Page 62 of Falling for a Villainous Vampire

It’s no wonder I see the slowly dawning realization in his gaze. “By the gods, you do,” he says, in this hushed sort of voice. “You like the thought of it. You like the thought of me savaging a creature of some kind.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“That is a lie, I can see it in your eyes.”

“Well, then, you’re mistaken. You’re mistaken,” I say, though I know my voice is starting to get too frantic now. The lady doth protest too much, I think of Mathilde saying, and I have honestly never wished more that I was one hundred percent her again. Her voice is so cool and crisp and English.

She’d convince him.

While I spectacularly fail.

“I cannot believe I am,” he says. “It is your wish to see me sink my teeth in.”

“No, it isn’t, I just think that with me, you wouldn’t hav—”

I cut myself off before I can go any further down that path. Honestly I don’t even know why I followed it in the first place. It just seemed to burst out of me, and now he appears even more astonished than he did before. He can hardly seem to get words out, and when he finally does they come in a low rush.

“You want me to do that again to you.”

“Well, I mean, you hardly did anything.”

“I put my mouth on you.”

“Yes, but very softly.”

“And you liked this softness. You covet more of it.”

His gaze is all wonderment now. He’s almost laughing.

But there’s something distinctly more serious about the way he steps toward me. He does it slow, slow. And he leans into me as he does it. I have to move back just to keep myself on an even keel.

Though in my panic, I somehow end up going through my bedroom door.

And he follows me as I wave my hands and try to laugh in this flailing way.

“I didn’t say that. Did you hear me say that?” I ask.

And oh god, the answer he gives.

“Not in word, but in deed. In the way you look, the way you sound, the heat in your skin. Your scent—I thought the shift was fear, and yet sometimes I breathe it in when you sleep. It comes to me as I lie on my bed that is a couch, listening to you dream. And those dreams do not seem filled with terror,” he says, all low and so much more sure of himself. Though, then again, why wouldn’t he be? All the evidence he just cited is utterly undeniable. I was sort of hoping his vampire senses might have missed most of it—but that was very silly indeed.

He’s just been telling himself otherwise.

Staying nice and polite.

And now he doesn’t have to be, because I fucking confessed.

And hoo boy, is it intense. He steps toward me again, and I swear I almost stumble back onto my ass. Like in the office, when he was still evil and terrible—only something is missing, something is very different. The fear, I think, the real fear that I might be hurt. The real fear isn’t there. Instead, there’s just the adrenaline that comes with it, and my racing heart, and my heated cheeks.

All the thrill, and none of the pain.

It’s perfect. It’s unbelievably heady.

And somehow I still have to resist.

“Sometimes my dreams are terrifying.”

“But not when they are of the library.”