Could be they hadn’t noticed my absence. The only person I’d seen since my arrival was Dorran. Even the blood bags arrived through a slot in the door.
I sighed.
“Something wrong, Kitten?”
I didn’t bother to answer.
My name wasn’t fucking Kitten.
Back to the house…
“You know,” he said, almost idly. “I’m here to help you.”
…I wanted something hedonistic in the bathroom. A huge tub, something I could practically swim in, as well as just languish and soak. When was the last time I had a real shower much less a bath? One upside to the vamp blood, I supposed, was the lack of body hair growth. This long without a real chance to groom, and I should look like Bigfoot.
I could stand the hair on the legs, not the hair in my pits. Nope. Just made me itch thinking about it.
But the lack of even the appearance of stubble was definitely an upside.
“You are a stubborn little hellion, aren’t you?” The amusement curving through the words wasn’t remotely sexy. “Kitten.”
Definitely a big tub, jets, too. I could do bubble baths, or crank it up to something churning.
Oh. A splash guard would be—
From indolent to action, Maddox suddenly loomed over me in my corner, his eyes blazing. When hot fingers cupped my chin and yanked my gaze up to his, I curled my fingers. I did not give him permission to touch me. “You go ahead and claw at me if you need to,” he told me in a raspy voice. “You can scowl, you can even kick me in the balls—though I’d prefer not to repeat that experience—what you don’t get to do is ignore me.”
I snorted. The weight of his thumb along my jaw sent heat curling through my system. It was colder on this level than it had been on mine. Maybe it was just the fact that I’d been sitting against the stone for hours and it had leached all the heat from my body. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t in any danger of freezing to death. My eyes had adjusted fine to the near-total darkness the extinguishing torches plummeted us into. But I didn’t need the night sight to make him out.
The son of a bitch’s eyes glowed.
“You know, Kitten, it’s rude to withhold your tongue. Even if all it has to say are scathing things.”
“Are you bored?” I asked abruptly, and surprise flickered through his eyes.
“No,” he answered after a beat, keeping his hand firm on my jaw.
“Neither am I. Now fuck off.”
A growl rumbled in his chest, but I flicked my gaze to the left of his and let my eyes go unfocused. The bathroom could be done in blue tones…
The grip on my jaw tightened and then released abruptly. I kept my gaze trained elsewhere, but the jerk of him scooping me off the floor yanked my attention to the present. “Are you impaired in some way?” I demanded, ignoring the hard chest he cradled me against or the fact that heat from his body licked across mine like a cheerful fire crackling in the fireplace.
His snort seemed to echo mine from earlier, but he didn’t answer as he stood and carried me back over to the bed he’d been occupying. When he settled, he didn’t lie down so much as sit with his back braced against the wall and me in his lap.
The very hard cock beneath my ass wasn’t remotely comfortable. Maybe I should have kicked him harder.
“Get some sleep, Kitten,” he rumbled. “If you can.”
“Did anyone ask you?” I flattened a hand against his chest to shove away, but it was like being bound in steel. The heat seemed to rise off of him in shimmering waves, chasing away the stone chill buried in my bones.
“No,” he murmured, almost agreeably before he nuzzled his face against my hair.
“If you start licking me again, I’m going to tie a knot in your dick so tight, you’ll be screaming when you take a piss.”
Dead silence greeted my proclamation. Then he began to shake. The soft vibration and huffs of barely suppressed laughter rocked him. Since he had me all wrapped up in the steel bands of his arms and curled against his too hot, too hard body, it rocked me, too.
“Kitten,” he said in between growling chuckles. “You’re a delight.”
Oh, just fucking kill me.
I rolled my eyes and tipped my head back, uncaring if he thought I bared my throat to him. For the record, I wasn’t, but what I debated was whether I should slam my head into his face again. I still had a headache from earlier, but it would be worth it to shut him up.
When he dragged his nose along my throat, however, I froze. Every instinct I possessed began to scream. I curled my fingers at the first deep inhale he took, and tried to ignore the way my skin pebbled and my pussy clenched when he exhaled and the warmth of his breath eddied over my flesh.
Liquid warmth spilled through my system, chasing the chill from my veins, and I squirmed to find a more comfortable place to sit than the hard cock jabbing me right in the ass. He pressed his lips right over my pulse point, but at my next wriggle, his teeth grazed the skin and I scowled.
“You bite me, and I will end you.”
His laughter huffed against my skin, even as he began to move his mouth along my throat in a half caress, half nibbling motion. His teeth added just the promise of sting, and I wasn’t clenching my ass or my pussy in anticipation of that bite.
No, I absolutely wasn’t.
“The last son of a bitch who bit me nearly drained me to death,” I said in as icy a controlled tone as I could manage given the conflicting messages of ‘no’ and ‘oh fuck yes’ my body seemed to be giving out. The musk of his desire scented the air heavily around me, a cloud of choking testosterone and something so very decadently other that I had to fight against sucking it in greedily.
Whatever he was, he smelled divine.
It, I mentally corrected. It. Not he.
A pause, then a soft kiss and the rasp of his stubble against my flesh like he was rubbing his cheek against my throat. Fuck me, that actually felt good.
“What was his name?” The question slid through me, inviting me to answer, beckoning as surely as if he’d slid his fingers into my wet pussy and crooked them until I saw stars.
Stop it.
My traitorous body needed to shitcan those thoughts right now. I was not hungry, and contrary to all the lovely rumors about my kind, I didn’t just spread my legs for every dick I met.
Not even hard, hot dicks that would probably take some effort to engulf and would likely drill me until I saw stars.
Nope, not doing it.
What was the name of the fucker who drained me to the brink of death then force-fed me his blood? Not happening.
When I caught up to him—and I would—I planned to break his legs and then every other joint in his body, give him just enough blood to heal, then start over.
A few centuries of that, and I might get bored.
Asshole.
“You can tell me, Kitten,” Maddox invited in that sexy baritone. “I promise to share, but I’d rather end your maker before he recalls the persuasive power he might have over you.”
That made me laugh. “He can’t control me.”
The idea was so patently ridiculous, I couldn’t stop the chuckles shaking me. He lifted his head abruptly as I ran a hand over my face trying to suppress the mirth. The riveted stare suggested he’d never heard a woman laugh before.
How sad for him.