She tilted her head and watched her hand rise up his torso, then slide down again. She was stalling, not going lower. Because in spite of his distraction with the ugly past, he was still erect. Totally erect.
Okay, time to get moving downward. Hello, she was an adult. A physician. She'd had a couple of lovers. What she was witnessing was just a biological function that resulted in a pooling of blood in his incredibly large—
That was so not where her thoughts needed to go.
As Jane took the cloth down over his hip, she tried to ignore the fact that he shifted as she went along, his back arching, that heavy arousal on his belly pushing forward, then falling back into place.
The tip of it wept a glossy, tempting tear.
She looked up at him… and froze. His eyes were on her throat, and they were burning with a lust that wasn't just sexual.
Any attraction she might have felt for him disappeared. This was a male of another species, not a man. And he was dangerous.
His stare dropped to her hand in the cloth. "I won't bite you."
"Good, because I don't want you to." This she was clear on. Hell, she was glad he'd looked at her like that, because it had jarred her back to reality. "Listen, not that I want to know personally, but does it hurt?"
"Don't know. Never been bitten myself."
"I thought you said that—"
"I feed off females. But no one has ever fed off me."#p#分页标题#e#
"Why?" As his mouth closed up tight, she shrugged. "You might as well tell me. I'm not going to remember anything, right? So what will it cost you to talk?"
As silence stretched, she lost her nerve with his pelvic region and decided to try to work her way up from his feet. Down at the end of the bed, she ran the cloth up his soles then over his toes and he jumped a little like he was ticklish. She moved on to his ankles.
"My father didn't want me to reproduce," the patient said abruptly.
Her eyes shot to his. "What?"
He held up the hand that was gloved, then tapped the temple that had the tattoos around it. "I'm not right. You know, normal. So my father tried to have me fixed like a dog. Of course, there was also the happy correlation of it being one hell of a punishment." As her breath left her on a compassionate sigh, he pointed his forefinger at her. "You show me any pity and I'm going to think twice about the no-bite vow I just gave you."
"No pity. I promise," she lied softly. "But what does that have to do with you drinking from—"
"Just don't like to share."
Himself, she thought. With anyone… except maybe Red Sox.
She gently eased the cloth up his shin. "What were you punished for?"
"Can I call you Jane?"
"Yes." She redipped the cloth and eased it under his calf . As he went silent again, she let him have his privacy. For now.
Under her hand, his knee flexed, the thigh above it contracting and releasing in a sensual flow. Her eyes flicked over his erection and she swallowed hard.
"So do your reproductive systems work the same as ours?" she asked.
"Pretty much."
"Have you had human lovers?"
"I'm not into humans."
She smiled awkwardly. "I won't ask you who you're thinking of now, then."
"Good. I don't think you'd feel comfortable with the answer."
She thought of the way he looked at Red Sox. "Are you gay?"
His eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"
"You seem rather attached to your friend, the guy in the baseball hat."
"You knew him, didn't you. From before, true?"
"Yeah, he looks familiar, but I can't quite place him."
"Would that bother you?"
She ran the towel up his thigh to the cut juncture of his hips, then skirted away. "You being gay? Not at all."
"Because it would make you feel safer, right?"
"And because I'm open-minded. As a physician, I have a pretty good grip on how no matter our preferences, we're all alike on the inside."
Well, the humans at least. She sat down on the bedside and pushed her hand up his leg again. As she got closer to his arousal, his breath caught and the hard length twitched. While his hips swiveled she looked up. He'd bitten down on his lower lip, his fangs cutting into the soft flesh.
Okay, that was really…
None of her business. But, man, he must be running a really hot fantasy about Red Sox right now.
Telling herself this was just a garden-variety sponge-bath situation, and not believing the lie for an instant, she drew her hand over his abdomen, up past the swollen head of him, and down the other side. As the very edge of the washcloth brushed up against his sex, he hissed.
So help her, God, she did it again, going slowly up and around him and letting the erection get stroked just a little.