Art’s eyes flashed to black. “Okay.”
It was fast. He moved, reaching out and yanking her to him. Instinct got an arm between them as he pulled her to his chest. Her pulse pounded, and she stared when he hesitated, her naked fear striking a chord with him. It was a drug to him, and she knew he paused so as to prolong it. She cursed herself when her own bloodlust rose, heady and unstoppable. She didn’t want this. She could say no. Her will was stronger than her instincts.
But her jaw tightened, and he smiled to show his teeth when she felt her eyes dilate against her will. Lips parting, she exhaled into it. The savage desire to force her needs on him vibrated through every nerve. Mia was wrong. There could be no love here, no tenderness. And when Art forced her closer and ran his teeth gently across her neck, she found herself tense with anticipation even as she tried to bring it under control. Concentrate, Ivy, she thought, her pulse quickening in her conflicting feelings. She was here to nail his coffin, not be nailed.
He knew she wouldn’t say yes to him until he pulled her to the brink where bloodlust made her choices. And even as she thought no, she gripped his shoulder, poised as he ran his hand down her hips and eased to the inside of her thighs, searching. A rumbling growl came from him, shivering through her. His hands became possessive, demanding. And she willed the feeling to grow, even when self-loathing filled her.
How had it come on so fast? she thought. Had she been wanting this all along, teasing herself? Or was Mia right in that she had refused Art because giving in would prove she knew she could find love in the ugliness, but was too cowardly to fight for it?
Art carefully hooked a tooth into the lace of her collar and tore it, the sound of the ripping fabric cutting through her. His teeth grazed her, promising, and she lost all thought but how to get him to sink them, to fill her with glorious feeling proving she was alive and could feel joy, even if she paid for it with her self-respect.
Art didn’t speak as he stood, holding her against him, the demanding pressure in his lips, his fingers, his very breathing, waking every nerve in her. He hadn’t bespelled her; he hadn’t needed to. She was willing to be everything he wanted, and a tiny part of her screamed, drowned out by her need to give to him and to feel in return, even though she knew it was false.
His fingers rose from his grip upon her waist, tracing upward with a firm insistence until they found her chin and tilted her head. “Give this to me,” he whispered, his fingers among her hair. “This is mine. Give it…tome.”
It was haggard, almost torn by the need in him that her tortured willingness had sparked. The thought that she was buying empty emotion rose like bubbles to pop against the top of her mind. Mia had said she could live above the bloodlust. Mia didn’t know shit, didn’t know the exquisite pleasure of this. She wanted his blood, and he wanted hers. What difference did it make how she would feel in the morning? Tomorrow she could be dead and it wouldn’t matter.
And then she remembered the leashed hunger Mia contained and counted it stronger than her own. She remembered the scorn in Mia’s voice, calling her a whiny little girl who could have everything if she had the courage to live up to her greater need for love. Even if she did have to taint it with bloodlust.
Ivy’s heart pounded as she tried to find the will to pull away, but the lure of what he could fill her with was too strong. She couldn’t. It was ingrained too deeply. It was what she was. But she wanted more, damn it. She wanted to escape the ugliness of what she really was.
As she struggled with herself, she found Art’s mouth with her own, drawing his lips from her neck and putting them on hers. The salty electric taste of blood filled her, but it wasn’t hers. Art had cut his own lip, sending her into a dizzy lust for the rest of him.
Gasping, she pushed away. It would stop here.
She fell back, fingers fumbling for the vial. Eyes black, Art gripped her wrist, the tiny glass bottle exposed. Ivy flushed hot as she stood, her arm stretched between them.
Hunched from the pain of breaking from her, Art wiped his mouth of his blood. He let go of her, and she stumbled back. In Art’s hand was the vial.
“What’s this?” he asked, wary but amused when he unscrewed the top and sniffed at it.
“Nothing,” she said, truly afraid even as her body ached at the interruption.
He sucked in her fear, his eyes going blacker and his smile more predatory. “Really.”
Panicking that he would drop it and come at her again, she fumbled in her pocket, bringing out the real charm, invoked but quiescent in its silk pouch.
Art’s eyes went to it, and before he could think, she jumped at him. Arm moving in a quick arc, Art flung the contents of the vial at her. Heavy droplets, warm from her body, struck her like shocks from a whip. Adrenaline pounding to make her head hurt, she forced her muscles to go slack. She collapsed as if she’d run into a wall, falling to where he had been standing a second earlier. The carpet burned her cheek, and she exhaled as if passing out.