Somehow,thatwas what made her blush to the roots of her hair. “Oh, I don’t know—”
“They’remine.”He opened his eyes to fix her with a look so purely possessive, it made everything in her go soft. “I’ll take them tonight after I get my fill of you.”
She shuddered. Somehow, she managed to reply, “So I guess that answers the question of what I should wear when you pick me up, huh?”
“Pet, the only panties you should have on you are the ones you hand me when I get there.”
ChapterFourteen
Harlan hadn’t felt so tightly coiledsince his first kill.
The act itself held no pleasure, but thehunt,that first thrilling dance between life and death, had marked him. Even as he began to loathe the business of coldblooded murder, his nature would always crave the chase.
He usually satisfied the craving with money. It seemed to activate the same part of his brain, however briefly, when he acquired something rare and precious. The hoarding of beautiful things was its own sort of thrill, after all. The manor was one such acquisition. His cars were another. Even the odds and ends in his kitchen cabinets satisfied a small part of that hungry beast who lived in his breast.
But that feeling paled in comparison to the roaring urges propelling him toward Zia’s home.
The engine had barely turned off when he threw himself out of the car. His long legs ate up the thin gravel of her driveway. The sun, tinged orange and still far, far too bright for him, seared his skin with warning.
Sunset had only just begun, but he couldn’t wait any longer.
He barely slept. All day he checked his phone, obsessively scanning his notifications for signs of trouble, updates on the Amauri situation, or that she’d left her home. He hoped to see a message or two from her, too, but his sweet little witch left him in agonized silence. She probably thought she would disturb him if she messaged him during the day, but the opposite was true.
Going without the sound of her voice, even just seeing words on a screen written by her hand, made him feel increasingly uneasy.
Harlan had lost track of the number of times he checked in with the guards stationed around her home. He’d also stopped counting how many times he replayed the memory of that single drop of blood sliding down her supple thigh.
He was sleep deprived. He was hard as fucking granite. He washungry.
It didn’t matter that he was over an hour early for their date. He pounded on the door anyway.
The sun’s weakened rays still hurt him, but he barely noticed the sting as he waited, breath held, for Zia to open the door. Though it hurt something fierce, he was too old to be at risk of dying in the weak light of sunset. Only babies and the sickly could be killed by exposure to the sun.
Not that it would stop him even if that wasn’t the case, of course. Not even death could keep him away from his anchor.
Either she needs to move in or I need to pack a fucking bag,he thought, claws biting into the door jamb.I can’t live like this.
And she thought he might want someone else in the future? The fact that the thought had even crossed her mind made him balk. He could barelyfunctionfor wanting her. He had thought of her every day for a year. He was so consumed by her, he couldn’t tell up from down anymore.
He wasn’t sure if it took longer for her to answer the door than he anticipated or if it was time stretching like toffee in his mind, his perception made elastic by the bite of pain and relentless desire.
The door swung open.
It took him a breathless moment to understand what he was seeing: Zia, standing in nothing but a fluffy pink towel, her wet curls coiled over her olive toned shoulders, her cheeks flushed and expression slack with surprise.
“Harlan!” she squeaked, one hand curled around the top edge of her towel. “What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to pick me up for another…” Her eyes darted over his shoulder, taking in the angle of the sun, before she let out a horrified screech. The hand that had been loosely wrapped around the door knob fisted in his lapel.
He let her yank him over the threshold. The door slammed shut behind him.
Warm hands cupped his cheeks. Zia’s eyes were huge as she arched onto her tiptoes to peer into his face. “Your skin is all pink! What are you doing here so ea—Ah!”
He clasped his hands around the sides of her neck, tilted her head back, and brought his mouth down to deliver a bruising kiss.
His anchor — so sweet, so giving — melted into him without so much as a flicker of resistance. Her fingers dug into his chest, clinging to his crisp dress shirt, as he slid his tongue against hers, tasting her with a desperation that might have humiliated him a year ago.
She made a needy sound that drove him even wilder. Hunger cramped his stomach even as his cock strained against his slacks. Venom gathered in the roots of his fangs, in the gland that gave him so much damn trouble, to press hard against the nerves around his teeth. It wantedout.
He should have forced some synthblood down his gullet before he came. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t want to devour his anchor quite so much. Maybe he wouldn’t tear off her damp towel and palm her lush, full breast with a grip that bordered on bruising. Maybe he would be gentler when he walked her backwards, down the hall, and into her bedroom.
