags them down my legs in a no-nonsense, businesslike way, as if I’m an uncooperative patient and he’s my long-suffering nurse.
“People make things way more complicated than they need to be,” he says, flinging my jeans over his shoulder. I notice he isn’t nearly as fastidious with my clothing as he is with his own. “If you’d just listen to your gut, nine times out of ten you’ll make the right decision without havin’ to do any hand wringin’ or hair pullin’. Your instincts will tell you what you should do.”
“Except for that pesky tenth time.” I yawn as he pulls the covers up to my chin. My eyelids are so heavy. “Then you’re fucked.”
He leans over and kisses me on the forehead. Then he makes a face and wipes his lips. “Stay there,” he commands, as if I have a choice in
