“Did I?”
“Mmhm.”
“Am I right?”
His cock jumped again. “Oh, baby. So very right. Can we play?” If he was lying, pretending that her oscillation between sure and loopy didn’t touch any raw nerves, he might as well do the whole bit and assume his most comfortable role, smug bastard extraordinaire. But for Penny, asensitivelysmug bastard.
“We can play. But no more lying. You lied to me. Youweresad. I thought you wanted me.”
“I do! So much. But I know it’s not for the same reason. You want to feel the cold, and I want to feel the burn.Thiskind of burn.” He placed her hand over his chest, above his stilled heart.
“I want you. I want this, Brax. Not beneath. Not above. Well, ‘sex above’ is okay...” She twined her fingers through his hair and slid the other one down his chest, over stiff, small nipples, making him moan.
“Want me?” Too good to be true—and too wrong to be true. He shouldn’t want this, not long-term.
Lies, lies, and more lies...
“Mhmm. The good monster by my side. Fight the bad things with me. Not against.” Words were brief by necessity. Air was escaping, sweat pooling.
“I will. With, not against.” He wasted no time in sealing the promise with a kiss, but quickly broke the contact. His girl was shivering. Shaking. Convulsing? “Penny?”Is this how hot little firecrackers like her come? I mean, she’d probably send me into a full-blown seizure, the way she’s wrapping her tight little slit around me, pumping me, rolling under me, those hips...He grunted out a sound of pleasure.
“Don’t stop.” Heat was draining out of her. Color, too, skin no longer the burnt peach, fading to a deeper-than-normal golden tan.
“I think we need to stop. Not sure this is normal.”
“Nothing is normal here, nothing is normal today. But I feel better. Lucid. Happy. Oh, fuck, yes... very happy,” Penny groaned as he resumed moving inside of her. “Also, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’ll bite you in a minute!” he snarled against her shoulder, eyes burning into hers from the side, irritation on the lips that had just been kissing her.
She took his threat complacently. “Can’t. Cooties.”
“There is nothin’ wrong with me, other than you.” She screwed him up, and this town screwed him up and over, this town that he’d planned to leave, but found himself preferring more and more— because of her. He rutted in her vigorously, as if heaping his frustrations upon her, and just like their wonky truces, he found out she was giving just as good as she got.
“Vampires take. Don’t care who they hurt. Do you like this?” Penny asked breathlessly, squirming under him, letting her hips do all the work for a minute.
As if she couldn’t tell by the look of utter bliss on his face as her pussy milked him. “I’m not an effing statue, of course I like it,” he hissed.
“So, there’s something wrong with you.” Penny slowed. “You care.”
“I know that bit! Thought you did, too.”
“You care if I’m okay, even if you like what you’re getting out of it.”
“It’s this stupid town. All the vamps here are broken. I think you must have guessed it by now, living here all this time. You just wouldn’t let yourself b’lieve it,” he gave up with a dark chuckle.
“You weren’t broken. You were still bad. I could tell... and now I can tell something is different,” she whispered, voice so simple and trusting.
“You’re different, too, you know. Am I the first monster, out of all the ones you’ve seen, that you’ve given a chance?”
Penny glared at him for a second. “First chance like this, that’s for damn sure.”
He kissed her, lightly, slowly, letting her control things, pull him in, leave him panting, and he didn’t even need to breathe. He was the worst one she could have given a chance to. He wasn’t playing nice out of moral conviction; he was cursed.
And sometimes he felt like she was his worst curse of all. He’d stopped thinking about biting her, searing rebound pain or no. “I am different. I think—I think being around you makes me different,” he finally said.
Penny looked up at him, lips bright pink and face flushed in a way that had nothing to do with fever and everything to do with kissing him like her life depended on it. She was going to say that she saw it. That she knew the man was under the demon. That she believed in him.
He waited, eyes softening.
