throat now and another move closer could make her knees buckle. She wanted to shove him back but she didn’t dare touch him. Instead she wiped his blood from her chin and onto her trousers. “Why do
She could see the pulse pounding in his throat, the vulnerable golden skin in the V of his loosened shirt. Now his hand whipped out, curling into the front of her man’s shirt. He shoved her back, into the wall.
Her sword…damn, she’d left it in its sheath. In the corner. But she was strong, as strong as he was. He didn’t frighten her.
“Just can’t keep from touching me, can you, Giordan?” she taunted, though her mouth was dry. Her heart choked her, pounding hard in her chest. “Isn’t that why he sent you?”
His eyes blazed, steady and yet somehow cold, and his fingers tightened around the linen of her shirt. He yanked her toward him, her body slamming into his as he released her shirt. His arms whipped around her, one at the back of her neck, pinning her thick hair in place, and the other grabbing her hip and pulling her up against his body.
He’d knocked the breath out of her, and for a moment Narcise could only look up into his eyes, ringed with the glow of red fire. Her knees trembled. Her insides swirled.
His bloodscent filled her nose, still oozing from his cut, still printed on her fingers, tempting and rich.
She hated him, hated how he’d humiliated her and used her…but her body knew his too well. Craved it still.
Giordan tightened his grip at the back of her skull to border on pain, holding her head from moving, wrapping her hair around his wrist. His face came closer, his mouth full and ready, his fangs teasing beneath his upper lip, and Narcise closed her eyes. Her own lips softened, her heart raced. She braced herself, feeling the shudder of pleasure already building inside her.
He brushed his lips over hers. So lightly, it was like a breeze. A lush, familiar breeze. She held back a sigh. Then he came back, his parted mouth fitting over hers, a little tease of his hot, sleek tongue swirling around her lips. Warmth shuttled through her in a forceful blast and she followed him, tasting, wanting more.
He released her. Shoved her away so that she bumped against the wall, her eyes flying open.
The smug satisfaction on his face had her leaping for her sword.
“Bastard,” she said, somersaulting over the bed to get to her sheath. She whipped out the blade and faced him. “Get out, Giordan. Or I will use it.”
“As I said,” he repeated, his eyes cold again, his fangs retracted, “if I wanted you, no one would keep me away. Not even you.”
Furious, she lunged, blade out and swiping lethally through the air. He jumped nimbly aside, his eyes filled with arrogant humor. She came at him again, slicing and swirling, but he avoided her much too easily, infuriating her even further.
“You’re too overset, my dear. You’re acting out in haste and—” he twisted and vaulted gracefully over the bed anger. You’re sloppy.”
The chamber was red in her vision, colored red and hot with her fury, and Narcise drew in a deep breath as she spun around. Away from him. He was right, Luce damn him.
She had to gather her control. Breathing heavily, she paused, then turned, holding the saber at the ready.
He stood there, across the room, his breathing a bit heavier but by no means was he out of breath, the bastard. He wasn’t even in a readied fighting position. His short, rich brown curls clustered over his head like that of a Greek god and she knew that the rest of him was as golden and muscular as one, as well. Blood streaked his shirt and stained his hand, where it had slowed to an ooze, and on his trousers.
Narcise met his eyes and lifted her chin. Holding his gaze, she took the point of her sword and opened the palm of her other hand to it. She saw the flare in his eyes, the widening of his nostrils, and she waited.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said, his voice taut.
She raised her brow. “What is it, Giordan? Don’t trust yourself to stay in control?”
“I haven’t fed. In two weeks.”
A little shiver raced over her. That was a long time. Particularly for him.
“If you cut yourself, you know exactly what will happen.”
She did indeed, and the very thought had her trembling inside. Hot and trembly and frightened. And needy. She swallowed hard. “Get out,” she said, stepping back so that he could get to the door. “I’ll not say it again, Giordan.”
He cast her one last inscrutable look, then strode past her to the door. His fingers on the handle, he yanked it open and turned back. “I never figured you for a coward, Narcise.”
She slammed the door behind him, wishing for a lock.
It was a long time before she stopped trembling. And even longer until she managed to dry her tears.
He couldn’t get her scent off his hands. It was as if he’d dipped his fingers into the inkwell of Miss Maia Woodmore, and now they were stained for good.
Dimitri closed his eyes. He had, in fact, dipped his fingers, his mouth, himself into her inkwell—so to speak. He couldn’t slip any more deeply into that inky abyss where he would lose himself, lose control, lose the great walls he’d constructed. Where he’d
His disgusted snort was loud enough to pull himself out of the mental miasma.
He focused his attention on the scenery of London passing by the window of his carriage. The same carriage in which the incident with Miss Woodmore had occurred early this morning, and the reason he didn’t seem able to dismiss it from his mind. Aside from the fact that her very self permeated the cushions.
Braving the sun and getting out of Blackmont Hall early this afternoon—after a fitful attempt to gain a few hours’ sleep—had been the lesser of two evils. He hadn’t been jesting when he enthusiastically agreed with Miss Woodmore’s suggestion that she and Bradington spend their time walking in the garden. But Dimitri hadn’t thought any further than the benefit of getting them out of the parlor, which was too near his study for vampiric ears, and hadn’t considered the fact that the garden was, in fact, just outside the windows of his study.
He simply wouldn’t be able to endure listening to the slushy, sloppy romantic prattle of the reunited lovers.
And it was only partly because, to his great mortification, he had once endowed his own sloppy, romantic prattle upon the lovely, if not improper, Meg. Many, many decades ago.
When he was young and foolish and in love.
He’d been so in love, in fact, that he’d traded his soul in order to live with her forever.
Or so he’d thought.
Bitterness twisted inside him, and Dimitri settled on that unpleasant emotion. It was much better than thinking on feminine inkwells, which had the infuriating result of his belly softening and his veins swelling.
He glanced out the window of the carriage and saw that they’d turned onto Bond and were making their way along a street filled with shops and ladies patronizing them. Their maids and footmen followed along, carrying packages and navigating around dogs, street vendors, dirty-faced urchins and well-dressed gentlemen.
When he’d climbed into his vehicle, Dimitri had no particular destination in mind. He’d simply needed to leave. And Tren, smart man that he was, knew better than to ask if he wasn’t given a direction…and also better than to allow his master to sit in the drive, waiting for the journey to commence. So he’d clucked to the horses and started off.
Dimitri had considered visiting Rubey’s, which was, to put it bluntly, a brothel that catered specifically to the needs of the Dracule. Its eponymously named proprietress, one in a long line of women who’d taken on the name of the original madam, was a particular friend of Giordan Cale—and Voss, as well. She was also exceedingly astute for a mortal woman, as well as attractive, sensual and maternal—all at once.
However, Dimitri had no use for one of Rubey’s women. Certainly there’d been times—rare times—over the last century when he had taken his pleasure, and usually given some in return…but that was always after he’d fed, when the blood thirst wasn’t on him…though there’d been the one incident when his body had gotten ahead of him. He still had the scars on his arm where he’d ended up driving his fangs, instead of into the heaving, writhing woman
