Page 45 of Your Coffin or Mine
“Vlad?” He’s still staring at my hand. His jaw ticks and his face turns stony. I swear his brown eyes flash a strange color.
Before I can ask him what’s wrong, his lips are on mine. A burst of sizzling desire heats my body, sending tingles down my spine. One touch and I want to bump his uglies so hard he forgets every woman before me.
I gasp when his tongue licks at the seam of my mouth.
“Aubrey,” he moans, his voice thick with emotion.
He pulls back, staring into my eyes, and my heart does a little pitter patter in my chest.Oh no.
I am very much afraid I could be falling for the grump, and it’s a heady mix of amazing and freaking terrifying.
Chapter 15
VLAD
I am irrevocably fucked.As I press my lips against the soft skin of her throat, my instincts to bite, to tear into her flesh and drink her in, rear their ugly heads.
Pushing her back against the nearest tree, I kiss her hard, dueling my tongue with hers as she kisses with a passion that takes what little oxygen I can allow in my lungs.
The scent of her blood in the air is mouthwatering, but when the smell of her arousal registers, it almost brings me to my knees. I want to fuck and consume her at the same time, and it is taking every bit of my control to not act on the impulse.
Sliding my knee between her legs, I groan as she whimpers, rubbing herself against me like a cat. Just the feel of her in my arms is heady and exhilarating.
“Woman, you would test the control of a saint.” And she is definitely testing mine.
She arches against me, and her fingers pull at my hair tightly, causing me to growl low in my chest before bending my head to breathe deep at her neck. My fangs extend, her pulse throbs, and my vision turns to red. I squeeze my eyes shut, listening to her panting breaths. I focus on her smell, on how good she feelsin my arms. My mind slows, concentrating on the air filling her lungs, on her heartbeat that I could never bear to stop.I refuse to hurt her.
“We should get back to the castle,” I say, when her fingers tighten around the back of my neck.
My control is barely hanging on by a thread. I want to lick, bite, sink my teeth into her—and never let her go. I have since the moment I first saw her, butnotlike this. I will not attack her like some beast in the forest.
“Do we have to?” she says, pouting cutely. “I was having fun, you know.”
Normally it would be no question whether I could control myself, even if she were bleeding out in the snow, and I hadn’t eaten from a human in more than half a century. But this is Aubrey.
“There are wolves in the area and you’re bleeding.” I hate the lie, but she is in more danger from me than wolves.
Her face pales, her brows scrunching together with worry. “Right. Yeah, I’m not up to fighting off wolves today.”
Or any day.
I pull her to me and lift her into a cradle in my arms. “No more tumbles, either,” I mumble, unable to force my limbs to let her go. The urge to protect her is overwhelming.
She lays her head on my shoulder, and the action floors me. This slip of a human is burrowing into my cold, undead heart.
I walk in silence, listening to her soft breaths. The feel of her in my arms makes me wish for a moment that I was human, wish that I could fuck her tight cunt right here in the snow like the monster I am, but notbiteher. Her soft throat is too beckoning, and I want her too much. I can’t trust myself.
She does something to me I’ve not experienced in my long years on this earth, but thankfully the want to protect her overrides all else.
My control has never been tested this way, and it is agony to force myself away from her, unsure of what I may do to her, especially with her so willing in my arms.She is astonishing.And far too trusting for the likes of me.
After what seems like an hour, we finally reach the side door.
“Doyle will know where all the first aid is kept.” I set her on her feet in the foyer, intent on putting as much space between us as possible. I indicate to his large office doors. “Get your hand looked at. I’ll be up to your room in a moment.”
She nods. “Okay, I’ll see you in a bit.” Her expression is puzzled, and Iflee as soon as her feet head in that direction.
My gut fills with disgust at myself for not thinking of something like this. She could have easily been hurt. Hollowness spreads within me at the thought, and my mind swirls with possibilities.
