Page 13 of Bought for Blood

He crosses toward me. Each step is quiet and precise, and I watch him: distance, angle, the reach of his arms. He stops three feet from the chair and looks down at me. Up close, his hair is thicker than I realized, dark curls brushing his collar. And I don’t know why I notice that.

“You know what I am,” he says.

I do. God help me, I do.

“Vampire.” The word comes out steady. I make sure of it.

“Then you know what happens next.”

I don’t. Not personally. But I’ve heard the stories. Teeth in the throat. The tearing. The draining. The cold.

“Get it over with,” I say. My fingers tighten on the arms of the chair.

He moves closer. One step. His hand reaches for me, and I flinch. I hate myself for it, but I can’t stop myself. This man is here to feed on my blood, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

Stay calm. Just stay calm. It’ll be over soon.

I just pray that “over” doesn’t mean the end of me.

His fingers brush the hair back from my neck. The touch is cool and light, and gooseflesh rises down my chest, tightening my nipples against the gray silk. Can’t be helped. His touch is icy.

“Breathe,” he says. Close now. His breath is cool against my throat.

I don’t breathe. I brace.

Oh God… Oh God!

Every muscle in my body is rigid, my nails dragging into the leather. He’s over the chair, and he’s all I can see. I squeeze my eyes shut and wish there were rivets I could count.

“Shhh,” he breathes. I’m making a sound. I didn’t know I was. His mouth touches my neck. Lips first—dry, cool, finding the pulse point with a precision that tells me he can hear my heart hammering through my skin.

Don’t…don’t, don’t, don’t…

I don’t bother saying it, because it won’t make a difference. I’m in the chair, and he’s over it, and there’s nowhere to go. Then his teeth press, sharp and sudden, and the pain is white and total—

And then it isn’t.

Something floods through me from the bite, warm, spreading fast, rushing outward from the point where his teeth are buried in my throat. Into my chest. Down into my belly. Lower, spreading between my legs with a heat so sudden my thighs clench together, and what comes out of my throat is half moan, half curse, before I can stop either.

“Oh!” My hands grip the chair arms so hard my knuckles ache. The warmth keeps building, climbing, my hips shifting without my permission, a slow roll I don’t order and can’t stop. His mouth works at my throat, drawing on the vein, steady and controlled, until one pull lands harder than the rest, breaking his own rhythm for half a second. Then it evens out again. Each pull sends another wave through me. Deep. Rhythmic. Pulsing in places I do not want him to be the reason for.

No. No, no, no—

My jaw is clenched so tight my teeth hurt. My eyes are wide open now, fixed on the ceiling, on a crack in the plaster that I memorize in desperate detail while my body arches toward a man I hate.

His hand rests on the arm of my chair, near my wrist but not touching it. Then his fingers close over the wood, grip tightening. He doesn’t hold me down. He doesn’t need to. My own body is holding me here, chasing the sensation, and that’s worse. That’s so much worse than force.

Another pull, and the ache between my legs sharpens instead of easing.

“Oh, God!” My nipples are hard and aching. The slick heat between my thighs is soaking through everything between me and the silk. My body finds his rhythm and keeps it, tightening every time he pulls. A sound, thin and high, breaks through my clenched teeth. I swallow the rest of it. Not fast enough.

The crack in the plaster doubles as my vision blurs. My fingers release the chair and grip it again. Release. Grip. I’m shaking everywhere. My thighs are trembling. Everything low in me pulls tighter. Tighter than it should.

I can’t! I don’t—

I come.

My back bows off the chair. Whatever sound I make, I don’t recognize it. Low, and it doesn’t stop when I close my mouth. My hips thrust up, chasing the rhythm of his mouth, matching the pull of him at my throat, and it doesn’t stop when I think it will. It keeps going in time with him, one more pull, then another, until his mouth finally stills against my skin and I’m left gasping in a chair I can’t feel my legs under.