Page 114 of You’re So Vein

And something about the magical grove, and the way his lips are puffy from the kissing, and his hair is all messed up, turns me a little feral, too. I run my fingers over the bulge in his trousers and whisper into his mouth. “That’s a lie.”

My accusation hangs in the air between us. I stare into those firelight eyes, and I think that I have never truly seen Augustin Durant before.

“You,” he whispers. “It’s always been you.”

And then, with all that vampiric strength, he picks me up and deposits me onto the bench.

He drops to his knees in front of me.

His cool hands slide up my thighs, under my dress. His eyes lock with mine.

He’s not… is he?

But he looks very much like he might.

“I wonder if you taste of plum,” he murmurs to himself as he slides my red skirt up my thighs. Where his cool skin touches mine, I sizzle, the way you do when you’ve spent too long in a spa before jumping back into a cold pool. He drags his teeth along my inner thigh, slowly, carefully, not breaking the skin. His eyes never leave mine.

A kiss we can ignore. We could pretend we were drunk or sick or afraid, and we’d made another mistake.

But this… if we do this, we can’t go back. I can’t glare at this man across the council table and not remember him between my legs.

But maybe I don’t want to forget.

Fuck it.

The way he’s looking at me now, like I’m fixing something broken in him, just by existing… it’s too much. I turn my head.

“Komal.”

That voice like broken glass.

“Komal. Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t look at me because you take care of everyone. You believe that I want you to fix me. You spend all your time worrying about other people, about making them happy. Let me take care of you.”

Let me take care of you.

I swallow.

“Okay.”

I turn back to him. Those firelight eyes find mine again, and it’s almost too much. Him looking at me like I’m part of the magic of this place just by existing in it. It’s uncomfortable. My skin itches. I’m supposed to do something. I have to earn this kind of worship.

I force myself not to look away. I force myself to watch.

Augustin bends, pressing his lips into my inner thigh. He kisses a trail up my leg, then touches his lips to the fabric of my underwear. He breathes in, his whole body shuddering.

I never thought a guy sniffing me could be so hot. Winnie’s right, there’s something about being with a vampire, about knowing that they’re not human, that beneath their skin is a thirst for blood, for you. It’s heady in the best way.

His fingers hook under the edges of my panties. He never breaks his gaze as he slides them down. The night sings.

And then his lips are on me, and it’s heaven and hell at once.

His tongue is pure liquid fire, but his lips cool his touch, bringing me back from the edge again and again as he trails the lightest kisses over me before laving over my clit.

He spreads me with his fingers, holding me prisoner while he works my clit, then tastes my entrance, and back again. He’s so thorough and fastidious, making certain there is not an inch of me left unexplored and unpleasured. I would laugh at the pure Augustin-ness of him if I wasn’t a quivering mess of want.