Page 36 of A Love So Deadly
We’re not as powerful there, but we have a presence. Other vampires rule different parts, and we’ve had peace so long, I don’t mess with it.
“Is she from VMR?” Monty asks me.
“You pay attention.”
“It’s why you pay me the mediocre bucks.”
I laugh at her words. If I hadn’t been captivated by her already, the sharp wit would have done it. And I don’t think calling her Monty makes her less attractive. It’s a nickname, likesomething private and just for me. “Keep that up and I’ll give you a pay decrease.”
She gets paid like every other human working for us. Extremely well.
After all, accidents happen.
“Is this your way to wrangle…favors from me?” she asks, voice full of innuendo.
I give her a sharp look, smelling her arousal, that heightened rush of blood. She becomes so much sweeter when that aroused blood scent permeates out.
It makes the vampires easy to spot, even if I couldn’t already do so.
Every single one of them locks onto her.
Then me.
But seeing me, they quickly return to their business at hand.
All, except for Vittoria. She continues to stare, the hunger naked and real in her gaze. She’s all in red, and she hasn’t fed. Everything’s a game to her, deadly, real, a challenge she loves.
She glances at me, like she wants to come over, but while she and Monty will meet at some point, I don’t know what mood she’s in. And the fact she hasn’t eaten is typical but annoying. The edge it gives her makes her sharper, but it unleashes the wild card inside her.
When a waiter passes, I take two wines, handing one to Monty, and lead her to a quiet corner, away from the rest. I fix the stray hair that’s been bugging her since we got in the elevator back at VMR, which earns me one of her smiles, and it makes my dead heart beat.
I whisper, “Soon we’ll separate?—”
“You’re leaving me here, Lucy?” Her pupils shrink, and I can taste the spike of her adrenaline in the air by using the nickname she’d given me in the basement. If I licked her skin, it’d be salt and honey.
“No.” I suck the lobe of her ear and tell myself it’s about ownership to the room, control over her. But really, I do it because I want to. Salt, honey and that indescribable Elliot taste. I run my tongue in tiny circles against the delicate flesh.
“I’m not leaving you anywhere,” I say. I let her go to trail kisses along her jaw and up to her red lips.
“What-what are you doing?” she asks breathily.
“This is just for show, for the regular folk.”
“People here are regular?” Elliot’s hand comes up and catches my shirt, holding on to me, and it’s one of those sweet things, the sort I don’t bother with. There are games of flesh and then there’s feeding; the soft moments aren’t for me anymore.
Except with her, I want to slide into it and experience everything she makes come my way.
What I need to do is slide inside her, use my voice, my vampiric powers to tease out the DNA of her motives for being in my business. I wanted someone smart, someone different to Emily who could deal with the flow and change that happens, someone who’ll be able to slide into other roles without question.
But I got Elliot, and she’s beyond anything I ever expected.
Now it’s hard to think of my every day without her.
I trail a finger along her pulsating vein, the blood seemingly trying to leap from her to me through her skin, and she moans softly.
She’s already half gone. Drunk on me. It wouldn’t take much power from me to have her completely in my hold.
But I refrain. There’s time enough to uncover all her secrets.
