Page 96 of Tempted By the Vampire Prince

I tucked a piece of loose hair behind my ear. “I daresay I’ve been a little busy.”

“Good.”

“Good?” I queried.

He took a step closer. My pulse responded immediately, beating hard against my ribs, betraying me to the vampire standing mere feet away. His eyes darkened as he listened.

Suddenly, I realized why he was here. He was taking my advice. Except instead of finding a pretty girl, he’d crawled through my window.

Something in me went hot and stupid and delighted, and something else went cold with terror, making it difficult to breathe around the warring emotions.

I flattened the book against my chest.

Sex was uncomplicated. This, whatever it was, was not.

“This proposal of yours,” I said, trying to sound unaffected. “Does it have anything to do with why you’re staring at my throat?”

“Yes. Partly,” he said. “Among other places.”

The blunt answer sent heat pulsing lower, and I nearly lost hold of my grip on the book.

Yves tracked the movement like only a vampire could, holding completely still, save for his green eyes. “You see, I believe you are right. My gears are wound extraordinarily tight.”

I laughed before I could stop myself. “And you came all the way here to tell me that?”

“No,” he said slowly. “I came to ask whether yours are in a similar condition.”

The tenor of his voice struck a chord deep in my core that I didn’t know it could be played, but I recovered quickly, reverting to the book in my hands. “I’d never let that happen.” I tapped the cover. “I have a good book and two working hands.”

His attention dropped to my fingers, and when his gaze returned to mine, there was nothing gentlemanly in it. “Those?” he asked. “I think you deserve better.”

My traitorous attention dropped to his hands. To his well-manicured nails and thick fingers. I’d bet my entire salary that those hands knew more than just how to tie a knot. But I couldn’t be the one to entertain this. I had to push back.

“You have no idea how skilled these hands are.” I opened the book again with as much dignity as I could manage. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my reading.”

I stared at the words without reading a single one. Sweat collected along my brow and heat pulsed low in my core. I felt him standing over me with every nerve in my body. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to peek over the top of the book when Yves suddenly plucked the book from my hand and held it out of my reach.

“Excuse you!” I lunged forward, catching his wrist before he could pull it farther away.

And then I understood my mistake.

I was no longer sitting in my bed with my book shield. I was up on my knees at the edge of it, sheet abandoned, one hand wrapped around a vampire prince’s wrist and nothing between us but a few inches of humid air and a great deal of poor judgment, mostly on my part.

His skin was cool and smooth under my fingers.

Yves turned the book over and looked at the open page.

“I was reading that,” I said. The words came out less imperious than I intended.

“Tell me your hands are all you need,” he said.

It was hard to look at him and not want what he was so obviously offering. “They have never disappointed me.”

“No?” He leaned closer, bringing his face within inches of mine. “Then tell me who you have been imagining while you touch yourself.”

My breath lodged in my chest.

He watched my reaction with infuriating satisfaction. “Was it me, Cora?”