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Because it intensifies the sinking feeling that I’m definitely falling in love with Valentin Moretti.
‘Hush, little hunter.’
‘Don’t tell me to—’
He swoops forwards and shuts me up with his mouth. The kiss isn’t gentle, and Gods help me, I don’t want gentle.
One large hand cups the back of my head, and his mouth takes mine with a hunger that feels like fear wearing spikes. I make a sound I would deny in court, fist my fingers in his open shirt, and kiss him back because I’ve missed him.
Furious. Impossibly. Absurdly.
I’ve missed him while lying in his bed, while drinking his blood, and being angry enough to imagine stabbing him in at least six non-fatal places.
I have missed him.
My body recognises the truth before my pride can tackle it.
His tongue slides against mine. He tastes like blood and control cracking at the edges. The tray clatters as I shove it aside. Something spills. I don’t care. His hand tightens in my hair, pulling my head back, and his mouth moves down my throat to the place that nearly killed me hours ago.
He freezes there. Breathes. And the restraint in him trembles.
I feel it through the bond. The terror. The hunger. The desire to bite and the horror of wanting anything from the part of me that bled under his hands.
A shiver tears through me. ‘We shouldn’t,’ I whisper.
No, we should not. His voice in my head is rough enough to scrape.
I stare at the ceiling while his mouth hovers above my pulse. ‘But Rowan said we totally should—’
His head lifts and I realise I said that aloud.
Well. Fantastic. ‘What the hell, right?’ I say, and grab him.
For one moment, we’re nose to nose, his silver and black eyes boring into mine. Into my soul.
Eira.
Valentin.
A growl lurches up from his black throat. Then his control breaks beautifully.
He comes over me in a single, fluid movement, one knee driving onto the mattress between my thighs, his hands already dragging the shirt up my body. I arch to help him. He tears the buttons anyway. They scatter across the sheets like little black teeth.
‘I liked this shirt,’ I gasp.
‘I will buy you a thousand.’
‘I wanted that one.’
His mouth finds my breast, tongue and teeth closing over my nipple, and the argument dissolves into a moan so pitifully eager I feel him smile against my skin.
‘You can complain later,’ he murmurs.
‘Don’t worry. I totally will.’
He strips me with the same ruthless efficiency he uses to destroy enemies, then drags his trousers open with one hand. His cock is hard, thick, beautiful enough to be intimidating, and yet my body goes slick with a speed that would be humiliating if he did not groan like it injures him to scent it.
He pushes my thighs wide, stares down at my heated centre.
