Page 76 of How to Entice a Fiend

“Why would you say that?” Mads asks as he grabs my face. “I guess that even though hanging out with each other in a psychopath’s den made me feel like I know you quite well, at the end of the day, we really don’t know each other as much asI’d hoped. But I wish you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t do that to you. Stop trying to make everyone out to be monsters. Can’t you just trust someone until they prove otherwise? It seems like everyone you meet, youwantto make yourself out to be the bad guy so they all hate you and then you don’t have to deal with them. You don’t have to worry about liking them if you or the person you’re interacting with is a ‘monster.’”

His eyes hold mine and I realize that I just don’t have an answer. I’m not sure if I ever will. He doesn’t understand that there’s absolutely no use in trusting anyone when they’re all out to destroy you.

“I will feed off you but nothing else.”

His teasing and alluring gestures seem to have fallen by the wayside. “Fine, fine.”

“After we return home, we go our separate ways.”

Mads sighs as he reaches up and pushes my hair out of my face. “Can we be pen pals, at least? That sounds fun. I’ll tell you everything I do for the day. ‘On this fifth day of the third month of this grand year of the snake, I decided to see why my neighbor was so irritating. Oddly enough, the issue was not determined via dissection.’”

I try not to laugh and find it surprisingly hard to do. “Why are you always wanting to dissect people? You should have gone into a different field.”

The smile he gives me overrides the disappointed look he’d worn earlier. “I’m teasing, I’m teasing.”

“With your skills of chemistry, why wouldn’t you become like a drug lord or something instead?”

He gasps. “Can you imagine me as a drug lord?”

“No one would take you seriously.”

“I’d have the best drugs around.”

“You sound proud and that’s something you shouldn’t be proud of.”

“I… understand that. I tease, I tease. Now suck me, Daddy.”

I press a hand against his face and push him into the side of the vending machine as I decide I will simply starve to death.

Mads laughs as he grabs me so he can spin me around to push me against the wall. “I guess you’re more of a great-great-great-grandpa instead of a Daddy, aren’t you?”

“I think you’re delirious, and now I’m going to drain you in the hope it silences you.”

He just laughs again, but as I press my lips close to his throat, he offers it up without hesitation. How can he still be so trusting after I nearly killed him? How can he still deal with me when I do everything I can to drive him away? And why do I find it harder and harder each time?

My fangs break through his skin as my arm slides around his waist and the sweet taste of his blood touches my tongue. I don’t realize I’m exuding an aura that’s washing over him until he moans while he clutches me. I can feel his cock pressed against mine as he sinks into my arms. My hand is itching to slide under his shirt and down into his pants to grab his ass in my palm. I want to feel him, touch him, fuck him… be fucked by him. The blood is clouding my mind, driving me to a point I promised I’d never let myself go. It’s lucky that tucked back here, no one walking by can see us because my hand wanders up his shirt, exploring his skin. I want more but I can’t take it here, I can’t take it now.

Drawing back is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I slide my fangs free and run my tongue over the blood, which makes him shiver. I start to pull back but he presses me against the wall and licks the blood off my lips. Then he kisses me, but I can’t kiss him back. It’s already bad enough that Abel wants him. What happens if I do kiss him? What happens when I’m forcedto kill him like I did my own brother? What happens when Abel finds out and knows how to destroy what’s left of me?

I want just a taste.

But I spend too long dreading what would come of this if I failed to kill Abel, and Mads pulls back before I can get more. He doesn’t seem as torn up about my lack of response as I assumed he’d be. Instead, he just smiles at me, gives me a wink, and turns.

“Come on now. Katherine was just asking about my whole life story. You definitely don’t want to miss it.” The grin he throws back at me is so cocky that I find myself trailing after him. It’s like I can’t even keep my thoughts straight when this man is around. Half of me is kicking myself in the ass for not kissing him back, and the other half wants to leave him stranded at the airport so I don’t have to think about him being killed. Maybe I’ll come back and collect him when this is all over… if I’m still alive, that is.

When we return, Katherine is all smiles. “You guys were gone a while; I was starting to get worried.”

“Sorry about that,” Mads says.

Before I even get to sit, the phone in my pocket begins to ring, and when I pull it out, I see that it’s Finn.

“Hello?”

“Are you alone?” Finn asks.

“I’m at the table with the person you sent to collect us and Mads.”

“Rylee wants to speak to you, but she said it’s super important that only you can hear. Do you have a minute?”

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