Page 133 of The Darkest Chase

Then her eyes close and she slumps toward me like her bones forgot how to hold her up.

She’s shaking like a leaf.

Her hands knot together in her lap, her lashes trembling against her freckled cheeks.

I’m waiting.

Impatiently, I’m waiting for this fragile, inexperienced girl to tell me no.

To tell me to stop frightening her and talking like a weirdo.

To push me away and ask why I can’t be normal, why I even want to bruise her just to leave a jealous mark of ownership.

To know why I need something else, something darker than last time, something lasting.

Only, it never happens.

Instead, Talia rolls her head to the side, this soft jerk of quivering submission.

My blood goes electric.

She reaches up to pull her hair free from its loose tail, shaking it down in a waterfall of cinnamon red fire, drawing it over her shoulder to one side to fully bare the long, smooth expanse of her throat.

“Yes.” It’s such a faint whisper I can barely hear it, yet so husky with desire.

Everything about her feels intensely erotic. Painfully inviting.

I don’t think she has the slightest idea what she’s doing to me.

I crave her.

I fucking need her like the storybook vampires that make her wet, but it’s not her blood I’m after.

It’s breaking her.

I need her to break for me, beg me to claim her in the sweetest ways.

My mouth dips to her neck.

Her vulnerable, slender throat waits, but some last thread of restraint holds me back. Slowly, I trace my lips over her ear, listening to her rough, uneven breaths.

“If I bite you,” I snarl into her ear, “I won’t be able to stop myself from marking you all over.”

She lets out another soft whimper, completely overwhelmed before she sways toward me.

“Then mark me. Even if it hurts. Cover every inch of me.”

Fuck. Me. Senseless.

I have to close my eyes for restraint.

Otherwise, I’ll pin her to the dirt and rip her clothes to shreds right now.

Just one minute.

Just a few precious seconds to remember I don’t want her to regret this.

Then I open my eyes again, fixating on the wild beat of her pulse, leaping like it’s fighting to break past her skin.

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