Page 9 of Unnatural Fate

“I see you’ve learned.” He had the slacks draped over his arm like he’d stroll to the closet and hang them.

If my kind could be described as wild and chaotic, his kind were controlled and delicate.

“I don’t want to piss you off too much, or you won’t let me fuck you.”

“Good boy,” he said flippantly. His accent almost made it more condensing, if that was possible.

I was on him again, and I pulled open the front of his waistcoat, sending buttons flying across the floor. A snarl passed his razor-sharp teeth, and I drank from his anger, feeding on it through our bond almost as fully as the lust.

“Your actions will cost you. Remember as much, Dominic.”

“I look forward to it.” I did the same to his shirt and slid my hands up the singlet to pull open the cravat he wore at his throat.

He didn’t make a move to help me; instead, he watched. “Uncultured swine.”

“Elegant prick.” The universe hated me. What a cruel joke to put the other half of my soul into the body of a monster. “But that’s why you like me. No one fucks you like a beast does.”

A beast and a monster. But maybe it was worse for him. He’d been waiting hundreds of years to fall for a twenty-something asshole who was destined to die young. I snorted, pulling the cravat free in triumph. What business did a vampire who’d seen at least a hundred and fifty years have with me? But the heart wants what it wants.

“I refuse to believe you can’t be taught some manners,” he said as I dropped the fine material on the floor.

“Why?” What’s the point?

“I kept thinking once you grew out of this youthful, undomesticated attitude, you’d start respecting my things, but I’m beginning to believe I was wrong.” He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back to expose my throat.

If I wasn’t already hard, that would have done it. Flirting with death, or worse, undeath. “Old dogs, new tricks.”

He pushed the tip of one fang into my skin, producing the tiniest droplet of blood, quickly lapped up by his tongue. I hissed, my pupils dilating, bloodlust overtaking all rational thought.

“What did you expect to happen in the last two years?” Two long years without each other and it left me starved for him.

I tried to fool myself into believing I could overcome this need for him. Overcome the tie. But worse than an addict, I found myself trading in all the progress I’d made for another night with him when I knew we couldn’t be.

“I expected you not to act like a baby anymore.”

We collided. There was no other way to be with him.We’d tried to make it work off and on for years, but every time I left I’d stayed away longer. The last time had been two years. I don’t know where I’d found the strength because tonight I felt weak.

“You’re really expecting me to be anything other than an animal?”

“Perhaps I’ve given you too much credit.” He laughed without humor.

“Maybe if you’d stop trying to change me, I’d stick around longer.”

“Longer being the keyword there, Dominic.”

“How long can you expect me to stay? I don’t have hundreds of years like you do.” I slid my hands under the singlet, desperate for skin, his hands noticeably nowhere near me.

“Your kind could live for hundreds of years, you know. Maybe if you didn’t all have such a death wish, more of you would see the far side of a hundred.”

“Maybe…” We both knew the war prevented that.

He sighed and cupped my face. “I’ve missed you, Dominic.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” I admitted, and it felt like too much. Flirting with the lines drawn for us before we were born.

“Are your clothes coming off?” he asked, teasing a single nail down the front of my tee.

I pulled off my shirt and tossed it aside.

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