She increased her rhythm. His hands locked on her hips, helping her lift and slide and crash against him.
That stoic expression he’d worn since the beginning of the evening wavered. His lips parted. The muscles in his neck and shoulders tightened.
She was right there on the edge with him. So close. So damn close. But she could outlast him. She would outlast him.
“Now,” she ground out, and he came one second before she did. She rode him hard, pleasure surging and spiraling as he thrusted into the aftershocks of her orgasm.
When he was spent and she went languid, she allowed herself to rest for one short, blissful moment in his arms. She turned her face to the side, felt satisfaction that his breaths were quicker than normal, matching hers, and she heard the short, intermittent thump of his heartbeat. It would never race like hers, but the fact that it came several times in the minute she had her ear pressed against his chest showed just how much she’d affected him.
“Your composure broke, vampire,” she said, pushing up to stare down at him. His cool, unreadable expression was back in place.
“Next time,” he said, “you will scream my name.”
She snorted, then slid off him. “There won’t be a next time.”
“No?”
“Of course not.” She didn’t even know his name, and she didn’t want to. She smoothed down the skirt he’d hiked up and scanned the ground for the rest of her clothes. All she found was her now useless, torn panties.
The vampire retrieved his pants. He dressed himself in that measured, unhurried way of his.
That annoying way of his. And where the hell was her shirt? It was time to return to her friends, to have a drink or three or four, and to decide if this interlude had been a good idea or a bad one.
She turned around, still looking for her—
The vampire held her shirt. She took two steps toward him to snatch it away, only he didn’t let go.
“You will scream my name,” he said.
She gave him her coldest glare. His gaze was deliberately indifferent. They stayed like that, staring at each other for half a dozen of her heartbeats before he released the shirt.
She slipped it on over her head. She’d left her purse at the table with her friends. Her shoes were near the store’s back door. She headed that way without another word to the vampire, then slid her feet into her heeled sandals.
She was almost outside before she turned around. The vampire stood there watching her.
“That was a nice diversion,” she said casually, like they had just sat down for an impromptu brunch. It was her way of letting him know he was just another guy she’d screwed. Unimportant. Insignificant.
The vampire smiled. “My name is Jared.”
Shock iced her skin, and the blood in her veins turned glacial.
2
Jared felt Nora’s aura chill as he let the shadows enfold him. He would be lying if he said he did not enjoy it—if he said he had not enjoyed all of it—and that small emotion was unexpected. He had come to Swirl to feed, not to fuck.
In the shadows, he muted his aura to a faint nothing. The werewolf lingered, staring long enough to make him wonder if she still scented him.
No. She was composing herself, taking a moment to make sure her clothes were straightened, her hair neat, her expression cool and calm again. She left, undoubtedly returning to her friends. He wondered if she would return to her pack afterward or if she would wait until his scent faded from her body.
He would not mind renewing it. That was another surprise, that wanting. He had not been with a woman in a long time. Self-deprivation had become his torture of choice. It pleased his master, and as long as Jared did not feel, Arcuro did not sense any opposition. It was better that way. The tasks Arcuro gave him were not as abominable as they would otherwise have been.
“My lord?” A head peeked inside the back door.
Jared let his aura expand. “I am here.”
Deagan’s relief was immediate. His scion had shed his traditional longcoat and wore only his white ruffled shirt and once-fashionable brown trousers. His deceptively harmless gaze took in Jared, and a frown marred his usually jovial face.
“You did not feed.” The displeasure in Deagan’s voice was obvious, almost chiding.
