Page 8 of Tempting the Dhampir

My fingers stretch out toward her, the need to touch her impossible to resist. I catch myself in time, though, and fold my fingers back, securely placing my hand in my pocket.

I can almost believe that it’s purely accidental that they just turned up in the clearing. Only having caught her eye for a split second before she left, I can’t be sure how long they stood there, watching us. Not one of us wearing our glamour rings.

The rest of the guys are bound to notice that I zoomed off without a word and will likely come looking for me. But I want to see if I can charm some information from the ladies in an unintimidating manner before the bigger, scarier-looking guys arrive.

“Well…” The sister in the flowy dress starts.

Looking at each other, they do some kind of weird eye-communication thing. My pretty lady bites her bottom lip and nods a couple of times. They seem to have come to an agreement.

“You see…” she continues and then hesitates.

Holy fuck, if this woman doesn’t get to the point, I’m going to lose it. I gesture with my hand for her to hurry it along.

My pink woman holds up her index finger and points it accusingly at me. “Excuse you, that’s a bit rude, don’t you think? Give me a fucking minute to collect my thoughts. You can just stand over there, looking all sexy and smug and shit. I’ll tell you what I want to tell you when I want to tell you. Got that?” She punctuates the last two words with two pokes to my chest.

“You think I’m sexy,” I say more than ask. A sly grin crawls across my face as I trail my gaze down her body to her sparkly pink toenails and back up again to those enchanting blue pools. “Feeling’s mutual, sparkles.”

The blush that tinges her cheeks shows me I’ve definitely struck a chord, but I’m not so sure if it’s from pleasure or indignation. That’s not something I should think on for too long, because just looking at her, I can only imagine how many other ways I can make her blush.

She blinks a few times as if snapping herself back to the moment. “We’re leaving now. Our friends are waiting for us. We saw nothing. We’ll say nothing. Thank you and goodbye.”

She attempts to take a step around me, but I can’t allow that quite yet.

“Hold up, sparkles.” I reach out and lightly grab her wrist.

My skin touches hers, and a force of heat bursts from my center, rolling through me in a wave. A tremor works its way from my hand up my arm, rippling down through my chest, my gut, my cock, and finally dissipating around my feet.

I drop her wrist.

“Did you feel that?” I ask breathlessly as I scan my body, turning my arms this way and that.

Sparkles’s voice is a soft whisper as she answers, “Yes.”

She looks just as confused as she inspects her wrist.

“Dede, what was that?” her sister asks, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

She remains speechless as she cradles her wrist.

“Sadie, are you okay?” her sister asks again, worry biting into her tone.

Sadie. It suits her.

“I’m okay. Just confused. That was super weird,” she says in a small voice, very unlike the fiery woman from a moment ago.

This version of her is tugging at all my baser instincts to protect, protect, protect.

“All right, ladies. Something is obviously going on here. I can’t allow you to leave after what you’ve witnessed and after that zap thing just happened. Let me call my friend whose family owns this island. Perhaps he has a very simple explanation for thi—”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Sadie interrupts me. “‘Can’t allow’? We’re leaving, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” All the strength she momentarily lost comes back and pours steel into her voice.

It’s hot.

She’s a force to be reckoned with, and I’m sure some men have tried, and failed, to claim her. To tame her. A woman like Sadie needs to be appreciated and allowed to shine however brightly she fucking wants to. Most men aren’t okay with being a supporting act, but for her, I’m enticed to be just that.

Chapter four

Sadie

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