Page 20 of Bite of Passage
“What’s not helpful?”she asked behind him.
He shook his head in dismissal.
“I don’t belong here,” she said quietly again.
He turned in time to see her pull down her soft cotton shirt with the wide neckline to expose the smooth expanse of her shoulder.He got a glimpse of her delicate collarbone before she showed off the large, red bruise over the back half of her shoulder where she must’ve fallen on the table.
The human who did this would suffer.
She held up her hands and backed up until her legs hit the side of the bed.“I still don’t want to be lunch.”A giggle escaped her.“This is a fictional story and you’re not real, even if you do have sheets softer than anything I’ve ever felt.”She fell back onto the bed.“These pillows are perfect.”She relaxed and sighed out a blissful noise that made him harder than he thought possible.“I need these pillows in my life.”
She thought him fictional, as in a storybook character?She had said “show” earlier.Maybe she thought him part of some elaborate playacting affair.He wished this was fiction.Then there’d be a happy ending.
“Maybeyou’rethe fictional character and I’m real,” he snapped.
She pushed up on an elbow to face him.“As if a girl with a crappy nursing job who almost got murdered by a stalker guy she dated once and almost got bitten by the vampire who saved her life sounds like a fictional character.”She fell back against his pillows, laughing.It was a stunning sound.“Idosound fictional.”
His lips twitched.Fuck, he almost smiled.
I do NOT smile.
“My story is straight out of a bad serial killer movie.”She shoved her wavy, dark hair out of her face.It fell well past her shoulders.Her tone turned serious, “Someone forced me into your world.”
Somethinghadconspired to throw them together.He ground his molars together.No one got to control and exploit him.
Voice low, he muttered, “You might belong here, far more than you or I understand yet.”Louder, he asked, “Are you hurt?”He moved near her, but didn’t sit.He didn’t touch.
“My nose might be.Feels swollen.Does it look puffy?”She pressed around it.“I don’t think it’s broken.”
“It bled.”He hoped his eyes didn’t go red as he watched her do her own digital exam of the small, straight nose.It brought his focus back to her neck.
She elbowed upright to a sit.“Is this your bed?It’s huge.”Her hand landed against her chest.“Oh…my.”
“What?”
“You cranked up the…not sure what to call it.Smolder?”Her throat convulsed with a swallow.“It makes me want to do crazy things with you.”She covered her eyes with a hand and fell back onto the bed.“I’m losing my mind.Maybe it’s from the threat of dying every five minutes.I’m not easy like some of the ladies who parade through your bed.I’ve watched enough episodes of the show to know what happens when you give a womanthatlook.”
“What look?”Again with this “show” business.What was an episode?He disliked being the unknowing victim of a voyeur.
“I swear it takes more than…oh dear, I’m tempted to say to hell with it and get naked.”She peeked between her fingers.“Please tell me those other women weren’t in this bed.”
“I’ve never brought anyone to this room before.”
“No one?”She fiddled with one of her dangly earrings.With a roll she supported her body up on one elbow.“Am I different, maybe even special?”
“No one before you jumped through a magical doorway, killed a mage with a crossbow, and then stripped off her pants to use them as a bandage.”
“What makes me special is you listened to me.You chose to live.”Her eyes shifted around to take in the whole bedroom.She murmured, “Different is good on a show like this.It’s good for you and maybe means I’m not a fleeting character you sleep with one night and…” Her face flushed scarlet.“I don’t want to be another one of those women who can’t stop wanting to touch you, then you use me and forget me tomorrow.”
“I can’t forget you.”
She fell back on the bed in an overly dramatic gesture and threw her arms wide.“The guy who loves ’em and leaves ’em says he’ll remember me.”
She erupted into giggles.
Maybe she had whacked her head.
His lips crept upward into a smile as he watched her uninhibited happiness.He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had fun with a woman without intending to fuck her.
