“Penny for them,” Roman said at her side.
She jumped. Damn the vamp, with his eerily quiet entrance and exit. His warm breath fanned over her neck and she shivered despite being determined not to react or respond in any way that would encourage him. She needed to enforce some guidelines and rules. Pressing her eyes shut, she willed her hackles not to rise. As a white witch, she wasn’t supposed to inflict pain or cause harm. It went against her coven’s rules, even though on occasion she had broken them. But even the sound of his husky voice irritated her. Her heart sped up, and she longed to stab him with needles. Lost in her evil plans for Roman, she smiled.
“You cannot keep ignoring me like this, Isabella, nor can you continue to flaunt yourself in front of that human. I forbid it.”
Ignoring him didn’t last long, and she spun to face him, placing her hands on her hips. “You forbid it—what the hell? You are not in charge of me. You do not get to dictate what I can and cannot do. I am an independent woman capable of making my own decisions.” She spoke louder than she meant to, which caused several heads to turn in their direction.
Roman latched onto her wrist and tugged her away from the window. When she attempted to pull away, his grip clamped down tighter. She shot her hand out to hit him, but the earth shifted beneath her feet. One minute, she stood in the living room; the next, after a stomach-dropping ride through the air, she stood in an elegant cream and gold bedroom, full of rich mahogany furniture, staring at a king-sized bed. Her bedroom at Steel’s mansion. She pinned her gaze on him.
Roman stood a foot away, but he bridged the gap in seconds.
“How did you know this is my room?” Isabella panted as she studied the door, looking for escape.
“Your scent, my love.”
Her heart pounded inside her ears and her mouth dried, making words hard to come by. She backed away from the vamp, terrified by the look of intense need in his soulless eyes. As her calves banged into the bed, she stopped and put her hand out. “Roman—don’t.”
The tightly coiled vampire leaned over her heaving chest, asserting his strength, until she dropped and fell back onto the bed. In seconds, he lifted and repositioned her as he wanted. Her head rested on a soft pillow, and he bracketed her face with his cool hands smoothing her cheeks. His rigid muscles pressed into her soft curves and planes, covering her. Every part of her thrummed under the stone hardness of Roman. She couldn’t move and could barely breathe. Her insides swirled with a swinging range of emotion as his broad chest brushed over her sensitive nipples. Fight him, damn it.
“Don’t what, love?”
Roman referred to her as love, which exasperated her. The list of reasons to be annoyed by him grew daily. Her discomfort soared when he trailed his thumb over the outline of her bottom lip and on impulse, she captured it with her teeth and bit down—hard. There, that will show him. If she hoped the pain would be enough to make him back off, she grossly miscalculated. Instead, he ground his pelvis and rock-hard erection into her. An uncontrollable wave of pleasure sparked out from deep inside her core. She withdrew her teeth from around his thumb and he licked the blood there. His pearl-white teeth were on display as his smile widened.
“Pain can be pleasurable, my love, in the right circumstances. Would you like me to demonstrate?”
His words held meaning, freezing her to the spot. The need for him to touch her climbed inside. Why did this keep happening? The will to fight receded and her limbs became a gooey, useless mess, powerless to stop him. She hated him. She did.
“Please—don’t drink from me, Roman.”
The vampire dipped his head low until his lips lay inches from hers. He gave a wide, dazzling smile, revealing his sharp teeth. Distracted by his close proximity, she wondered briefly what his kiss would be like. However, the sting of pain broke through that errant thought as he sank his teeth into the tender lobe of her ear, and she jerked forward to thump his chest in protest. But Roman swept his tongue over her sensitive skin and instead of pain, her body tingled with desire.
He whispered in her ear. “How can I resist when you taste so delicious, my love? Besides, we agreed, if I needed to feed, you would allow me. I cannot eat the junk they call food, and I cannot afford to be weak when our kind are being hunted and slaughtered. Are you hoping that I will be next? Is that it?”
The lash of his tongue along the column of her throat rendered her speechless, and she tilted her head to allow him more access as he continued his journey down to her collarbone. The idea of Roman being out of the picture would solve many problems, but add a few too. Plus, the idea of him dead—permanently—made her blood run cold. Her ample breasts heaved up and down as his words rippled through her.
How would she feel?
She wished she had opted for a thick roll neck pullover, instead of a wispy black silk shirt that lay open to expose her creamy curves. Only on rare occasions did she allow Roman to feed from her. Usually, he managed to quench his thirst from his private harem of willing victims, all women. But when he needed her, sex was strictly off the table—touching kept to a minimum. Over the last few weeks, his demands had increased
