“Why?” He pulled her closer and her eyes widened, her pupils dilating. “They’ll know I’m part vampire the second I set foot in their den. You’re supposed to be my lover... a vampire’s lover would have bite marks.”
She fell silent, staring into his eyes, the black chasm of her pupils swallowing the colour in her irises and turning them dark with need.
The tiniest sideward shift of her chin was all the invite he needed.
Payne dropped his lips to her throat, feeling her pulse flickering wildly against them, and inhaled her sweet scent. Saliva pooled in his mouth and his fangs stretched long, hungry for a taste of her. He would have it.
He opened his mouth and eased his fangs into her flesh.
She moaned hotly into his ear, her reaction sweet and intoxicating him. Payne closed his eyes, eased his fangs out and gave a shallow pull on her blood. It flooded his mouth, hot and heady, scorching him with its intensity. He had never tasted anything like Elissa. He could taste the magic in her veins, tinny but strong with a sharp edge. His body reacted to the blissful taste of her in an instant, cock as hard as steel against his tight jeans, the pleasure of her blood flowing into him obliterating the pain he should have felt. He sank his fangs back into her, deeper this time, unable to resist his need to mark her for all to see.
Payne moaned against her and drank deeply of her sweet blood.
Elissa clung to his upper arms, her fingertips pressing into his flesh, short nails digging through his shirtsleeves. Payne clutched her bare bottom and ground his erection against her stomach, aching to be inside her in every way possible.
“We really don’t have time for that.” She sounded breathless and as intoxicated as he felt. “If you start that again, I won’t want to stop for hours.”
That drew a smile from him. Blood spilled from the corners of his lips and he closed them over the wound and sucked again. She moaned, the sound wanton and delicious. The scent of her arousal drove him to take things further with her and satisfy both of their desires, but she was right. If they got down and dirty again, they would be at it for hours. He fully intended to drive her mad with pleasure next time.
“We can play again when we’re at the incubi compound.” There was a hopeful edge to those words.
Payne groaned in agreement, strangely pleased that she still wanted him after everything he had already revealed to her.
The thought of taking her again caused his incubus side to flare into life. He drew pleasure from the vision floating around his mind as well as the taste of her blood as it flowed into him. Ecstasy. He had found Heaven.
The vampire side of his nature said to bite her harder.
Payne forced himself to withdraw and swiped his tongue across the bite mark to seal the puncture wounds. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Not Elissa.
He licked the rivulets of crimson from her bare chest, cleaning her up and savouring this all too brief moment of contact with her. He ran his tongue around her pert left nipple and she moaned, the sound breathy and wanton, filled with hunger that he wanted to satisfy. She clung to him still but the pressure of her grip was already easing and her heartbeat was steadying.
Payne set her away from him and stepped back. Pink flushed her cheeks and her pupils blotted out most of her silvery irises, her desire there for him to see as well as smell on her. It was hard to resist his urge to grab her, drag her back into his arms, and kiss her until she surrendered to him. Her gaze flickered around the room, occasionally falling on him, her air hesitant now, edged with awkwardness that brought a smile to his face. She didn’t have to be ashamed that she had enjoyed his bite. It pleased him.
He swept his fingers through his sandy hair, preening it back. Elissa’s eyes met his, she blushed again and then turned, walking on wobbly legs to the bathroom. Payne forced himself to turn away from temptation too. He adjusted the rock-hard erection in his jeans and focused on mundane things to make it go away as he walked stiffly into the main room of the house. He finished buttoning his shirt and then pulled on his socks and rammed his feet into his boots and tied the laces. He arranged the hems of his jeans over them and then sat in the wooden chair beside the desk. The spell book Elissa had been reading was still open. He glanced at the page.
A cloaking spell.
He looked closer. Not the sort that hid someone from others but the type that hid something about someone. Something specific.
What did Elissa want to hide from everyone?
She came out of the bedroom and paused at the threshold. Payne eased back in the chair and she wiped the nervous expression from her face. It didn’t hide the emotion behind it from his senses. Why did the fact that he had noticed the spell scare her?