Page 78 of Captured in Love
“How are you holding up?” Levi asks, finally lifting his head.
I raise my eyebrows. “Me? I’m fine.”
He scowls. “Cut the bullshit. You haven’t stopped for a second since she left, and you’rethisclose to exploding. Are you sure you should be getting on a plane right now?” He lowers his voice and asks, “When was the last time you fed?”
And here I thought I was hiding my distress from him.
“I’m—” I start to say.
But Levi holds up his hand. “If you say you’re fine again, I’m going to…” He trails off, then lets out a low laugh. “Gods, I don’t even know why I’m threatening you. Come on.”
Before I can ask what he’s doing, he grabs my wrist and drags me out of my seat with a surprising show of strength. I barely have time to pick up my bag before he tows me with him toward the restrooms. At first, I think that’s where we’re headed, but he takes a sharp turn and opens a nondescript gray door marked with a sign that says “private” in English and Icelandic.
A moment later, he shuts us into the supplies room, a surprisingly clean, well-stocked, and light space that smells of hand soap and disinfectant.
“Here,” he says, offering me his wrist. “You need to eat before we board a plane full of tasty humans.”
I bark out a laugh. I can’t help it. “Tasty humans? After you two, no human will ever fulfill me.”
Levi’s gaze flicks to my mouth and back up. “Well, then.”
It feels wrong to do this without Nora—knowing how much pleasure it will bring both of us. But I do need to eat, and finding an anonymous human to drink from sends a wave of sickness to my stomach. Still, I hesitate, unsure of whether Levi is offering himself up as my lunch because he’s feeling guilty or because he genuinely cares for me and likes being bitten.
He misunderstands my reluctance, though. He draws back, lets his arm fall to his side. “Or not. I understand.”
Ah, fuck. The heartbreak in his green eyes is so plain, I’d do anything to make him feel better. None of this mess is his fault, he just got dealt a bad hand with his family. And when he tried to keep Nora from discovering just how awful the situation really was, he got burned again.
“Come here,” I say gently.
When he doesn’t move immediately, I step closer to him and wrap my arms around his shoulders. Levi is so very still for a second, I think he might shove me off, but then he heaves a shuddering sigh and sinks into my embrace. He buries his forehead in my shoulder, clutches the back of my jacket with his fists.
Slowly, slowly, he relaxes, and I let him hold on for however long he needs. When he lifts his head, his face is flushed, and we’re so fucking close. Levi licks his lips, and I barely resist the urge to push him back against the shelves and kiss him, to make him forget about what happened.
It would be so easy to lose ourselves for just a little while.
But that’s not what we need.
“I’ll make it quick,” I promise.
Levi nods and offers up his wrist again, his pupils dilating. “Yeah, man. Go for it.”
I shake my head and gently brush his hand away. “I think we’re way past that, don’t you?”
I don’t give him time to respond, to voice the thoughts that play across his expression. I cup the back of his neck with one hand and tip his head to the side. With the other, I anchor him to me. I let my fangs descend. And I bite down on the throbbing vein in his neck.
His blood is rich and thick, full of memories and images that must be going through his mind right now. He’s in pain, the thought of losing Nora forever unbearable. The shame mixed in with the guilt has me clutching him harder, and I wish the thought download process worked both ways. I wish I could show him that he has nothing to be ashamed of, that the actions of his father are not his fault.
I take a long, delicious drag, and Levi moans in my arms. His hips move, and his thick erection presses against mine. It’s a biological response, I know that. But even though I only met Levi when he and Nora all but invaded my little Parisian gallery, there’s a sense of connection I haven’t felt with anyone. Nora is the link between us, yes, but Levi has genuine feelings for me, and confusing though that is for him, he has embraced them with his entire being.
After decades—centuries—of keeping myself aloof from all my relationships, because loving and losing humans wasn’t something I was interested in, they took me entirely by surprise. Sucker-punched me with their power, their passion, and I fell before I even knew I was in danger.
I break off our contact so I don’t take too much from him. With Levi and Nora, I will always have to practice self-restraint, because their blood is exquisite. Addictive. I lick my lips, then nick my tongue on my fang to draw a tiny drop of blood. I drag the flat of my bloody tongue over the puncture wounds in Levi’s neck to help seal them.
Still, I don’t let go of him. His chest heaves, and he shudders, then leans his cheek against mine in an intimate gesture. We’ve kissed, yes, and pleasured each other, but since that day at the ice-cold Icelandic stream, we haven’t been thisclose.
He doesn’t move to kiss me, and I don’t react to my raging lust either. The moment stretches between us. I slowly sift through the impressions I gleaned through drinking his blood.
“We’ll get her back,” I murmur in his ear. “I promise.”
