Page 65 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
I narrow my eyes. His smile grows a little wider.
“What were you thinking just now?”
“I’m not tellingyou.”
Ashen shifts subtly so that he’s a little more over me, his weight pressing my shoulder to the mattress. He kisses my neck and his breath sends a rush of gooseflesh across my chest. “What if Idemandthat you tell me? You seem to like my demands.”
I suppress a shudder of desire. “I think it’s time to get up,” I grumble, and squirm out from beneath Ashen, his hand trailing after me.
“All right, vampire,” he says as I head toward the wardrobe. I can hear the smug smile ringing in his voice. “Pass me my dagger when you have a moment, will you? You know, the one that I pulled from your hand? Perhaps we can discuss what you intended to do with it another time.”
I stiffen and turn enough to give Ashen the evil eye over my shoulder. He gives the most infuriating, teasing, adorable grin in reply. I spot the dagger a few feet away and retrieve it from the floor, flipping it end over end in my hand as I turn my gaze back to Ashen.
“Vampire...” he says in a low warning, though the smile still tugs at his lips.
The dagger flies from my hand and smacks into the headboard with atwang. Ashen looks at the blade next to his head and back to me, his smile growing wide.
“I missed,” I say, trying to toss him a glare as fierce as the dagger he pulls from the split wood.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I can try again.”
Ashen laughs.God almighty, that sound. It’s like a punch to the chest every time I hear it. But in a good way. Like, anicepunch. Okay yeah, that might not make much sense at first. It’s just that it’s not a warm hug, not like wrapping a blanket around yourself and sitting in a bay window to watch the snow falling outside as you sip hot chocolate. It’s a shock. It’s unexpected. It steals my breath and grabs hold of me. I feel the impression of it beneath my bones when it’s gone.
But why is that?
Is it because it’s so infrequent? Demon reapers aren’t really known to be blessed with easy laughter, I guess. Is it because it’s hard-earned, and I’m the one that coaxed it to life? Or is it just him? Is it that it makes me happy to see and hear the way he transforms when he lets himself go?
You idiot, it’s because you’re falling in lo-
Shut the fuck up, woman.
Ashen’s smile grows as he looks down at the dagger. “I have seen you throw blades accurately with your peripheral vision. You never miss.” His eyes slide to mine and he gives me a dark, cocky smile. I can’t decide if I want to smack his face or sit on it. “Does that mean I’m growing on you?”
I try not to blush and turn away as I slip on my robe. “Maybe. In the way that barnacles grow on whales, or fleas infest dogs, or-“
“-don’t say those weird wasps-“
“-or those wasps that lay eggs on spiders and then mind-control them into spinning crazy webs before they suck out all their spider juices and kill them. Yeah, you’re definitely growing on me like one of those.”
He’s on me before I even finish my sentence, sweeping me up with one solid arm around my middle to throw us both down onto the bed.
“You, vampire, are in imminent danger,” Ashen growls as he cages me between his limbs. He tries to look serious but I can see the warmth radiate from his eyes.
“Why? Can you lay eggs?”
I dissolve into giggles as Ashen digs his fingers into my sides in an unrelenting tickle until I beg him to stop. We watch one another with fading smiles as the laughter dies away and I catch my breath.
This is the lightest I’ve felt in days. The most unburdened. I know when we leave this room that reality will creep back in, but for this moment, I feel like the broken edges of my heart are a little less sharp.
Ashen sweeps locks of hair from my cheeks and searches my face. That light is still there in his eyes, even as his smile fades to all but the faintest trace. His hand drifts down my neck and lays over my pulse. “Do you love me yet, vampire?”
I let out an incredulous bark of a laugh. “One hundred percentNO.”
Ashen’s expression only seems to warm further despite my response. “Are you sure?”
“Did you really think I’d fall in love with you because of one night? I don’t care how mind-blowing the sex was, that’s not gonna happen.”
