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Our lips meet, soft and searching. For a long time, we explore each other. Standing there, kissing. When we stop, he stands back and folds his arms, watching me. Still shaking, I pull up my jeans. I feel suddenly, completely exposed. I reach for my bra and my top, but he grabs them before I do then snatches up my cardigan too.

His tenderness has disappeared, and there is frustration in his eyes now.

“You’ll have these back when you start believing I brought you here for your safety.”

He curls his fist around my clothes. Then turns and strides out of the room, locking the door behind him.

Chapter 11

Lucien

Istand with my back to the closed bedroom door and feel my fingernails dig into my palm as I clasp her clothes tightly in my fist.

My cock is harder than it has been in months. Racing through my veins is a primal, animalistic urge to rip that door from its hinges, and go back into her room, and devour her. I want to hear her whimper again; except this time, I want to watch her eyes widen as I thrust deep inside her.

I want to see her lips quiver, hear my name on her tongue. I want her voice, the one she keeps buried inside, to tell me exactly how hard she wants it. Because even though she looks the picture of innocence, there’s something fluttering beneath the surface of her gaze that tells me she wants to be ruined.

She wants it hard, and fast, and sweaty, and dirty.

And somehow, hearing those filthy things from her, on her honey-sweet tongue, makes them even more torturous.

Unfastening my belt, I wrap my hand around my cock and start to stroke it. I want release. But then I stop because I don’t want it like this; I want it with her.

Inside her.

I want to come while I watch her come.

I turn around and press my palm against her door. A dog-like growl parts my lips and I feel them curl on top of my fangs.

She tasted good. Her blood is sweet and thick, but it isn’t the most powerful I’ve ever tasted, which surprises me.

It has made me horny as fuck. But it hasn’t made me supercharged or stronger or any of the things I’d expect if I’m right about who she is. What she is.

Refastening my belt, I stride away from her, trying not to think about her half-naked body curled up in my bed in my house, pulling the blankets up to cover her perfectly full breasts and her rose red nipples.

Fuck, those nipples.

And the way her voice deepened when she told me to suck them.

I am still hard as hell by the time I reach my study. Immediately, I take my phone from the top drawer and text Kim. Get back here, now. I have another job for you.

He doesn’t reply, but I know he’ll do as I say.

He hates me, but he needs me.

I need him too. A human who can do things in daylight that I can’t.

It is an arrangement that works, even though both of us wish we didn’t need it to.

While I wait for him, I go to the kennels and release the dogs. I let them sniff Luna’s shirt – I keep her bra in my pocket – then open the door to the garden and watch as they race in the direction of her bedroom and position themselves beneath the broken window.

If she tries to move the painting and escape again, they will stop her. There is no way she’ll escape me. Not now.

Slamming the door shut, listening to the dogs barking, I scratch my forearms. They still itch from the sunlight, and my cock is still hard as fuck for Luna.

Back in the study, I sit down at my desk. Instinctively, even though she’s here and not there, I navigate to the security cameras for the bookshop.

Light streams in through the window. Kim did a good job of cleaning up; everything looks completely normal. As if Luna’s going to appear at any moment and open up.