Page 15 of Pick Your Poison

“What makes you think you deserve those answers, Lilith? You escaped last night. I let you go. I didn’t hurt you, even though I wanted to.” He takes a step toward me and I match him with a step back.

“If you wanted to hurt me, why did you take me home?” I reach behind me to feel for the chair so that I can step around it rather than trip over it.

Every move he makes toward me, I do the same to keep the distance between us equal, but my heart begins to race when I feel the cool, plaster wall at my back. I have nowhere else to go.

“I would have taken you home whether I hurt you or not. I wasn’t going to kill you. That’s not what we do.”

“Who’s we? Stop trying to be mysterious and just answer my fucking question, Mr. Bellevue.”

It happens in a split second. I don’t have time to blink, breathe, or even think before he’s pressed up against me like a brick wall with my hands pinned above my head. He moved so quicklythat papers went flying and filing cabinets shook with the force.

A growl that I can only liken to a predator in the jungle ripples from his lips as he leans in, nose to nose with me.

But I don’t scream. I can’t. My voice is locked tightly in my throat but my hands are shaking.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Lilith Monroe.” He slides his nose along mine and I struggle to even breathe. “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“Who are you?” My voice is a whisper at best, and my breath ghosts across his lips so softly that he reacts with another guttural growl.

“I was a man, once upon a time, and now I’m a monster.” He squeezes my wrists that are still pinned above my head. “You should run.”

“And if I don’t?” I arch my head back, keeping my chin high, but in this moment, his eyes leave mine and lay steady on the curve of my neck, right over my beating pulse.

I don’t want to run. I don’t want to leave him. I want to be right here. My heart, my mind, even blood are singing when he’s near.

“If you don’t, I’m going to have you, right here in this room, and once I start, I don’t know when, or if, I’ll be able to stop.”

His warning is loaded.

Does he mean that he’s going to touch me again and if he loses control, he’ll fuck me? Or does he mean that he’s going to hurt me in the way he wanted to last night… or worse?

Because even though I’m asking the questions, and even though he’s dodging them, we both know that I already know the answer.

I already know what he is, even without any proof or any reason to know. I just do. I know it in my bones…. In my blood.

A vampire.

“Spit it out,” I tell him. “Tell me what you are and you can have me.” I swallow loudly and hiss as his grip on me tightens. It hurts, but I’m craving it. “You can have me because I have a feeling that I’m meant to be here. You’re supposed to have me. It’s in my blood. I can feel you. Tell me why.”

I can see the decision weighing on him, the contemplation in those ruby eyes is apparent.

“Because you’re mine,” he says, before our lips smash together in a kiss so intense, my lips splitopen and begin to trickle blood. The metallic taste is mixing with our tongues, and that makes him even more ravenous. “I made sure ninety six years ago.”

I don’t question him further because my mind is buzzing along with my body. I’m on fire, boiling from the inside out in the most alluring way.

I want to touch him, I need to touch him, so I wiggle my hands as best I can under his vice-like grip. “Please,” I beg him, and honestly, I’m not sure exactly what I’m begging for.

To let me go? To keep me here forever? To fuck me? To love me? To bite me? To feast on me? All of it at once, wrapped together in a hedonistic bow?

My body screams out for that last option.

My word must release the monster that he claims to be, because before I can even take another breath, I’m twisted around and on the other side of the room, colliding with a bookshelf before he lifts me up and wraps my legs around his body.

“You wore a skirt today,” he growls against my lips. His grip on my waist is so tight that I can feel the indentations that will be left behind. The bruises tomorrow will be deep and dark. A reminder of him, of this. “Why did you do that?”

“Because it’s what I wanted to wear,” I pant out, reaching in between us to rip open the suit jacket he’s wearing.

“No, that’s not the truth, Lilith, and you know it. That’s part of it, part of this.” He gently, but hard enough to prove a point, bites into my neck, and I cry out in pain; the pleasure that comes after makes the space between my thighs ache. “I can’t read your mind, but I can read and feel your heart. I know what’s in there, and I know when you’re lying.” His hands drop down to push my skirt high, bunching the black fabric around my waist. “You wore this because deep down, you had hoped this is how our interaction would end up.” He twists my lace panties in his hands before tugging them, and they shred like they were made of paper.

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