I bite on my lip, close my eyes, and wait for him to sink his fangs into my neck.
He doesn’t. He kisses me. A slow, sloppy kiss, pressing himself against me.
When he breaks away from my mouth and trails his lips over my jaw and down to my throat, I whisper to him, “How many girls did you bring to this room back in Slate, Professor? I bet you had a whole line of girls waiting outside for a chance to be with the charming, awe-inspiring Fox Tudor.”
“Stop talking, Miss Storm,” he orders me, dragging his sharp fangs up and down my neck and making me wince.
“I’m just curious,” I say. “You were very popular and a massive heart-throb.”
“Heart-throb,” he scoffs.
“You know you were.”
“Miss Storm,” he says, “stop talking or I’ll be forced to make you stop.”
“I just want to know how many?—”
He’s covering my mouth with his hand in the next moment, gripping my shoulder with his other, then he bites my neck.
I moan loudly, thankful for the hand drowning out my cry. My knees buckle and he has to pull me back up straight. Ecstasy dances around my body. I feel like I’m floating away, up into the sky, into the stars circling the rosy moon itself.
Fox moans too as he sucks on my blood. I can hear him gulping it down.
“So good,” he murmurs as he does. “Tastes so good.”
And just when I think I might float away entirely and never come back down to earth, he withdraws his fangs from my throat, brushing his thumb over the wounds he’s made and healing them.
I flicker open my eyes. His mouth is scarlet with my blood. He licks his lips and his skin is almost golden. I reach out my hand and touch his face. His skin is warm, almost as warm as my own.
“You don’t look so vampiric anymore, Professor,” I muse, studying his face more closely, marveling at the ocean blue floating in his eyes.
“I don’t understand it,” he says, shaking his head. But then he takes my hand in his, draws it down his throat to his chest, presses it against his ribcage, and I can feel his heart beating.
“You said it does that sometimes when you’re around me.”
“It does,” he says. “But I don’t know… it’s like it’s beating more often now, more steadily, continuously. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. But I think it’s you, Briony. I think it’s your magic in my blood, changing me.”
“Can that happen?” I say.
“Not that I know of,” he says. “Trust me, I spent many an hour in the damn library searching for answers and solutions. Trying to find a way to reverse this decision, this deed that wasdone to me. I never found one, not even a hint or an inkling that there was a way. But maybe …”
“If you weren’t a vampire anymore,” I say, “would your powers fade?”
He shrugs. His guess is as good as mine.
“And would you still need my blood?” I say, “because I don’t think I could live without that now.”
Fox frowns. “That’s why I never wanted to do this, Briony. Why I never wanted this to happen.”
“Relax, Professor,” I tell him. “I have three other mates. I love you, but my whole world is not just you. You understand what I’m saying? Your fangs in my throat feel pretty damn amazing, but I’m no addict.”
“Yes. Although, perhaps I’m a little disappointed to find your world doesn’t revolve around me,” he teases. I pinch his arm in response. “Because mine revolves around you, Briony Storm.”
“I’m not sure that’s healthy,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “I’m a walking immortal with no soul. I’m officially dead. I don’t think I need to worry about my health, Briony.”
“Well, you might need to if you’re no longer a vampire,” I tell him.
