Page 63 of Infernal

His smile slipped away. “I can take care of myself, angel. You needn’t worry about me.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t help it,” I muttered.

His eyebrows drew together as my admission dangled in the air between us like a piece of dirty laundry. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why I couldn’t stop confessing every little feeling or thought I had about him to him. It was as though there were no other place for my foot to go except all the way into my mouth.

“You worry about me?” he asked, his honeyed voice low but penetrating.

How could he ask me that? “You know that I do.” I shifted on my foot and quickly tried to change the subject. “We should go back inside. It’s starting to rain.”

Dominic made no attempt to move. Instead, he continued watching me, his eyebrows drawn together closely.

The air suddenly felt heavy around us, like a magical force working to push us together—to bring us to that borderless place I dared not venture. I had to put the brakes on.

“Look, it’s not a big deal. I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you is all.”

“Nor I you.”

“Then it’s settled. You want me safe and I want you safe, and that’s all there is to it. Two friends wanting to keep each other safe.” It tasted like a lie even as I spoke the words, but I spit them out anyway. Deep down I knew there was so much more to it, but I wasn’t evenalmostready to fess up to any of it. “Agreed?”

“If you say so, angel.” He reached out and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.

The brief contact made me shiver, but I refused to let it sidetrack me. “I do say so.”

And that wasn’t all I was saying. The closer we got to facing off against the sisters, the more nervous I became about all the ways it could go wrong.

“No matter what happens tomorrow, I’ll be okay as long as this stays around my neck,” I said as I wrapped my fingers around the Amulet, grateful for once that I had this magical safety net to catch me when I would inevitably fall. “But if you’re seriously planning on coming tomorrow, you’re going to need my help whether you want to admit it or not.”

“Is that right?” Typical Dominic taking everything I say as some kind of challenge.

My eyes never left his as I carefully rolled back the sleeve of my shirt and exposed my skin to him. His gaze dropped from my eyes to my wrist before making their way up again.

“What’s this?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

“You know what it is.”

His eyes darkened as he took me in. “Are you offering yourself to me, angel?” There was no mistaking the daring turn his voice had taken.

“Yes.” I swallowed hard, my throat already bone dry. “For your protection.”

We both knew that the more of my blood he had in his system, the more protected he would be if something were to go wrong. On the surface, that was all that this was about, though if I dared to go just a little deeper, I knew that there were so many more reasons I wanted this, reasons that were tormenting me just below the surface.

We both knew it, and yet he still hadn’t made the slightest move to take the bait. All he did was stand there and stare at me, burrowing himself into my soul with those penetrating eyes.

“Why are you just standing there?” I shifted my feet, still holding my arm out.

“I’m enjoying the view,” he said with a lazy smile.

“I mean, why are you not—?” I bit my bottom lip as I tried to figure out a less vulgar way to ask him why he wasn’t feeding off me. “Are you not…hungry?”

“For you?” he asked as his pupils dilated. “Always.”

A strange sensation fluttered through my stomach. It felt a lot like butterflies.

“Then why aren’t you taking my blood?”

He cocked his head to the side, as though considering my question, debating it.

Slow burning seconds came and went until it seemed as though I were standing there for an eternity. The rain continued to fall on us, harder than before, though I could no longer feel the chill over my heated skin.

---