Page 96 of Wells

"You feel out of place."

It is not a question.

"A little."

"Don't."

"Easy for you to say. You live here."

Wells reaches out and brushes his thumb beneath my chin, a touch so light it almost tickles, and it lands everywhere at once.

"You're the only person I've ever brought here."

That stops me cold. I search his face for the joke, the exaggeration, anything that would make the statement less enormous than it is. I find nothing.

"Really?"

"Really. I don't entertain much."

He takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom, and I follow because I don't know what else to do with everything he just said.

One glass wall, floor to ceiling, faces the same vantage as the living room, overlooking the water. The bed is huge, low to the ground, with white sheets and dark wood. The rest of the room is empty except for a single chair and a closet with sliding doors that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

I walk to the window and press my palm against the glass. It's cool under my hand, and the city sits impossibly far below.

"You sleep with this view every night?"

"I don't sleep much."

I turn. Wells stands near the bed, watching me with an intensity that makes my chest tighten.

"I forgot you're a vampire."

"Too much to do. I'll sleep when I die."

He doesn't smile when he says it, and the room goes quiet enough to pull me off the window and across the floor to him. The banter drains out of me a step at a time, and by the time I reach him there's nothing light left in my chest, only how much I've wanted to be exactly here since I woke up.

"I've been thinking about this all day," I tell him.

"Then come here."

He kisses me, cradling my face between his hands. I wrap my hands around his back and pull him into me. I moan into him without meaning to.

He pulls me down to the bed, never breaking the kiss until we are both lying. Wells breaks the kiss and stretches out beside me, propped on one elbow, and for a moment he just looks at me. His hand comes up, slow, and he traces the line of my collarbone with his thumb.

"Will you let me taste you?"

The words land low in my stomach, a heat that spreads before I can think of what to say back. I don't usually let men go there with me. I've never been able to relax enough to enjoy it.

I nod.

He lifts my shirt over my head and kisses the rise of my chest above my breasts. His breath is warm, and his mouth is soft, and the goosebumps rise everywhere he kisses, slower than he's ever taken me before.

When he comes back up to my face, his tongue slides against mine, and the hum of it drops low between my legs.

His cock presses hard against my thigh, but he doesn't move to close the distance. He stays here, in the kiss, until I'm the one shifting closer.

His mouth moves to the hinge below my ear, then my throat, and I tilt my head back to give him room. He lingers there, the scrape of his teeth followed by the heat of his tongue, and my breathing goes shallow.