Page 20 of Yearning For Her

“Hey, hey. Don’t cry.” Jamie crawled across the sofa and put her arms around Willow. “It’s okay. There’s someone out there for you. You just haven’t met them yet. But you will when the time is right, and they will cherish you like you deserve to be cherished.” She tightened her embrace, and Willow returned the hug.

“Thanks, Jamie.”

And yet as Willow leaned against her friend, she couldn’t silence the thought nagging at the back of her mind. It was irrational, silly, exactly the kind of thought that should’ve made her doubt her own sanity.

What if Kian had been the one for her, and their chance for something more had been given up for that single night of passion and pleasure?

“After all you’ve been through, Willow, look at you,” Jamie said. “You’re not just surviving, you’re thriving, right? This is your chance to take your life back after the shit Eli did.”

Smiling, Willow drew back and wiped her eyes. “You’re right. I have you, I have these furballs, and I have my studio.”

“And who needs a man when you have a vibrator?”

Willow gave Jamie a shove but couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

She decided that maybe it was best not to mention that Kian had been better than any vibrator she’d ever owned.

Seven

Lust thickened the air in the nightclub. Kian felt as though he could reach out and touch it, and he nearly tasted it upon his tongue. It cast everything in a faint red haze that blended with the club’s moody blue lighting to fill his vision with shades of purple.

Perhaps this place had been a poor choice. The last color he needed to see everywhere he looked was purple…

No. He’d come here because it was a rich, reliable hunting ground. A place where he was all but guaranteed sustenance. When humans gathered like this and gave themselves over to music, drinks, and drugs, he often didn’t even need to use his charm to get what he wanted from them. Seduction became a simple as a knowing look and an inviting smile. This should have been effortless.

From the vantage of his elevated booth, he scanned the crowd, seeking the right target. He couldn’t afford to be picky tonight, couldn’t afford to expend energy on a prolonged seduction. He needed to feed, and he needed to do so soon. Very soon.

For six days after fucking Willow, he’d been satiated. On the seventh day, he’d felt a vague sense of hollowness, a nagging ache. Over the next week, that ache had expanded at an alarming rate. More alarming still was that he’d been unable to draw energy from anyone to assuage that hunger. The pain was becoming unbearable, the hunger impossible to ignore. This void within him would eventually grow too vast.

And when it inevitably collapsed upon itself, it would destroy Kian in the process.

He was fucking starving.

How the fuck was an immortal being starving?

His eyes settled upon a dark-haired woman in a short, tight purple dress.

Her.

That dress couldn’t compare to the one Willow had worn two weeks ago. Nothing would look as good on anyone as that dress had looked on her.

Not a purple dress, he growled in his mind. It’s red. Just the fucking lighting.

This woman was not Willow. She was tall and thin, whereas Willow was abundant with curves. They were nothing alike.

Even through the cloud of desire swirling around the woman, he detected a hint of desperation in her, a touch of loneliness that she’d undoubtedly come here to combat. That was exactly what he needed for a quick feeding.

He fixed his gaze on the woman and sent out a wave of power. It made the lusty haze ripple around him, briefly heightening his awareness of it. Then the magic reached her, and he coiled it around her desires, sinking it deep into her need for companionship, into her hunger for sex.

The woman’s eyes widened and snapped to Kian.

He forced that practiced smirk onto his lips. A desirous spark lit in the woman’s eyes, and she smoothed her hands down her sides.

Kian crooked a finger, beckoning her, sending out a little more of his magic with the gesture.

She walked toward him. With her every step, he felt her desire realigning, redirecting toward him. Kian was exactly what she wanted, and she’d already hit that heady moment during which her raw, impulsive desire for him had superseded everything else. He was the only thing she could see for now. All her other dreams, her other wants, would sleep for a time.

“Like what you see?” he asked as she drew close.

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