Lord above, he wanted to bite her again.
His fangs lengthened and his cock hardened painfully in his jeans. Saliva pooled in his mouth and his mind dived back to the one time he had taken her blood, filling his senses with the taste of her essence. Hunger gnawed at his gut.
“We’re clearly not going to get anywhere looking for his room anyway.” She raised an eyebrow at him and pointedly dropped her gaze to his crotch and the bulge there. “You can’t take a step in his place without looking like you’re concealing a dangerous weapon in your jeans.”
If what she had said was true, and his seed was enough to have her coven out to execute her, then he wasn’t looking as though he was concealing a dangerous weapon. He was concealing one. The last thing he wanted to do was get her in trouble with her coven, or put her in the firing line, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could deny his need for her.
He shoved his fingers through the dirty blond spikes of his hair and gripped them hard, trying to figure out what to do. He needed to meet his grandfather and get his scent. Elissa could remain in the room, safe from harm, and sleep while he dealt with their dual problem. If he was lucky, the bastard would want to meet him in his quarters rather than a reception room and Payne wouldn’t have to sniff around the house to find their location.
He grabbed Elissa’s hand and headed back to their room. She entered first and he paused to watch her as she crossed the room to the fire and used her magic to start it. The flames lit her face, warming her pale skin and turning her eyes golden. She was beautiful, arresting. He had thought it the first time he had laid eyes on her and every time since. Whenever he took a moment to just look at her, it struck him anew, filling him with a sensation of need and awareness like he had never felt before. He could watch her for hours, days, years, and he would never grow tired of just looking at her. Her expression changed so rapidly, never concealing her emotions, always allowing them to show.
Did she do this with everyone or was she allowing him to see more of her than she showed to others? He could imagine that she had been like this with her sister, open and unguarded, never hiding anything.
Elissa paused halfway through placing another log onto the fire and turned her head towards him, her eyes slowly lifting to meet his. Golden light played across her skin, flickering and dancing in her soft brown hair. She looked like an angel, kneeling on the rug before him, wearing a halo of pure gold.
“Elissa,” he breathed and she rose to her feet, turning fully towards him. He wasn’t sure what he had wanted to say to her. It slipped from his grasp and he ended up staring at her in silence, drinking in the way she looked at him, not as though he was a monster, but as though he was a man.
A man who she wanted.
A man who she might grow to love.
“You should get some rest.” His voice sounded distant even to his ears. It wasn’t what he had wanted to say to her. He had meant to ask her to come to him and let him kiss her again, let him touch her and ruin her, because he needed her more than air or a heartbeat, or anything in this world.
She took a step towards the bed and then paused again. “Will you come too?”
He shook his head. She would be too tempting and he didn’t want to ruin her, not really. She would never forgive him if he did.
He would never forgive himself.
She shifted course and approached him rather than the bed. He held his hands up and backed off a step. The house was coming alive again, the energy that constantly swirled around him increasing in strength and setting his incubus side on edge. Coupled with his intense craving to taste her blood again, he was only a danger to her right now.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, a frown marring her beauty, turning her eyes dark.
“If you come near me... I won’t be able to stop myself. You have to understand... I’m on the edge, Elissa. Both sides of me are hungry for you... I don’t want to place you in danger.”
She hesitated and he couldn’t blame her. The gold and blue were probably swirling in his eyes by now, red and pink flushing his markings and announcing his aroused state to her as well as his deep hunger.
Elissa held his gaze and took another step towards him.
“What are you doing?” He backed off another step and she smiled, a sensual one that stole his breath and beat at his defences and control.
She didn’t stop. She kept advancing and he kept retreating, but he was shit out of luck. His back hit the closed door. He considered teleporting but he wasn’t fast enough. Before he could think of a location to leap to, she had closed the distance between them and had pressed her hot palms against his chest, searing him through his dark grey shirt and branding his very bones with her name.