He smirked at me, knowing that I didn’t have the strength to physically move him away from the door. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Be a stubborn child. I’ll just go out the other door and circle back around to the ballroom that way.”
I whirled around to storm toward the other exit. I had only taken a few steps forward when his voice sounded behind me.
“Lorelei. Stop. Please.”
That soft, almost whisperedpleasemade me pause and look over my shoulder. Tucker had stepped away from the door, although his hands were now clenched into fists by his sides. I wasn’t sure what he was asking. I don’t think he knew either. But for a change, one raw emotion after another flashed across his face—interest, desire, longing. All the hot, annoying, frustrating things I felt whenever I was around him.
That vibration in my ears, my body, my heart hummed even louder and stronger, but it wasn’t my metal magic. Not really. No, this was just my own intense attraction to Hugh Tucker.
And for once in my life, I decided to give in to temptation, to do something fun and reckless and stupid. I spun around and strode toward him, closing the distance between us again.
Tucker opened his mouth, but I cut him off.
“No more talking,” I growled.
Then I dug my fingers into his tuxedo jacket, yanked him forward, and pressed my lips to his.
ChapterSeven
Over the past few weeks,I’d thought quite a lot about what kissing Hugh Tucker would be like. Whether it would be sweet and soft or hot and hard. Whether he would hold me close or keep his distance. Whether he would touch me the way I longed to touch him or keep his hands to himself. And especially whether he would feel, want, and desire as much as I did whenever I looked at him.
The actual kiss itself was a combination of all those things—and then some.
The first touch of my mouth against his was gentle enough, although that small, relatively innocent contact ignited a fire deep inside me. Suddenly, everything felt a little clearer, a little sharper, a little more intense, from the press of my lips against his to the solid plane of his chest under my fingertips to the heat of his body warming my own.
Unable to resist that hypnotic pull, I stepped even closer to him, seeing how well my curves fit against the harder, sharper angles of his body. The answer? Quite nicely.
I wanted to mold my body to his, to feel every single inch of him pressing up against me, but I forced myself to remove my lips from his and release his jacket. I had no idea how he would respond, now that I had finally acted on this unspoken, undefined thing simmering between us. Maybe he didn’t feel the same way. Maybe flirting with me had just been a game, a way for him to pass the time while he was recuperating from his injuries. Maybe this was all in my head.
I started to step back, to put some more distance between us, but Tucker reached out and gently clasped my hands in his. Those starry silver flecks shimmered in his black eyes, but they soon vanished, swept away by the hunger that filled his face.
“Lorelei.” He whispered my name, his voice lower and rougher than before, a faint question in his tone, as though he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to pull me closer or push me away.
Well, I knew what I wanted, so I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his again. Tucker growled, grabbed my hips, and yanked me toward him, deepening the kiss.
I opened my mouth, and his tongue darted out to meet mine. With every press and stroke of our lips and tongues, that fire inside me burned a little brighter and hotter, even as that pleasurable hum spread through my entire body, like a smug, satisfied purr rumbling through a cat’s belly.
I wound my arms around his neck and plastered my body against his. Tucker’s hands squeezed my hips, then snaked up my back. The two of us were glued together from lips to hips to thighs, and yet it still wasn’tenough.
Our lips and tongues found each other again and again, every kiss a little longer and more intense than the one before it.
Everything else vanished. The empty bathroom. The cool tile surrounding us. The faint murmur of the party music in the distance. All that mattered was my lips and hands on Tucker, and his on me, and the desire exploding between us like fireworks spraying color across a midnight sky…
A doorcreakedopen somewhere behind me, but I ignored it and nuzzled my nose into Tucker’s neck, breathing in his cologne the way I had wanted to for days now—
“Oh, my,” a voice drawled. “I hate to interrupt such a private moment.”
Startled, I spun around, even though Tucker was still holding me in his arms. I hadn’t imagined that door creaking open, and someone had entered the bathroom from the opposite side.
Clyde O’Neal.
Just like Tucker, Clyde was dressed in a black tuxedo, although it didn’t look nearly as good on him as it did on the vampire. Even worse, he wasn’t alone. Three other men, all giants wearing dark gray suits, had also stepped into the bathroom and were leering at me.
My hands balled into tight fists, and I broke away from Tucker and faced Clyde and his goons. “I heard you were looking for me.”
Clyde’s brown gaze moved past me and landed on Tucker. “Yes, I was. And Hugh found you for me, just like he promised he would.”
