Page 12 of Taste Me

The chair creaks as I lean back into it, sprawling my legs and making no attempt to hide what the sight of her does to me.

I’m wearing a suit, but the bulge in my pants is quite obvious. Her gaze dips to it and she clenches the dagger until her knuckles turn white.

Her skin is beautifully pale, like white petals of a Death Bloom, but her cheeks flush with warmth as she tracks her gaze up my body. My suit is unbuttoned, so she can see how my white dress shirt hugs my chest.

She looks like she wants to rip it open.

Yes. She absolutely feels this connection between us.

That’s useful information. It means the seductive part of this spell either wasn’t intentional or is something else entirely.

She’s resistant to it, evident from the worthless blade in her hand.

All she’s doing is turning me on. Blood play is my favorite type of bedroom activity.

“If I wanted to hurt you, you’d already be dead by now,” I say with a flourish of my hand.

She doesn’t know it, but this very hand could take her life with a simple touch.

I already touched her once, and it wasincredible. Killing her is off the table.

But she doesn’t have to know that.

She doesn’t seem very impressed by my threat. The glimmer in her eyes seems to say,And if I wanted to hurtyou, you’d be dead, too.

Clearly, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.

Sighing, I ease to my feet. The witchling backs up a step and brandishes the blade at me. I resist the urge to show her ways I could turn the danger of a blade into a mixture of pleasure and pain.

Something I suspect a little witchling like this might appreciate.

That requires her trust, of course. Knife play is an exercise in submission, obedience, and faith in one’s bed partner.

There have been more than a few females foolish enough to trust me with a blade—or my teeth. I haven’t always been as careful as I should have been.

But with this female, I vow to take my time. To earn her trust and prove my worthiness to paint her skin red.

Because my touch can do more than take life. It can give it, too.

Something I do even more rarely than its counterpart, considering the toll it takes on me.

“We seem to be at an impasse, darling. I merely meant to say that I mean you no harm.”

She glowers at me, then pointedly looks at the blood on my suit.

Right, Ididkill the bear shifter, even if I don’t remember why.

Plucking a handkerchief from my chest pocket, I dab at the spot. There’s something hard in my pocket, but it’s too buried for me to retrieve to see what it is.

“Ah, yes, I’m sure it would frighten you that I killed someone on your property,” I say, hoping I can assuage her fears. “Although, I’m sure I have a good reason, even if I can’t remember it. My memory seems to be a bitfuzzyat the moment, you see,” I say conversationally, but I return her pointed look with one of my own.

Because you cast a spell, little one.

She analyzes me with that intense silver stare of hers. I love being the center of her attention.

She lowers the blade, which proves I’ve earned a sliver of her trust. She doesn’t seem pleased with me, but she believes that I don’t intend to hurt her.

At least, not without a little pleasure mixed in.

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