The back of his shoulder throbbed angrily, fighting with the passion and release he must have. He closed his mind to it, fought it away, gulped and shifted and thought of Angelica.
Of his hands on her, his mouth tasting her…the long, sleek slide of skin against skin…the warmth. The rise, the miraculous light…
Then her face, wide-eyed and horrified, burst into the image. Shattering it.
No!
Was it her voice or his own that cried out?
A streak of pain arced down his shoulder and red blazed behind his eyes, matching the agony.
Rigid with surprise as much as discomfort, Voss opened his eyes. He saw the woman, the crimson and golden room, the tall, pale candles flickering and casting delicate shadows. Blood trailed sleek against her white skin, still pooled hot in his mouth, the essence on his tongue.
Voss caught his breath, working through the sudden onslaught of pain to steady his breathing. To bring himself back here, where he could find release from what pounded through his veins.
The woman looked up at him, lust and laziness in her eyes as she reached for his shoulders, wanting to draw him back down. Her eyes weren’t right. They weren’t catlike, large enough; they weren’t shaped right. Her mouth…her face…no.
He couldn’t stop a quick glance toward the ceiling, knowing Angelica was there. Two floors above, safely ensconced here at Rubey’s, where no one would think to look for them. She was so very near, but the ceiling hung low and heavy and impenetrable.
He could send for her. Simple. Get it over with.
The pain of his Mark lessened slightly. He could breathe. Think. Why did she haunt him so?
“Voss,” the girl murmured. Her hand slid lower between them, between their hot, slick bodies. Her eyes were glazed, desperate. She licked her lips, shifted against him, closed her fingers more insistently.
He could do that to Angelica. He could make her cry and moan and want him like he wanted her. Like they all wanted him.
She could help him, and he…he could help her. Andhaveher.
Show her the world of desire and passion.
She was two floors above. Unprotected. Virginal and waiting.
A rush of desire flooded him and Voss’s breathing deepened. He could still smell her on his fingers from when they’d buried into her hair during their kiss. He thought of how she would smell, close, naked and writhing against him. Her breast heavy in his hand, her hair clinging to the damp of her skin.
Her eyes, heavy with desire after their kiss, rose in his mind. They beckoned, and then suddenly widened with horror and shock.
Fear.
He’d pulled back by now, enough that the sticky heat of body against body had lessened. Voss heard his own breathing in a room that had become nearly silent. It rasped unsteadily and he hated the weakness it portended.
The throb at the back of his shoulder pounded harder. Insistent.Go…go…go.
Take.
Take her.
Dull pain turned burning and sharp and reminded him that he had no reason for such deprivation. No reason to resist, to deny himself.
Nothing to fear.
Voss turned back to the woman. She would be easy, familiar relief.
But not Angelica.
The blaze of pain over his shoulder shocked him and Voss gasped.Luce’s dark soul.The devil wanted him to do it. To take her.
Angelica.
