Fangs and Fennel (The Venom Trilogy #2)(69)
His cheek twitched, and he seemed to be struggling with something. “You’re right, vampires don’t tend to be monogamous. It’s too difficult when it comes to feeding if you don’t want to drain your donor.” His hands slid down my arms. “You . . . I haven’t had to feed since I took your blood. I’m not as strong as I was immediately after, but I have had no hunger.”
I noticed that he’d said nothing about how he felt, or if he felt anything at all for me other than the usefulness I had to him. So maybe no answer was his answer. I nodded. “That’s good. I’ll let you sleep.” I stepped around him and had my hand on the doorknob before he stopped me, putting his hand over mine.
“Alena, things are not that simple,” he said. “You are not a vampire. It would never work in the long run. No matter how much either of us might want it to. They aren’t rules without reason.”
I stared at the door, trying to not think about how badly I wanted it to be otherwise. I didn’t say anything, just pulled the door open and stepped out. “Thank you for coming, and thank you for your honesty.” As if I’d asked him to show up and fix my plumbing. I shut the door and hurried up the stairs, through the kitchen, and up the next flight to my bedroom. Yaya followed me, her heartbeat rising along with her steps. She didn’t knock, just walked right in and sat down on the bed beside me.
“I’m going to give you some advice, Alena. And you will listen to me.” She patted my leg, and I buried my face in my pillows as if I were a teenager again, running away from my mom’s expectations.
“Yaya, I need to sleep. I have court in a few hours.”
“And you’re going to listen to me before you go to sleep. Men, no matter what species, will fight you on a relationship. Even if they don’t realize it. Don’t give up on him. He’s being stubborn and pretending it’s for your own good.”
I rolled onto my back and looked at her. If Smithy was right, she was far older than she looked with her white puffy hair and crinkles around her bright-green eyes. “Yaya, I’m tired.”
“Fine, fine. Go to sleep.” She stood and then leaned over me. “But I want you to think about something. How did that man get here so fast when you called him? It seems to me that he was waiting close by, letting you do your thing but staying close enough that if you needed him, he could be here in a flash. That isn’t the action of a man who doesn’t care. Who doesn’t hope to defy odds.”
She turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open. I sat up, her words rumbling around inside my head. “Yaya, how did you get to be so smart?”
“Hundreds of years!” she called out from downstairs. “I’m going. I’ll see you at the courthouse later.”
The front door slammed, and I was alone in the house. Or alone as I was going to be with Remo in the basement.
I was no longer the quiet church mouse Roger and Barbie had accused me of being. I wasn’t a woman who gave up on her bakery, even with the odds so stacked against me. I wasn’t a Drakaina who lost to Achilles. What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was wrong with me?
Before I thought better of it, I stood up and ran down the stairs, through the kitchen, and back into the basement. I pounded on the bedroom door. “Seriously? You’d give me up because of some made-up rules that have nothing to do with you and me?”
He swung the door open, his eyes wide. And shirt off. Sweet baby Jesus, that was a beautiful body.
I sucked in a breath and fought to keep my eyes on his and not the body that put Smithy’s to shame. “You would just walk away from me?”
He stood there, his throat working. “I’ve been trying.”
“How’s that going for you?” I put a hand on my hip and cocked one leg.
His lips twitched. “Not as planned.”
“Yeah, well, it looks like I’m breaking all sorts of rules.” I reached out, grabbed his face, and pulled him to me. Kissing him for all I was worth. He didn’t fight me but wrapped his arms around my waist and picked me up, carrying me backward into the bedroom.
CHAPTER 19
I slid my hands over his bare shoulders and arms, shivering at the feeling of his muscles under my fingertips. His lips were on mine, crushing them, bruising them with the intensity in his kiss. I loved every second of it.
I pulled back as his hands began peeling my shirt up, baring my waist, and I knew I had to stop this while I still could. My body liked his hands, his kisses, the brush of skin on skin so much that in very little time I’d not be able to say no. I’d be so wrapped up in the sensation of Remo next to me I’d forget whatever ability I had to think clearly. To remember that I wasn’t truly free to do as I wished. Not yet, anyway.
“I have to sleep,” I blurted out.
His eyes slowly rolled up to look into mine. “What?”
“I came to tell you I wasn’t giving up on us. On you. But I really need to sleep before the courthouse hearing today.”
The sudden and sincere laughter that poured out of him shocked me.
“You aren’t mad?”
“Alena, you will never stop surprising me, will you?”
“Maybe?” I smiled up at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to go this far. I’m scared and I trust you. And I want this, just not until I’ve dealt with Roger.”