“So you’re saying you’re not interested?” he asked, overly loud, even for the club.
“I’m saying I’m vigilant,” I protested, unwilling to rise to his game. A song I particularly enjoyed came on, and my water was gone. “I’ll be back,” I told him, setting my empty glass down.
“And?” he pressed, making the word hold more than one question.
“You’re saying you’re not interested?” I mimicked him, and went back to the dance floor.
If I hadn’t already danced to so many songs, I couldn’t have done it. It’s hard to go out cold when you know someone is watching you. But I’d already held the music in my bones once that night, and I still had demons to excise.
I ignored him completely when I danced. I knew he was there, even with my eyes closed, but I moved for myself, letting my arms flow out and then spin back in, touching myself as the music touched me.
I could go home alone tonight, with no music, and no distractions, and spend very many hours thinking about why I was who I was, and how many times I’d gotten into trouble just by virtue of being me.
Or—the song wound down, and so did I. I swayed to the final beats and then brought my head back up, brushing my hair out of my face. He was still there, still sitting beside my empty cup. I walked back to him, making sure my hips rolled like a ship in a storm. I stood in front of him, as tall as he was, at least while he was sitting on the bar stool. He was handsome, with strong cheekbones and well-made lips. I was close enough to kiss him. I gave it serious thought.
“I should warn you I’m dangerous. I recently killed a man.” Daytimer, man, close enough.
His dark eyes narrowed in apparently serious thought. “Are you planning on killing again?”
“Not intentionally.” I shrugged.
“How about you only kill me if you have to?” he suggested, standing. He was definitely taller than me. Closer now, his aftershave smelled like vetiver.
“How about you take me home?” I said.
His lips quirked up, amused. They were kissable, I knew it. He took my hand, and pulled me toward the door.
Chapter Ten
We drove in his car back to my place in silence. The car smelled like his scent and leather and it handled the light snow with ease. He parked in front of my apartment without offering any comment on the fact that his car cost as much as the three cars parked beside it combined.
We didn’t talk because I think we’d both done this sort of thing before. When you’re quiet, you can envelop the other person in the fantasy of what you want them to be. Talking only gives them a chance to mess it up. I trotted up to my door and unlocked it and pretended that I was shivering just because of the cold.
There was only one hallway in my apartment. He walked past me and down it like he’d been there before and I found myself drawn along in his wake. When I reached my own room, it was like he was waiting for me there, like it was a lair, his place, not mine. He turned toward me and stared at me for half a second. This was my last chance to change my mind, to make him leave, I knew it.
But I never back down. If I ever gave fear a fighting chance, my life would be all but over. I smiled defiantly and he caught my head between his hands and pulled me close.
Kissing wasn’t the word. It began as tasting, but then—biting. I stiffened for a moment, wondering if I’d been fool enough to invite a vampire home with me—but no. The teeth that pulled at my lips were human. But the need behind them—he was as hungry as I was. I wondered what he was running from, and then his hands were at my hips.
Teeth at my jaw, neck, and collarbone, while his hands, cold from outside, ran up my back. I pressed into him, away from their chill, as his fingers ran under my bra and then forward, to cup my breasts. He walked me backward into the wall and pinned me there, lifting my shirt on his arms, pushing it up so that he could reach my nipples with his teeth.
I gasped at his cold nose and cheek against my breast, and then I reached forward to grab at his shirt, to claw it up his back. He pulled back and yanked it off himself, as I did the same, and then he reached for me. He picked me up easily, tossed me onto my own bed, and knelt beside me there.
He was above me, his pants still on, back arched, looking down at me. I felt like prey and I liked it. He wanted me weak and helpless, and maybe for a second I wanted those things too. Wordlessly, he grabbed my hands and yanked them over my head, to pin both down with one hand. He reached down and undid his belt buckle with his other hand, then plunged his fingers under my skirt, yanking my tights and panties down to find a ready home within me. My hips arched and I fought against my confinement—at first, just testing boundaries, but then, fighting just to fight, to see if I could get loose, how tight he would hold, how serious he was in keeping me still.
His one hand clenched around my wrists, while the other made come-hither motions, deep inside of me. He sped up as I writhed, pinned on his fingers, and I stopped trying to escape.
I was full of him, but not full enough yet. I looked up into his charcoal-dark eyes.
“Yes?” he asked, his lips drawn to the side in a soft smirk.
“You can fuck me now.”
He laughed. “Gladly.”
He pushed my legs apart with his knees, pulled out his cock, and entered me all in one smooth movement. I curled forward and bit his shoulder when he hit the back of me, crying out in surprise at his length, then ground my hips against his in desire.
We made the quiet noises of fucking then, the moans, the sound of skin hitting skin, the buckle of his belt chiming with his thrusts.
When I remembered, I would fight him, pushing back with my arms against both his hands now trapping me down. I didn’t want to find I could get free.
His cock found the back of me again and again, and I kept shuddering in delight, but—I just couldn’t relax enough to come.
He rocked above me, olive skin slick with sweat against my paler hue. He was beautiful, goddammit, and the sex was hot, but my mind wasn’t all there. No matter how much I fought him or gave in to him in turns, I couldn’t fuck away my fears.
I thought about faking it, but that’d be a disservice to all womankind. So I fought against him harder, found his mouth with mine, biting him back till he was too distracted to stop himself. He thrust into me hard, harder, hardest, until he came with a gasping exhalation deep inside of me.
He lay above me for a moment, sweat dripping from his chest onto mine. Then he carefully rolled off me, to my side. I saw him inspecting me by the lamplight my blinds let in. Maybe he hadn’t even really looked at me until now. I brought my hands down from above my head, my arms sore, and rested one hand on my cheek, the other on my chest.
“You should come too—” he said, and reached down my stomach toward the space between my legs.
“No, that’s okay.” I caught his hand with mine. “It’s just one of those nights.”
He brought my freshly scarred left hand up in his and inspected it by the lamplight outside. “What’s this? Did I hurt you?”
It was Mr. November’s mark upon me, Anna’s bite, and my suture scars. Everything I’d tried to throw away from me tonight had followed me home. I shook my head. “It was an accident.” I clasped my hand into a fist. He turned my hand toward him and kissed my closed fingers lightly before releasing them back to me.
He rocked up to sitting, and then to standing by the side of the bed. Everything he did was fluid—I wondered if he’d lied about not dancing, before.
“I’ve got to go.”
I laughed, and made a show of covering a yawn. “Fine, Cinderella. I was just about to kick you out.”
He paused from the labor of his belt buckle and looked at me again. “You know, you’re the first girl who’s said that that I think meant it. What’s your name?”
I shook my head. “No names. You know where the door is. Forget the address on your way out.”
