The Way You Bite(23)

His head lowered. His lips went to her neck, grazing over her skin. She shuddered and her hands gripped his powerful arms.

“Damn it, you taste good. So good.”

She bit her lip against moaning when he licked across her skin again down to her collarbone.

“This craze you feel is only for me. No one else will do. Remember that.” He cradled her chin to meet his gaze. “No one. If another male touches you while you’re this way, I’ll kill him. Any male. Even Ambrose. That doesn’t mean I’m going to fuck you.” He pushed away from the wall and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m walking out right now because you’re not ready for this. Your body might be, but you’re not. The longer we’re here together and alone… There’s only so long I can remain in control.” He shook his head and muttered a curse. Then he left. She heard the front door open and close.

She remained immobile. Shocked. He wanted her?

Oh my God. Aleksander Dimitrov, King Werewolf, wanted her. The flattered girly girl part of her did a hell yeah dance. The rational side of her freaked out all over again.

Crap, crap, and triple crap. She’d almost gotten it on with a werewolf. In her own bed.

What did he mean she was in heat? Vampires didn’t go into heat. Only wolves. Was it possible to desire a wolf so much that even a vampire could go into heat? Maybe him using spit in her knife wound had changed her biochemistry.

She shook her head, blowing off Lexan’s analysis. Her in heat was absurd. This was chemistry. Incendiary chemistry, but nothing more. Anomalous.

An annoying electronic whine whirred from her cell phone. Where’d she put the annoying device? She prowled her apartment until she located the phone on the counter where she’d thrown her keys. Once she clicked off the alarm, the light came on to show she had a phone message from Ambrose. She couldn’t deal with him right now, not with her body on fire for Lexan.

After a quick text to her boss to let him know she’d miss work for the next few nights, she snagged a two-day-old bagel from her kitchen counter and chewed while popping open her laptop. The bakery fresh taste had dulled to a stiff cardboard consistency. She tossed it in the trash and unwrapped two Hershey’s Kisses.

Time to cash out of her day trade accounts. A few needed another week before they peaked, but she needed to liquefy all assets. She had all funds sent to her offshore account. Then she viewed flights. The earliest with an available seat left in an hour. It only got her to JFK, but she could figure out the next leg of her trip once there. Sixty minutes didn’t give her enough time to enact phase one of her evacuation plan and make it through airport security. The next flight in a little over two hours worked. With a few clicks she booked it.

She padded into the bathroom. Her jaw dropped when she viewed her back in her vanity mirror. Only the faint trace of a white line remained where the knife had hit. Lexan had worked a miracle. She could heal, but not like this. The bad news was Lexan’s method left his scent all over her. But she didn’t mind.

Yes, you do mind. She had to mind. His smell would get her executed by any Stateside vamp she crossed.

She showered with the water so hot the entire room clouded with steam. She scrubbed, using almost an entire bottle of body wash and an abrasive loofah that one of the hospital staff gave her in a Christmas gift set. She’d been reluctant to even remove it from its package since it looked so unforgiving. She pawed through the bathroom drawers looking for some perfume samples. A perfume girl she was not, but she had to do something.

She packed clothes in a carry-on, along with her computer. She grabbed her mother’s small black-and-white photo off the bedroom wall, her only memento of the woman she never knew. With another three or four hours before dusk, she needed sun protection. Long sleeves and a hat were a start. She slathered sunscreen on all exposed areas.

Her stomach rumbled. Before she spent hours in tight quarters with humans, she needed more blood. The little bit she drank earlier was all she had left in the house. It wasn’t going to hold her for long. Fortunately, the vamp convenience store was open twenty-four hours a day. It fronted as an Asian market, but the refrigerators in the back held the liquid magic she needed. She’d buy a blood to-go cup on her way to the airport.

As she exited the elevator, her cell rang. Ambrose again. She ignored it. Once outside, she pulled the sunhat tight to her head and her sleeves over her exposed hands.

Time to enact phase one of evacuation.

She needed to die.





Chapter Eight


What the hell was she doing? Lexan and Eric hadn’t even reached their home base before he got a call from TC, who he’d ordered guard her. Leaving hadn’t been easy. Instinct demanded he watch and guard her himself. But him near her right now, watching and stalking, asked for catastrophe. He’d end up in her apartment, probably within an hour. Then, there’d be no restraint to the hormonal tornado gripping him.

She wasn’t ready.

Now he watched her a hundred yards away and couldn’t process what he witnessed as possible.

Vee had parked in a shady area less than a mile away from her apartment, behind a dilapidated warehouse. She doused her car’s interior in gasoline and palmed a matchbook, staring at her little car as if drumming up the courage to light the match. When he’d left her she’d been aroused, possibly scared, but not suicidal. Maybe she decided there was no other way out. Maybe she’d realized she wasn’t full vampire.