Her hand went to one of her exposed breasts and she played with her nipple, tweaking the flesh between her fingers. Pulling it out and letting it snap back into place. Rubbing it.
Those fangs made another spectacular appearance and he hissed—like in his mind, he was biting the tip off and swallowing it.
“What’s your name…” Even though she knew he wasn’t going to answer. “Tell me.”
There was a delicious thrill to his denying her, and later, she would recognize that this was when it all started. The addiction to him.
Turned out, her version of true love had a compulsive element to it. Made sense. Happiness had always bored her. A cycle of aching need, followed by ecstatic acquisition or fulfillment, culminating with a glow of satisfaction? That was her fucking jam.
Devina smiled. “I’m not letting you go, unless you tell me your name—”
His left arm popped loose, and she lifted an eyebrow. Then he began to bend forward, his chest and abs flexing, his teeth with those fangs gritting, sweat breaking out across his skin—until his torso somehow peeled free of that wall. He should not have been able to do any of this—and that was when her second realization hit.
“You’re like me.” And she wasn’t talking about character traits. “You’re something else, aren’t you.”
No ordinary vampire could do any of this shit.
And of course, her true love didn’t say a damn thing. He just continued to pull, pull, pull against the hold on him. He trembled, his shoulders flexing, the veins that ran down his arms popping, his abdominals standing out in stark relief—and he was still aroused, whether it was from fury at her or sexual attraction, she wasn’t sure, didn’t care. She’d take the former, because it was fun, and the spell should have ensured the latter.
So maybe it was both.
She glanced at the Book. It was still open to her page, the wording dark on the parchment.
The male’s right leg came off the floor, the thigh muscles bunching as his bare foot lifted. He put his arch and sole back down… and yanked the other one up. His ass was the last thing that was liberated, and though he had to grind his perfect jaw to do it, he managed to get himself totally free of the lockup.
“Impressive,” she said in what she hoped was a cool tone.
Inside, she was jelly, no more bones, not even cartilage. She had melted—and the fact that her instincts told her she better not let him know just how much he affected her was a huge part of the excitement.
They stared at each other, and she knew he was measuring her just as she was doing the same to him. Opponents? Yes, but it was going to be so much more than that.
“I’m not kissing you until you tell me your name,” she said. In a pretty fucking good stab at being prim.
By way of response, he turned away from her and headed for the door.
“Wait—what?” Devina demanded.
As a ringing set off in her skull, like she’d been sucker-punched in the side of the head, she hurried after him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
As he came up to the lair’s exit, the male looked over his shoulder. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“You’re not leaving—”
“I’m absolutely leaving.”
Devina jabbed a forefinger at the steel panel in front of him. “There’s nothing on the other side of that for you.”
“Au contraire. There’s all of Caldwell.”
“No, there’s not.” She was getting bitchy and she felt no need to hide it. “You’re not on the same plane of existence as the building you think you’re in—wait, how do you know you’re in Caldwell?”
“There is only one place I want to be.”
“Yeah, and it’s with me. Fuck Caldwell.”
One of his brows arched. “You know, I’ve never cared for females who swear. It’s unladylike.”
Devina closed her eyes—and pictured herself stabbing him. About a hundred and fifty times.
Then she popped her lids back open. “You want to know what I hate in males? Dickheads who say things like that.”
“Guess we’re not a match made in heaven then, are we.” He paused. And seemed to be memorizing what she looked like. “Pity. You’re fucking hot.”
“Well, I don’t like males who curse,” she parroted.
“Good thing I’m out of here, then.”
Andjustlikethat, he was gone.
The rat bastard literally stepped through the door as if he knew exactly how to manipulate the space/time continuum.
“Wha… what just happened here?” She spun around to the Book. “What the hell just happened here?”
As flames sprouted off her fingertips and the tops of her shoulders, and she felt the heat rise to engulf her head, she marched over to the Book, intending to rip it up with her bare-fucking-hands.
“Was this all some kind of joke? What the fuck is wrong with you—”
A burst of gale-force wind blasted up from the open pages, and kept her from taking hold of the Book, kept her from getting too close. As her hair peeled back from her face and she threw out her arms to maintain balance, the gust instantly resolved itself.