But she couldn’t maintain the pretense, because the twenty years had happened. She had become a different person. She was older, more cynical and guarded, and this powerful man who held her so gently, and treated her so kindly, was still the same bastard he had always been. A leopard did not change his spots. A battle-worn lion did not lose his scars.
Oh, soldier, how did we come to such a place?
With a shock, she realized she had murmured that aloud, as he whispered into her hair, “Damned if I know.”
Well there, she had a spine after all, because suddenly it decided to start working again. She stiffened and pulled out of his arms. “You need to feed,” she said abruptly. “Then while you go kill things, I’m going to eat a candy bar. After that, we’re going to waltz out of here. Got it?”
He had lines on either side of his mouth that deepened as he almost smiled. “Got it.”
She held out her wrist. He took her hand in his and held it, as he speared her with a hard, intent gaze.
“We need to get one thing straight, you and I,” he said, his voice soft and ruthless. “And we’re going to do it before I bite you, so we don’t have the bloodlust interfering with either of our thinking. I have every intention of taking you again. And taking you. I’m going to make you want it so bad, when I finally sink my cock in you, you’ll cry from the relief.”
She felt her eyes widen from shock. Once again, he knocked her breathless. Senseless. Her mouth worked, as her brain tried to sputter out something pithy enough with which to lambast him.
She had to lambast him. She had to drown out the teeny, tiny part of her that had clapped its hands and squeaked finally, yay!
After a Herculean effort, she managed to whisper, “You’re delusional if you think I would ever let you take me again, after the way you’ve treated me. You see this?” With her free hand, she waved her fingers in the air down the length of her torso as she shook her head. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You’re neeevvver getting this goodness again.”
At that he gave her a real smile, a slow one, full bore, that creased his rough face. The impact hit her hard, in all her most vulnerable places. In desperation, she thought, how am I ever going to stand strong against him?
As his fangs descended and his eyes flashed red, he told her, “We’ll see about that, princess. We’ll see.”
With that, he bit her wrist, not brutally, but with an elegant, lethal efficiency. Before the pleasure hit, she had room to wonder, And I thought Anthony was remarkably stupid. How much more stupid is Justine, to make such an enemy out of this man?
Then the sweetest, most delicious euphoria stole into her veins. She didn’t welcome it. She was still angry. With her free hand, she slid her fingers through his short salt-and-pepper hair at the back of his head.
She whispered, “And you dare to accuse me of cheating. How many people have you seduced just like this?”
Anger flashed in his reddened eyes. He glared at her even as his mouth pulled on her with such knowledgeable care. Gods, she wanted to smack him.
Or kiss him.
No, definitely smack him…
As she tore off his jeans, straddled his prone body and took him.
After only a few sips, he eased his fangs out of her flesh and held still, his mouth resting in the place where he had bitten her. Even with the hostility that now radiated from him, he still took care this time to make sure the tiny wounds had stopped bleeding before he left her. She realized her hands were shaking and clenched them into fists to make them stop.
Then he lifted his head and snapped, “You did cheat.”
She snapped back, “Like I said, you’re delusional. I never cheated on you. I loved you with all of my heart, and you took that and trampled it into the ground. Even after the three months we spent together, you couldn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt.”
At that, strangely, all his hostility seemed to vanish. He looked deathly tired, more tired than any other man she had ever seen. “Didn’t you stop to think that I might have loved you with all of my heart once, too?”
With a single sentence, he wrenched her heart out of her body. She cried out, “Then why couldn’t you have had a little faith in me?”
“I had faith in a lot of things once,” he said. “Including you. Then reality came along and trampled that into the ground as well.”
As she stared, his expression went blank, truly blank, as if he had become too empty to show even tiredness. He bent to scoop up his stakes.
More disturbed than she had been in a long time, she said, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to kill things.” He spoke without emotion, like an automaton. “It’s the one thing I still remain good at.”