Page 115 of Claim of Blood
Across from him, Adam rose with a smooth, predatory grace. His silhouette was all sharp angles and tension, blood dripping steadily from his chin and painting his bare chest in jagged streaks. His eyes glittered black and bottomless, locked onLander with a kind of hungry focus that made the air between them feel electrified.
They began to circle—slow, measured, primal. Not as men, not even as vampires, but as animals poised on the edge of something inevitable. The room felt smaller, like the walls were inching inward.
Adam moved like a predator, uncoiling with effortless and sure precision. Lander’s pulse pounded in his ears, each heartbeat drumming louder than the next. He was heaving, sweat dripping into his eyes, but he didn’t dare blink.
“Feel better?” Adam asked, not even breathing hard.
“Fuck you.” Lander dragged his forearm across his face, smearing blood and sweat into a war mask.
“You’re fighting what you want.” Adam took a slow and deliberate step forward. “What we both want.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
Adam smiled. Feral, knowing, cruel. “Your body doesn’t lie.”
Lander lunged. His shoulder slammed into Adam’s midsection like a battering ram, the impact rattling down his spine. They crashed together into the wall, the plaster behind Adam’s back spiderwebbing with fractures, chunks flaking off like brittle bone.
For a heartbeat, they were fused, breathing the same heat, locked chest to chest. Lander could smell himself on Adam’s skin. Blood, sweat, adrenaline. Rage. Lust. Need. All of it coiled between them like a live wire.
“Now what?” Adam whispered, his breath hot against Lander’s ear.
Lander had no answer. In that moment of hesitation, Adam struck. His hands clamped onto Lander’s shoulders with bruising force. One leg hooked behind Lander’s knee, sweeping his foundation away.
The world spun. Lander’s back slammed into the floor hard enough to drive the air from his lungs, his skull bouncing once against the boards. Stars exploded behind his eyes as Adam followed him down, settling his weight across Lander’s waist. One hand shot up to capture both of Lander’s wrists, pinning them above his head.
His cock stirred traitorously, trapped between their bodies, and the shame of it made him snarl.
With his free hand, Adam calmly reset his nose, cartilage grinding back into place with a wet snap. Lander flinched at the sound—the soft snap echoed too close to memory. The bleeding had stopped, but blood still painted his face as he smiled down at Lander like a prize he’d won.
“Not done yet,” Adam said, his weight pressing down, inescapable.
Lander thrashed, every muscle straining against Adam’s iron grip. “Get. Off. Me.”
“No.” The single word fell like a judge’s gavel, absolute and final.
Lander twisted violently, his entire body arching off the floor in a desperate bid for freedom. His shirt tore at the collar as Adam’s free hand fisted in the fabric, the sound of ripping cotton sharp in the charged air.
“This is what you need, isn’t it?” Adam asked, voice eerily calm as he slowly ripped the shirt down the middle.
“Fuck you.” Lander’s voice was raw, exposed.
“You need me to earn it.” Adam tore the shirt completely off, tossing the ruined fabric aside. “To show you, I’m worthy of your surrender.”
Lander’s struggles intensified, his body arching off the floor in violent waves. His legs thrashed, heels scraping against the hardwood as he tried to find purchase. His knee drove up,connecting with Adam’s ribs hard enough to bruise. Adam barely flinched.
“I don’t—”
“You do.” Adam caught the waistband of Lander’s pants, fingers twisting into the fabric with brutal efficiency. “You need to know you couldn’t stop me even if you tried.”
The material bit into Lander’s hips as Adam’s grip tightened, the seams straining against supernatural strength. Then the pants tore with a vicious rip that sent fabric burning across his skin. Lander hissed at the sting, red welts already blooming where the torn edges had scraped him raw.
His leg lashed out desperately, heel catching Adam’s shoulder with enough force to crack the bone. The blow would have dislocated a human’s joint, sent them sprawling. Adam just smiled, rolling his shoulder as if working out a minor kink.
“Keep fighting,” Adam encouraged, his voice maddeningly calm as he continued methodically destroying Lander’s clothing. “I want you to know exactly how futile this is.”
Lander did. He fought as Adam stripped him bare, fought as cool air touched newly exposed skin, fought as his body betrayed his mind’s protests. But not as hard as he could have.
Not as hard as he should have.
