Page 79 of Bite of Passage
“You can if you want, but some things won’t agree with you.”Like juice.“Avoid fruits.”
“How come I feel like there’s a story behind that?”
He grunted.
When the rain started drizzling again, she pulled the tartan up over her head.The distance they needed to travel would take two nights.That meant finding shelter would become a priority as the night waned.
“There.”Skarde pointed at the ruins of an old manor.
“Do you think anything still stands that can protect us from the sun?”
“We’ll find out.”
“What if there isn’t?”
“There’s always the cemetery.”
“Are you messing with me?As in sleeping in a grave?”
“It’ll be free from sunlight if you bury yourself.”
“You’re not kidding.Sleeping buried alive, drinking blood, sun burning us to death, hated by most in this world… Why would anyone choose to become a vampire?”
“I have yet to meet anyone who chose this life.”
The outer keep and main house were in ruins, but the chapel still stood.He set up the horse in a fenced-in area that still stood, offered it the food he’d packed, and broke through the ice on the trough to access water beneath.
He pried one door of the chapel open.Its hinges were rusted and dysfunctional.With Gemma’s hand in his, he led her inside.Surprisingly the roof still stood, except at the far end.“The windows are bad news.Maybe there’s an enclosed space under the pulpit.”
He pushed a few things, finally revealing a small space.He waved her inside.
She leaned in.“We won’t both fit in there.”
“It’s this, buried in a grave, or roasted vampire.”He glanced over to the copious windows.
Gemma scrunched up her lips.
“How about I do a bug sweep?”he offered.
She leaned onto her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips.“That is the sexiest offer I’ve had all night.”
A brief evaluation of the area located one spider but nothing else.“Little secret… they’re not that interested in us.They like human blood, not ours.”
“What if the spider had bitten me?”
“I doubt you’d have had a reaction.”
She shivered, which was cute.“I prefer not being touched by a spider at all.”
The girl who’d shot a mage with a crossbow and scared Cade feared bugs.Skarde kissed her long and hard.
His hands fell to her waist as she parted her mouth for him.Desire ripped through him when her tongue glided across his, light and explorative.He allowed himself to relax and live in the moment, letting go of other concerns.
The problem with kissing her was that now he wanted so much more.They needed to get into that little space within the next few minutes, and it wasn’t going to afford them enough room for what he wanted.He was so hard, he could barely stand the touch of his own pants.
His hand slipped to her shirt to cup her breasts.“It was torture riding with you and not touching your skin.”
“I like you wanting me that much, but I don’t like you feeling tortured.I suspect you’ve had enough of that in your life.If you want to touch me, do it.Don’t sit there stewing about it.”
