Page 65 of Cloak of the Vampire
Between one breath and the other, I was suddenly in his en suite bathroom, with Ragnor in front of me. “Here,” he said, his face unreadable as he looked at me. “You can shower. I’ll leave you a towel and a change of clothes.”
My mouth opened, gaping. “You want me to take a showerhere?” I asked, my voice an octave higher.
He let go of me and folded his arms. “As I said, we need to talk,” he said quietly. “And after that stunt you pulled, there’s no chance I’m letting you out of my sight again.”
Affronted, I glared at him. “Are you going to watch me shower too?” I asked bitingly.
To my astonishment, his lips twitched, and he leaned his side against the tiled wall, his eyes gleaming with interest. “Sounds like an excellent idea,” he murmured, gaze dropping to my chest and lower, before snapping back up.
Hot and bothered yet so angry, I pointed at the door and snarled, “Get out!”
If I wasn’t shocked enough, then I sure as hell was when the normally aloof, cold, and downright prickly Ragnor Rayne gave me a smirk.A smirk!The audacity!
My nipples grew tight, and I bristled. His fuckingsmirkshouldn’t make my nipples tight. He shouldn’t make me tight anywhere. He shouldn’t make me anything!
Apparently, he was in a humorous mood, because, smirk still intact, he said “Let me know if you change your mind” before stepping out and closing the door.
Once he was no longer here and silence fell over the room, I let myself feel the full range of my disbelief. Who was this man? He couldn’t be the Ragnor I’d come to know in the past almost two months. There was no way.
The nightmare who’d saved me from those kidnappers was closer to who Ragnor was. With that Ragnor, I could somewhat deal. This Ragnor was an unknown who was far more dangerous to me than anyone had ever been.
I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror and tried not to cringe. I’d done my best to get rid of the makeup using the water, but there wasstill some eyeliner that refused to come off. My hair was no longer wavy but full of kinks since Ragnor, in a typical male fashion, used an all-in-one shampoo and conditioner. Stuff like that did hell to my hair.
He’d somehow gotten my pajamas from the closet in my room, so I was wearing my comfy gray sweatpants and black tee. The only downside? I didn’t have a bra to change into. I’d thrown the one I’d worn into the laundry hole, and now I was stuck with my tits free of their chains.
Which wasn’t the way I wanted to face Ragnor, but what choice did I have?
I scowled at my rumpled reflection, threw the door open, and walked out. The bedroom was empty, so I headed to the living room. That’s when I saw there was an adjacent small kitchen with a minibar and a coffee machine. Ragnor was running said machine right now, and without turning to me, he asked, “Coffee or tea?”
My scowl was replaced with confusion. Was Ragnor, the Lord of this League, offering to fix me a drink? “I can make it myself,” I said. The thought of him making me coffee had me feeling like the world was tilting on its axis, and I couldn’t deal with it at that moment.
Ragnor glanced behind at me, his brow arched. “I’m already on it. Black’s fine?”
“Yeah,” I blurted, then paused. “Seriously, I can make—”
“Go sit down,” he cut me off conversationally, dismissing my suggestion. Grimacing, I folded my arms and was about to argue, but he must’ve sensed it because he suddenly sighed and said, “I doubt either of us has the energy to start a fight, Henderson, so just take a fucking seat.”
He talked without heat, but with a resolute, definite intonation that made me want to kick something. Still, despite my irrational reaction, he was right. I was dog tired. Did I really have the mental capacity to engage in a verbal war with him?
Spine stiff, I took a seat on the large sofa, hugging my knees to my chest. It was surreal, sitting in this living room, warm and clean, while Ragnor, still half-naked and wearing only a pair of dark-gray jeans that snuggly cupped his stupidly bitable ass, was making me coffee.
It’s as if I’d woken up in an alternate universe where Ragnor hadn’t stolen my freedom and I hadn’t become his troublemaking burden.
Because that’s what we were, weren’t we? Despite everything that went on between us, despite how I’d tried to get him to make a move not that long ago and was thoroughly rejected, we were hardly anything to one another. Until not too long ago, we couldn’t stand each other, after all. He saw me as an insolent menace; I hated him for giving me the Imprint without consent, and we all lived happily ever after.
So why, oh, why was he changing this equilibrium?
There’s never been an equilibrium in the first place,the voice of reason whispered in my head, making my teeth grit.
Ragnor turned around holding a kettle full of boiling coffee. He brought it over along with two mugs and sat down right next to me, placing everything on the coffee table. Silently, he poured the coffee into the mugs, took one, and handed it over to me with a steely expression.
With my lips thin, I snatched it from him and sipped it. It took quite the grit for me to grumble out a quiet, “Thank you.”
Ragnor’s face remained impassive as he sat back sipping his coffee, his toned arm lying across the back of the sofa, right behind me, so strong, muscular, and absolutely sexy.
Stop!
“So,” I spoke again when he said nothing, needing to break the silence. “What did you want to talk about?”
