When cold fingers graze my wrist, I freeze. My eyes dart to where Claude’s pale hand holds mine in a feather-soft grip, his thumb pressed to my pulse point. I swallow before lifting my gaze to meet his.
“Your heart is beating very fast,” he says, thumb rubbing slow circles over my wrist. “Am I making you nervous?”
“No,” I say, while my pulse betrays me. I breathe in deeply through my nose, let it out from my mouth, and snatch my wrist back from him. He doesn’t try to hold on, but even when I’mfree of him, I still feel the imprint of his cold fingertips where they so delicately gripped me. “I’m just not used to being around vampires.”
“I see.” He studies me. “We don’t have to do this. I just wanted a chance to talk to—”
“I’d rather you bite me,” I say.
His lips twist. “Is my company so terrible?”
I sniff and look away, refusing to dignify that with a response.
“So cruel to me,” he says. “What have I done to deserve this treatment?”
I glance sideways at him without turning my head. “The better question is, why do you seem like you’re enjoying it?”
“Most people try to flatter me, or treat me like I’m made of glass. Your blatant hatred is rather refreshing.”
I purse my lips and hold out my wrist. “Can we just get this over with?”
He regards me for a moment. “Alright,” he agrees, more easily than I expected. “But you’re going to have to move closer, I’m afraid.”
I scoot an inch closer on the couch.
“Closer than that,” he says.
I scoot again, begrudgingly. My knee brushes against his.
And suddenly I’m weightless, moving, and then blinkingupat him as he leans over me. It takes my brain a moment to right itself.
I’m leaning across his lap. One of his arms supports my upper back; the other holds my wrist. Like before, his grip is soft, belying the strength he must have for him to effortlessly maneuver me like he just did.
“This is more comfortable, no?” he asks, a stray curl falling over his forehead as he looks down at me.
I am breathless. Out of sorts. Part of me wants to be furious with him, but I can’t fight the slow unfurling of warmth in my stomach, the heat creeping into my face.
This is just a comfortable position for him to bite me, I tell myself. That’s why I’m nodding. Never mind the fact I don’t trust myself enough to speak.
Claude watches me through heavily lidded eyes as he lifts my wrist to his mouth. My skin prickles with awareness of his teeth in close proximity, and the heat in my belly rises to a dangerous simmer.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He kisses my wrist.
That’s what it feels like. The soft press of lips, a hint of tongue against my skin. There’s only the slightest prick of fangs, so gentle it seems impossible until I feel the deeppullof him drinking from me.
And then I’m melting into his lap, sinking into the couch. Only his grip on me keeps me up, his arm holding me tighter against his chest. My eyelids flutter and my lips part. I’m hyperaware of every inch of my own skin. Every breath sends new, fizzing pleasure through my veins, slowly condensing into a throb in my lower belly.
“Oh.”
I think it’s me who makes that soft exhale of a noise, but no, it’s Claude, pulling back from my wrist with a strange expression. His pupils have blown wide, nearly covering the blue of his eyes, and his gaze is locked on my wrist, where a trickle of blood is still leaking from the puncture wounds he left.
He leans forward and licks it, and I shiver at the sensation of his tongue against my skin.
“Claude,” I say. He doesn’t respond to his name. His fangs are still out, his mouth open, a bare half inch away from biting me again. “Claude,” I say again, louder.
