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“Most men don’t consider wine nutritionally irrelevant.”

“It still sets a mood.”

“So does blood, if you’re sufficiently disturbed.”

“I became a vampire against my will and live over a laundromat. Disturbed is one of my better qualities.”

He drank while I pretended to study the titles stacked beside his couch. The bond made pretending useless. I felt the first swallow as a warm pull beneath my ribs. Color touched his cheeks, faint but unmistakable, and the exhaustion around his eyes eased.

The intimacy of watching him feed should have unsettled me. Instead, I wanted to move closer.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“I’m evaluating your table manners.”

“And?”

A thin streak of red marked the corner of his mouth. “Inconclusive.”

I crossed the room before caution could remind me that this was a terrible idea. He went still as I lifted my hand and wiped the drop away with my thumb.

His fingers closed gently around my wrist.

Neither of us moved.

His gaze dropped to my mouth, and the bond pulled tight enough to steal my breath. “Can I kiss you?”

“You already have.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

Of course he would choose now to become reasonable. I had spent my life surrounded by people who treated permission like an inconvenience. Logan, cursed, hungry, and looking at me as if restraint might kill him, still waited.

“Yes,” I whispered. “You can kiss me.”

He brushed his mouth over the pad of my thumb first. The tiny touch sent heat racing through me. Then he released my wrist, slid one hand around my waist, and drew me close enough that the warmth the blood had given him seeped through my clothes.

His kiss began carefully. It stayed careful for perhaps three seconds.

I gripped his shirt and pulled him closer. His other hand settled against my back, steady and certain, while his mouth opened beneath mine. The bond surged between us, hungry and bright. Gold light flickered along my fingers where they curled against his chest.

Logan tried to step backward without ending the kiss. His heel caught the leg of the coffee table. The table lurched, three books slid toward the floor, and he made a sound against my mouth that contained equal parts frustration and wounded dignity.

I caught the books with one hand and the table with a snap of magic.

“Smooth,” I murmured.

“I was doing fine until the furniture launched an ambush.”

“The table has been here the entire time.”

“That proves premeditation.”

I laughed, and some of the tension broke. Instead of letting embarrassment drive him away from me, I guided him to the couch and waited until he was seated. Then I stepped between his knees.

His expression changed. The humor remained, but desire sharpened it into something that made every clever thought abandon me.

“Still yes?” he asked.