Page 47 of Viper

Ella felt her lips flatten. Yes, fine, that was pretty much exactly what she’d do. “Does it really matter when all you want is a fuck anyway?”

“Who says that’s all I want from you?”

A frown pulled at her brow.

“There are many things I’d like to do to you, Ella—it’ll take more than one night to get through them.” A pause. “There’s no other man in your life right now, is there?”

“No,” she replied, even though she had the feeling that he already knew the answer.

“Then what’s the problem, other than my being one of the Fallen, which doesn’t need to have any real bearing on anything unless you want it to?”

Well … she supposed that was true. She waslettingit be a factor, but she didn’t have to. Not really. Particularly in her demon’s opinion.

“Give in to me, Ella,” he murmured.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Stop talking. Really, just … stop.”

“Why? Because you’re tempted to do what I ask?”

“No.”

A rumbly, deliciously sexy chuckle drifted down the line. “Liar.” A soft, teasing statement.

Yup. She was a total liar.

A double-beep sounded, signaling that another call was trying to come through. Ella peeked at the phone screen and then told him, “My sister’s trying to call me. I need to answer.”

“All right, I’ll get off the phone. I’ll give you a few more days to come to me. If that doesn’t happen, Iwillcome to you. There’s only so long I’m prepared to wait.” He hung up.

Deciding she’d processthatlittle tidbit later, she answered Mia’s call. “Hey, how did it go?” The long sigh that came down the line raised Ella’s hackles.

“Not great,” Mia mumbled. “I don’t know what I expected the subject of the ‘real talk’ to be, but I definitely wasn’t expecting to hear that he’s met someone.”

Ella felt her mouth fall open. “What?”

“It’s his boss’ new assistant, apparently. He ended our fling so he could start something with her.”

Ella did a slow blink, utterly shocked. “I’m … I have no words.”

“I was a little speechless myself,” Mia muttered, her tone flat.

“Why didn’t he tell you this before now?”

“He claims he thought it’d hurt me, so he kept it to himself. But now he feels bad about lying to me, so he decided to cough up the truth.”

As a thought occurred to Ella, she narrowed her eyes. “Did he touch her while he was with you?”

“He swears he didn’t. At one time, I would have taken him at his word. But now? Now I feel let down by him, and that’s new for me.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Not a lot. I was too stunned. Just before I left, I said I hoped it all worked out for him.”

“And, is that true?” Ella carefully asked.

“Yes. I totally get why he’d stop wasting time on a fling and instead go after the woman he wanted. I’m not upset about that. But I don’t like the way he handled this whole thing. He could have been honest with me right from the start, or at least notacted all distant. I’m his anchor, for Christ’s sake. You’d think he’d be too protective of me to mess me around like that.”

“Yeah, you’d think so.”

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