Page 48

Cas is less than impressed with hearing about my bag’s thermal rating as he catches me around the waist, tosses me over his shoulder, and slides the van door shut with a decisive slam.

“Enough.”

“What the fuck?” I demand, squirming against him as he starts toward the house. “Put me down!”

Cas tightens his hold and hefts me more firmly over his shoulder. “No.”

“No?” The goddamn audacity of this vampire. “Excuse me? Put me the fuck—”

“If you’ll agree to stop being so damn stubborn and take one of my extra rooms, I’ll put you down. But since I’m nearly certain that won’t be the case…”

I squirm again, but even on my best day I’m no match for vampiric strength. I make absolutely no progress in dislodging myself as he carries me up the front steps and into the house. All my struggling does is make me acutely, painfully aware of the muscled body beneath me, the firm grip he’s placed on my thigh, the broad expanse of his back and the taut ass I’ve got an unfortunately fantastic view of from where I’m hanging.

Once we step inside, though, into the cavernous entry hall, I find my voice to start complaining again.

“It’s barely warmer in here than it is outside. How is this any better than—”

“Give me a moment,” he grumbles, keeping his hold on me as he pauses to adjust the thermostat at the side of the room.

The faint rumble of an HVAC kicks up somewhere deep inside the house, and Cas starts toward the stairs. Apparently he’s committed to the bit of taking me all the way up to one of those guest rooms he likes to go on and on about, so I surrender to my fate with a put-upon sigh and more snark.

“What? Not used to keeping this place heated above crypt levels?”

Cas lets out an irritated grunt, but doesn’t justify the jab with an answer.

The staircase to the second floor is wide and made of dark hardwood inlaid with a sumptuous burgundy runner. The walls are paneled in deep brown wood that matches the stairs, and hung with paintings in more of the same palette. Dark and moody, perfectly fit to the brooding aesthetic of the whole house.

At the balconied landing, Cas takes a right and heads down a short hallway, stopping in front of a door and walking us both inside. He finally lets me down near a set of large, plush armchairs in front of a fireplace, but doesn’t take his hands off me.

He keeps a steady hold on my waist, tightening his grip when I try to shift away from him.

“Are you going to run, Ophelia?”

The deep, ominous rumble of the question makes something in me squirm. Something that has nothing to do with indignation or irritation.

“And if I am? Are you going to tie me to that bed or something?”

I jerk my chin to where a large four-poster bed sits along the far wall. Cas follows my gaze, the crimson of his eyes nearly black in the shadows. A wicked little smile pulses at the corners of his lips, like he’s not entirely opposed to the idea.

My throat tingles.

Irrationally, annoyingly, right at the spot where his mark is nearly healed, it warms and aches and it’s all I can do to keep my gaze locked with his and ignore the urge to reach up and touch it.

“Can you not simply accept a gesture of kindness and comfort when it’s offered?”

I snort. “Kindness and comfort? More like kidnapping.”

“So dramatic,” he says with a disapproving click of his tongue. “Sit.”

He nods toward one of the armchairs, and again, it’s not a suggestion or an invitation.

“And now you’re giving out commands? Sure doesn’t sound like kindness and comfort to—”

“Sit, Ophelia.”

Another pulse of sensation at my throat and in the bottom of my belly as he turns away without waiting to see if I’m going to obey. He takes a few pieces of wood from the rack beside the fireplace, and I watch as he builds a small pile in the hearth. When he goes back to the rack for more, plus some tinder and a box of matches, it finally registers in my buzzing, thick skull what he’s doing.

“You’re making a fire?”