Page 29 of Bite
My pulse skips. I blink at her like I have no idea what she’s talking about as I ask, “Spill what?”
Her eyes narrow, unimpressed. “Don’t play dumb with me, Taylor Holt. You still haven’t told me why you were called into Bite this morning, and you’ve been weird all night. It’s freaking me out.”
I just shrug and busy myself with my glass, sweeping a finger along the salted rim to collect the sharp white crystals and bringing them to my tongue. I’ve been craving salt constantly lately– I guess all the bloodletting has stripped me down to the basics, body begging for electrolytes I can’t seem to keep up with.
Bex doesn’t buy my distraction tactics for a second. She leans in, straw dangling idly from her mouth, gaze pinning me like she’s waiting for the exact second I crack.
I concede with a sigh, giving up the game. “So… Fran wanted to talk to me in person about something,” I mumble, pointedlyignoring the sharp buzz of my phone against the table when it vibrates again.
“Okay,” she says slowly, suspicion dripping from every syllable. “Like a profile update?”
“Not exactly,” I mutter. “She… presented a contract.”
Bex’s brows rocket up. “What kind of contract?”
“An exclusive donor agreement,” I admit, forcing the words out past the lump forming in my throat. “One-year term.”
Her jaw drops, then snaps shut again, lips curving into a grin so wide it looks like it might split her face. “Shut up!” she squeals, clutching her glass with both hands as if she needs something solid to contain her giddiness. “Who?”
I stare at her for a second, stomach twisting into knots. Maybe if I don’t say it out loud, it’ll stay in the realm of fantasy where it belongs. But the silence stretches, my pulse hammers, and I finally whisper it anyway. “James Devereaux.”
Bex inhales mid-sip and immediately chokes, coughing margarita down the wrong pipe. She pounds her chest with one hand, eyes bugging out like I just confessed to sleeping with a rockstar or something.
“James Devereaux?” she hisses once she can breathe again. “As in,theJames Devereaux? Vampire king of the northeast, sex god in Gucci?ThatJames?”
I nod, throat too dry to form words.
She presses a hand to her heart like she might faint. “I swear to god, Tay, if you don’t say yes, I’ll crawl inside your skin and do it for you.”
The laugh that slips out of me is half snort, half shaky exhale. “I don’t know, Bex. It’s… a lot. The money is insane. Like, more than I ever thought I’d see in my life. But I’d have to live with him. Be on call. Let him…” My voice drops low, almost drowned out by the thrum of bass. “Feedfrom me. Whenever he wants.”
Bex leans forward, elbows braced on the sticky table and eyes gleaming like a cat that’s just cornered a mouse. “Okay, but youlikeit, right?”
I blink, caught off guard. “What?”
“Feeding. Him. You like it. Don’t even try to deny it, you came back to the gala the other night all dazed and dreamy, like a girl who just had a religious experience.”
Heat floods my face and I bury it in my hands. “Stop.”
She just grins wider, white teeth flashing. “I’m not judging! I’m impressed. He’s gorgeous and terrifying and filthy rich. I’d let him lock me up and throw away the key if he asked nicely.”
A laugh bursts out of me despite the knot in my stomach. “You’re ridiculous. And also… it’s not just the feeding part.”
Bex sobers a little, eyes sharpening. “There’s sex in the contract, isn’t there?”
I hesitate, chewing my lip, then nod. “A lot of sex. Like… pages.”
Her brows shoot up. “Is it gross?”
The question catches me, and I shake my head slowly. “No. That’s the problem. It’s… intense. Kinda filthy. Some of it’s stuff I’ve never even considered. But now that I’ve seen it…”
“You want it.”
My cheeks heat. “I don’t know,” I murmur, voice barely audible. “I think I might. But that’s terrifying. What does that say about me?”
“That you’re a consenting adult with curiosity and a pulse,” she scoffs. Then her tone softens, far gentler than I expect from little miss sarcasm and sass. “Tay… you’ve been surviving for so long, I think you forgot what it’s like to actuallylive. To want something and actually get it.”
The words land like a sucker punch. Too true, too raw. I stare at the sticky tabletop, tracing the faint ring of condensation from my glass as I whisper, “What if I lose myself in it?”
