Setting the bandages and ointment aside for the moment, he handed her the pills and then leaned around her to fill up one of the tiny eco-plastic cups in the toiletry tray by the sink with water. Normally she never would have accepted unknown pills from an equally unknown man, but… he was being gentle, and when he watched her swallow them down with a sip of water, it was with a furrowed brow.
It was almost as if it pained him to see her hurt, though she knew that had to be her imagination. For whatever reason, he seemed to view her as his responsibility. He had no reason to actuallycareabout her.
Except it doesn’t feel that way, does it?
When she finished the cup of water, Kaz plucked it out of her hands and dropped it back on the tray. “How’s your head? Any dizziness? Spots in your vision? Nausea?”
Atria shook her head. “No, just hurts a little.” Perhaps more than a little, but she could already feel the pills working, so she wasn’t too worried about it. A gentle, glowy warmth began to spread through her, wiping away the pain even as she felt a curious throbbing in her head and split cheek.
“What is in those pills?” she asked as all her aches and pains began to melt away.
Kaz reached for the ointment. “Over the counter pain meds laced with vampire venom.”
Unbidden, she pictured the reedy vampire from the plane.Well, I did fantasize about getting some venom, but not this way.“Isn’t that… I’m sorry, aren’t those for military use only? Why do you justhavethose?”
“I’m prepared for anything,” he answered, keeping his gaze on the sachet of ointment as he began to carefully peel the corner off. “And they are good for keeping you going when there’s no healer around. Vampire venom is expensive to harvest, obviously, but when it’s reduced down to its most concentrated form, its healing properties are extremely useful. Two pills and your cuts and bruises should be completely gone by tomorrow night.”
“Oh. Good. Thank you, I guess.”
Atria was listening, but couldn’t stop herself from eyeing the way the cords of his forearm moved, nor the flex and pull of his wide, green chest.
Her stomach tumbled again when he casually tilted his head to one side, jaw, clenched, and showed off the tantalizing slope of his throat and thick bar of his collarbone.
Kaz wasbeautiful.Not in a refined way, but in the raw, natural sense that felt fundamental. It was the same kind of beauty that made people gasp when they stared up at the Himalayas, or that profound sense of smallness one got when they peered down into a blue spot.
His very presence, how he held himself, was so arresting it made the animal part of her brainquiver.
And other things, too.
Atria’s breath quickened as she tried, without success, to clamp down on her abilities. Her touch hunger mixed with the feeling ofhislust made a dangerous concoction.
She’d been desperate for touch for a long time, but after the stress of the airport, the sudden freedom from her physical discomfort, and the precipitous adrenaline crash of realizing she was actually safe, Atria wasravenous.
Kaz flicked the tiny piece of foil-lined plastic onto the counter and moved to dab some of the ointment on her cheek, but when he leaned down, he suddenly froze.
Atria held her breath as his gaze slowly crept up from her cheek. Could he see how flushed she was? Did he feel the heat radiating from between her thighs?
It was a little humiliating how strongly he affected her, especially considering where they’d been only a few hours ago, but when she watched his tongue snake out to lick his lips, Atria found that she didn’t care.
She was a proud woman, but she was also an empath and a creature whoneeded touch.Even if it was just the feeling of a hand on her cheek, a breath in her hair, she needed something — anything.
That roiling ocean just beneath his stoic surface pulled her in.
And really, what was the harm? She doubted they would ever cross paths again once he dropped her off on the sovereign’s stoop. If his lust matched hers, was there anything stopping her from indulging after going so long without?
The fact that he was Margot’s brother-in-law wasn’t… ideal, certainly, but Margot also didn’t have to know.
His personality certainly needed some work, but she didn’t need to think he was charming to enjoy lapping at all that beautiful skin, did she?
They were both frozen, their eyes locked, for the span of several frantic heartbeats before Kaz slowly leaned down. Atria’s eyes fluttered shut as he rested his lips against the swell of her undamaged cheek. The contact was so light it was almost nonexistent. Even so, she felt a bolt of heat and energyzingdown her spine.
And when Kaz let out a hard, stuttering breath against her skin…
Atria made a soft sound in the back of her throat and reflexively clenched her thighs, closing them tightly around his blocky hips.
She felt him tense, then, quicker than the eye could follow, Kaz dropped the sachet and slid his big hands under her nightgown. Leather-covered fingers curled into the soft flesh of her bare thighs, and the faintest pinprick of his claw-caps made her gasp.
“Fuck,”he hissed, parted lips sliding hotly against her cheek, down her jaw, to hover over her own. “You make this fucking difficult, princess.”
