Page 14 of The Biting Bargain

"What...?" I want to ask, but the question sticks in my throat as a shiver of primal dread trickles down between my shoulder blades. His growl has changed into a feral snarl. His fangs are bared. And his eyes have turned completely amber, seemingly on fire. The growl has grown louder now, guttural and dark.

"Get away from me!" he barks, clawing at the sofa.

I blink at his fingers. Are those actual claws? What the hell is going on? I want to reach for him, but that little voice of alarm in the back of my head notes that maybe I should listen this time and make sure I get away. And quick. Because by now that guy looks like he can just barely restrain himself from literally jumping down my throat.

But I don’t move.

"What happened?" I whisper, reaching out to him anyway, completely against my screaming instincts.

"Get the fuck away from me, human!!"

He jumps, rises to his full height and I bounce back, screaming out as he lets out an all-beast roar, fangs bared, claws ready to slice. I scream again, fall off the sofa, scramble to my feet and run. I barely make it to the door as something crashes and splinters behind me. I frantically push the silver button on the elevator door, and look around, gasping.

The room behind me is deserted. The sofa is empty. The coffee table is smashed into a thousand splintery pieces, the shitty sculpture with the spheres and the wooden bowl destroyed next to it. The spheres roll all over the floor again.

Vincent has disappeared.

Breathing heavily, I press my back against the cold doors of the elevator.

Further back in the penthouse, a door slams shut.

My heart is pounding in my ears, so loud I almost don't notice the sliding door opening behind me. I stumble backwards into the elevator with a yelp. Just as the doors close I hear that growl again. Loud and guttural and… hunting.

* * *

The elevator plummets down,just like my insides, which are ice-cold lumps of panic, as it dawns on me that I fucked up.

I fucked up so, so, so bad.

Whatever the hell it was I did, he fucking hated it.

I mean, customer feedback was pretty clear on that one. Smashing a table to pieces yelling, "Get away from me!" reads more clearly than any one-star review on the planet ever could.

And, despite the sting of rejection that tightens my chest, it's my own damn fault.

I breached the "Bite Only" rule. I begged him to go on. And now he's going to rat me out to Jasmin, no question, and I won't see any of my money, and Balzar's people will kill me, or worse, force me to work in one of his sleazy strip joints, or worse…

Shit, shit, shit!

What have I done to set him off like this? Was it really only that mind-stopping kiss? Did something happen I didn’t notice?

No, it was probably only me acting like an unleashed nympho and coercing him into making me come, even though he had explicitly ruled that out.

I should have just stuck to the rules. My never-ending problem. Polly always has to go off the rails.

The elevator stops, along with my spiraling thoughts. I frown, because I'm not on the first floor yet, but then the doors slide open and a Greek god in a suit strides in.

My breath actually catches and I probably stare like a dumbstruck cow.

"Good evening," he says. He is a vampire, his nocturnal superiority painfully obvious. He is stunningly handsome, tall and blond, every angelic and probably pretty athletic inch of him filling his white tailored suit to perfection. Cold eyes glance at me with mild interest.

Behind him an equally perfect-looking girl enters the elevator. She wears nothing but black silk panties and I quickly look away from her perfect boobs. Her eyes are cast down. She wears a black leather collar with a silver buckle. A black leash leads away from there and ends in the hand of that dangerously handsome man.

I hold my breath. The elevator doors close again.

"Elena, third floor."

"Yes, sir," the girl chirps and presses the corresponding button. The elevator starts moving down again.

---