attraction Zoe felt for him.
She was aware of him behind her as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She could practically feel his eyes drilling into her back. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught him eyeing her butt. She deliberately sashayed the rest of the way, adding some hip action worthy of Beyonce herself.
“Can you take it off?” he said huskily.
She almost stumbled over her own two feet. “What?”
“Your bangle. Can you take it off now?”
“Oh.” She tried but the bangle stayed put. “No.”
She headed for the small jewelry box in the top drawer of the dresser.
In addition to her mother’s talisman, Zoe had her mother’s wedding ring and a necklace with a large amethyst crystal in the center plus amethysts along the side that her mom loved wearing. She used to tell Zoe that amethyst would bring her calm and bravery. She said it was her protection stone. After her mother’s death, Zoe had put the necklace in the box and left it there. The stones hadn’t saved her mother’s life.
Tears threatened, but Zoe bit her lip and held them back. She couldn’t afford to break down now. The box also held a few silver items her mom liked—an abalone pin she got from a trip to Mexico, several Native American turquoise rings from a trip to Arizona, and a floral ring from an Israeli designer she’d met at a Boston art show.
“I have some silver stuff in here,” she warned Damon.
“Only remove your mother’s talisman. It’s gold like yours, right?”
She nodded.
She removed the talisman, still on its golden chain. “My mother’s has the Adams family Phoenix rising plus her father’s crescent moon in the top left.”
“Show me yours again.”
She fished it out from beneath her T-shirt. Her mother had warned her never to remove it so she had to stand close to Damon while he bent his head and studied the differences between the two talismans.
As he did so, she noticed the silky darkness of his hair and longed to thread her fingers through it.
“Yours has the Phoenix rising and the star.”
“Right.” Her voice sounded rusty.
“And my tattoo has—” He started unbuttoning his shirt.
“Stop!”
“Why?”
“I’ve already seen your tattoo. It’s hard to tell but I think yours has a shooting star instead of a star.”
“Do you know the meaning of the Phoenix?” Damon said.
“Of course. It’s a famous legend of the magical bird rising from the ashes to live on.”
“Which is why it became a symbol for Atlanta as a sign that the city would be reborn from the ashes of its destruction in the Civil War.”
Zoe didn’t ask but she suspected that Damon had been there then.
“Why does it apply to your family?” he said.
“Because burning witches is a violent part of our history. Out of those dark times we rose and became stronger than before,” she said.
“Kind of like vampires.”
“I guess so.”
There was a moment of shared silence that she found to be surprisingly emotional. Or maybe it was just the aftereffect of the frantic and dangerous day she’d had.
Exhaustion suddenly claimed her. “I think I’m going to go to bed early. You can go ahead and play your Words with Friends.”
She returned her mother’s talisman to the jewelry box and closed the lid. She wished she could close the lid on her feelings for Damon with equal ease but doubted that would happen anytime soon.
Zoe was surrounded by darkness. She was trapped with no way out. Beady red eyes glared at her while millions of hands touched her. Sharp claws tore at her skin, ripping it to shreds, while spikes drilled into her bones.
Screaming, she leapt out of bed, disoriented and distraught.
Damon was instantly there to comfort her. “Hold on. You were just dreaming. You’re okay.”
The only way she could be okay was if Damon was kissing her. So she pressed her mouth to his. Or maybe he did the mouth-pressing thing. They were certainly both actively involved in the tongue-on-tongue thing.
Her body rose as she stood on tiptoes to increase the angle of their kiss. As she did so, the hem of her nightgown rose to skim the tops of her thighs.
Some small lingering semblance of sanity made her say, “This is a terrible idea.” She spoke the words against his lips.
“I agree.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said.
“Probably not.”
She looked at him. He looked at her. Zoe’s heart was practically jumping out of her breast. Could he hear it? Her lips still tingled from his kiss. Her body, pressed tightly against his, was alive with passion.
The moist heat between her legs indicated the rising level of her arousal just as the feel of his impressive erection indicated the rising level of his. She wanted him with a force that was hard to fight. Impossible to fight.
She saw his hunger darken his eyes and an instant later they were kissing again. Only this time they did pause in between kisses to murmur to each other.
“A witch and a vampire.” Damon’s voice was husky. “I mean, come on.”
“Come on what?” Her voice was husky, too.
“Not a good idea.”
“So you already said. Then why are you still kissing me?”
“I’m going to stop,” he promised before circling her lips with his tongue.
“Mmm,” she purred. “You’re mmmm going to stop? When?”
“Soon.”
Zoe placed a string of kisses along his jaw and tightened her arms around his shoulders before lifting one hand to slide it through his dark hair. He responded by fondling her nipples, first one, then the other.
“I’m stopping soon,” he murmured against her mouth. “No more kissing.”
“And your hand on my breast?” she whispered.
“I’m going to move that soon, too.”
“Move it a little to the right so your thumb is over my nipple.” Zoe was about ready to go up in flames. “Yes. Oh yes! Mmmm.”
“Good?” he said.
“Mmm. But we’re stopping. Soon. Very soon. Right?”
“Mmm, right.”
“Because we can’t just have sex,” she said.
“Right.” He nibbled her ear as he continued to caress her breast. “Tell me why again?”
“Um, because you two are being filmed,” a voice from the security camera announced.
Zoe leapt away from Damon. “Is that Silas?”
Damon sighed. “No, it was Neville.”
“You mean he saw everything we—” She sputtered into silence, unable to form more words as the realization sank in.
“That would be an affirmative,” Neville said.
Looking directly at the surveillance camera, Zoe warned, “If that ends up as a sex tape on the Internet I will turn you into a toad.”
“Don’t worry. That won’t happen, right, Neville? In fact, he’s going to erase it right now.”
Zoe was pacing the room, embarrassed beyond belief. She paused in front of Damon. “What were you
