Page 4 of Vampire's Choice

She didn’t have long to wait to find out.

A coil of male energy struck her left arm, trying to drive her right. She did a hard stop, reversed course, ducked left, and let strong fingers slide over her hip. Could he have caught her? Maybe. But she had him intrigued.

The game was predator and prey, and she knew which one she was. But it was an adult game, no coddling. She didn’t want coddling. She wanted to be played with, like this.

A game with real stakes. No holding back. No one worrying about her, trying to protect her.

There’s no one to run to. There were two ways to look at that. With terror and despair, or with anticipation for the unknown. For where that could lead.

She couldn’t tell if he was using sorcery to do that air thing, pushing at her with energy, trying to corral or herd her. Maybe he was large and fast enough to be doing it with his own body.

Regardless, the next time he got ahead of her to make her change course, she tossed a look over her shoulder as she spun away. She said it again.

“No.” Determined, with a fuck-you edge.

She dashed toward the trees, leading him into a winding chase among them. When he caught her, he pinned her against a trunk, bark biting into her back. Her arms dropped to her sides. That male energy pressed near, and she shuddered as his hands closed over her wrists, moving them behind her. Gradually, inexorably, like that tide of desire that hadn’t abated, and was only getting more powerful at his touch. As her back arched, her breasts lifted. He was making her display herself to him. Her heart pounded into her throat, body rippling with sheer need. Yes.

She stared upward. She could create a vision of his face, just the way she liked it. Strong, cruel and handsome.

“No,” she said again. Flirtatious, with a smile that showed fangs, the threat of bloodletting. She had hungers, too.

She stomped on his foot, kicked, and he released her. She was off again. When he tried to block her with an invisible wing, she rolled against it and slid past. The feathers brushed her face with silken heat. His scent was all sex and conquering male predator, uncompromising and demanding.

Images swirled through her head. Him, this faceless being, pushing her into a mattress, into the earth, any surface he could find. He’d thrust into her again and again, make her dissolve into sensation, rise with the light of the moon, everything female in her responding to his male energy.

“No,” she called over her shoulder. She put laughter in her voice to add to the provocation.

She swallowed a gasp as she was pulled into the air. One arm banded across her waist and chest, a bruising hand clasping her throat. The other arm speared between her thighs, his palm flat and fingers spread over her stomach. His forearm pressed against her throbbing sex.

He twirled them in the air. When a fang scraped against her neck, she elbowed him, snarled, struggled. Yet even as she pulled her head away from him, her body screamed to let him do it.

Let him bite her, drink from her.

He might not be a vampire, but he surely knew what would arouse one the most. If he was a sex demon, they had fangs as sharp as her own. Only his were thicker. The bite would be far more painful. A deeper penetration.

He was taking her up higher. It was exhilarating. Reaching back, she grasped a hip and found a garment like an ancient Roman soldier’s battle wear, studded leatherlike straps over a linen skirt. No weapons in reach, though, except what he had pressed against her ass, a cock thick and ready for the woman who wouldn’t shrink from its size or demands.

She didn’t shrink from anything. And it would be on her terms. She redoubled her efforts against him.

“I’ll drop you,” he hissed.

“Don’t hold back on my account,” she challenged. “Asshole.”

He let her go.

He hadn’t taken her too high, because she hit the ground a blink after she oriented herself to mostly land on her feet. Well, after she crashed through a cage of small branches on the tree where she’d been taking her nap. He’d brought her back to where they’d started.

The tree helped cushion her from a bone-breaking impact. Bone-jarring was another matter, and several deep scratches from the branches burned. No time to nurse those. She rolled to her feet and spun around, looking for him. Waiting. When she felt his approach, he was still a few feet up in the air.

“What’s with the Invisible Man routine?” she demanded. “Afraid I’ll see you’re ugly as dog shit?”

Her body was damp and shuddering. Everything throbbed, as if her heart was drum beating her from head to toe. She wanted to say yes to him. Worse, she wanted him not to take no for an answer. She wanted to give him the right to say what he’d said to her.

You never say no to me.

It could be spellcraft, or an innate power an incubus had, like vampire compulsion. Something not real. The thought helped her hold onto her own will, albeit by calling on every ounce of determination she had. Her own nature, chock full of deeply buried secret needs, could also be contributing to that power, feeding it. Which meant she had to stop this.

“You should have said yes.” His tone still held a threat. Or was it a good-bye? She knew which one she liked least.

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