Dark Desires After Dusk (Immortals After Dark #6)(30)

Minutes after she’d closed her eyes, she had nodded off. He kept glancing over at her, wondering what she was dreaming about with her brows drawn.

As he drove, he decided two things. If they were going to be on the road together for potentially weeks, then he would begin teaching her how to defend herself.

If I turn her over to Groot, she’s going to have a sporting chance.

And second, he would be with her sexually. He could never take her completely—she may not be far enough into the transition to immortality to survive it. And if she did, once he’d experienced what it was like to be inside her, he might not ever let her go.

No, he couldn’t claim her, but before he relinquished her, he would pleasure her. Cade thought she could be seduced—he’d seen a spark of interest in her eyes. She wasn’t immune to him. Which meant he now had to coax her to trust him. Which meant he should be on his best behavior.

Except he had to admit that he kind of enjoyed baiting her like this. When her cheeks went pink and she grew flustered . . .

And N?x did say she wanted her niece educated.

Cade wondered what his stalwart brother would think about his plans for Holly. Good money said he’d disapprove. Rydstrom was a fairly stand-up guy, with only a few skeletons in his closet.

Ah, but they were big ones.

Cade stilled. What if the Queen of Illusions discovered Rydstrom’s secret weakness? What would she do to him then?

He also wondered if Rydstrom even now believed that their cause was lost because it rested on Cade’s shoulders.

Cade wouldn’t dwell on that thought. He was taking action, closing in on their goal.

Whereas Holly was plagued with unwelcome thoughts, Cade was mentally nimble, skirting disagreeable realizations with ease.

It was what would allow him to grow more attached to her with each hour—even as each second took him closer to the time he’d be forced to betray her.





13





Holly was at a ball, standing out on a terrace with Cadeon watching her from the shadows. He wanted her to join him there, but she was afraid to go into the darkness.

She kept looking over her shoulder back inside, unable to leave behind everything she’d ever known.

Yet his green eyes glowed from the shadows, and he held out his hand, beckoning her, promising pleasure more wicked than she’d ever imagined . . . .

“Good morning, beautiful.”

Holly woke with a start, finding herself in Cadeon’s arms in a dimly-lit room. He was staring down at her—with eyes that glowed.

“Didn’t realize you had freckles,” he said, his voice rumbling.

“Put me down.” She squirmed to get free. She didn’t need to be reminded of his deep voice, not when she’d just been dreaming about him—her subconscious telling her things with all the subtlety of a hammer’s whack. “Where are we? What are you doing holding me like this?”

He set her on the edge of a bed with a soft comforter. “We’re in a hotel for the day in northern Mississippi, and I was going to see if I could get you ready for bed without waking you.”

“Ready for bed?” She rubbed her eyes and surveyed the suite. It looked like they were in an upscale hotel, not that she’d been in many—or any—hotels in the last decade. The place might be nice, but right away she could see some things that needed to be rearranged to make sense. First, the chairs at the dining table—

“Yes, ready for bed,” he said, plucking off her glasses, and setting them on the bedside table. Then he bent down to unfasten her heels.

“I’m sure I can manage the rest.” She frowned at his sudden attentiveness. “I can do that,” she insisted, but he wasn’t listening.

He studied her shoe, with his lips curling as if he found it adorable. “You’ve the smallest feet, poppet.” Once he’d removed her shoes, he said, “And now your top.”

Before she could stop him, he pinched the bottom of her sweater and began tugging.

“Are you crazy?” She slapped his hands away, ducking under his arm to flee to the other side of the room.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

With her arms crossed over her chest, she said, “Just call me about thirty minutes before you’re ready to leave tonight.”

“I will be bunking here with you.”

Holly tensed. Sharing a room with the husky-voiced demon she’d been dreaming about in the car? This wouldn’t work at all. “How exactly would I explain this to my boyfriend?”

“How exactly are you going to explain any of this?”

Indeed. “I’m not going to tell him. If I can get this reversed, he never has to know.”

“Good answer. It’s against the rules of the Lore to tell humans about our world.”

“But why do we have to share a room?”

“Because we’re still too close to your last known whereabouts. There could be more vampires.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“That you can,” he said easily. She was alternately discomfited and pleased by his ready confidence in her abilities. “But you’ll have a hard time defending yourself when you’re asleep. So that’s where I come in.”

Her stomach chose that moment of silence to growl loudly.