Page 125 of Hunted

My fingers drift, tracing the shape with reverent curiosity I pretend is clinical. Every pass makes the mark throb harder, makes his jaw tighten, makes the silver in his eyes burn brighter.

Later, he’ll likely kick himself for this. For letting me touch him. For not recognising what the mark is doing under my hand. Later, if he learns who I am, he’ll probably connect this moment to the truth sitting between us like a hidden blade.

Right now, I’m too mesmerised to think that far. Too stupid to step off this forbidden edge.

My hand slips lower, by accident or not entirely by accident, ghosting over hard muscle. Then I feel the rigid line of his erection through his trousers, and the air changes again.

He goes very still.

‘Do not stray where you should not,’ he says, voice low and dangerous in a whole different way, ‘if you do not wish to provoke a different reaction.’

My hand jerks sideways so fast I nearly laugh from nerves. ‘Right. Got it. Boundaries. Totally professional.’

‘Nothing about this is professional.’

Fair point.

I move around him instead, fingers trailing over his side, over skin that should be cool and isn’t, over old scars that make me pause.

‘How long have you had these?’

‘Too long.’

‘That one?’ I ask, touching the crescent at his ribs.

‘Naples, 1543.’

I blink. ‘That’s annoyingly specific.’

‘Indeed. There was a small matter of a war I was involved in, little hunter.’

Of course.

I reach his side and have to stop for a second because dear Gods. He is all hard muscle and elegant brutality from this angle, broad shoulders tapering to a lean waist, skin marked by battle and history in pale lines that crisscross where vampire healing couldn’t erase everything.

The sight is fascinating and arousing in equal measure. And at this point, I don’t bother pretending otherwise.

He knows.

I know he knows because he forcefully sniffs the air, nostrils flaring.

He can smell my arousal, the shameless wetness between my legs, the pulse pounding blood into my clit.

After what he did to me on his sofa, after I came apart in his hands and mouth and saw actual galaxies, playing coy now would be ridiculous.

So I keep touching him. Keep asking questions because questions are safer than admitting what my body is doing. ‘Does the mark spread all over your body?’

‘Not yet. Chest and back. For now.’ His voice is little more than a deep rumble.

‘Can you feel it before it changes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does it wake you up?’

A pause. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Can the Glass track it? Measure it?’