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So close. He’d been so close to taking it.

Until she’d begged him to take her.

He didn’t know why, but that had stripped the last of the madness away. His reasoning had returned. If only for a few seconds.

A few seconds that he debated with himself. With her heat cuddling his hardness, Julian had been tempted to give in, but his surroundings had cut into his consciousness.

Not in public.

Not when other vampires looked at his mate with lust.

If he took her, she’d only belong to him, her cries of ecstasy for him alone.

But damn, he hadn’t wanted to stop. The last time he was this hard, he was a young vamp still enjoying newfound immortality. He wanted nothing more than to slide his cock inside Leah’s waiting body. Her lips were red and swollen from his kiss. Her clothes rumpled. And desire still clouded her lovely eyes. From the greedy way she looked at him, she would welcome him back.

No complaints.

After all, she’d begged him to hurry, to finish it, but the last honorable part of him said no.

Honorable?

Julian frowned. Great, now his conscience was making a comeback. He didn’t even have his soul back. Just imagine what would happen if he took her blood.

It was a good thing that he’d stopped.

He shifted her so she was in his arms. The moment their skin touched, the embers of their desire flared back into an inferno. The scent of her blood, of her arousal, was more than he could bear. Julian gritted his teeth, refusing to give in. He hadn’t built the ice wall around him for nothing.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was throaty, but her eyes were clearing.

“We’re going to the club.”

Julian didn’t want to take her there, but he had a job to do. Bryan could keep her safe while he searched for the Hunters.

“Club?” Her brows furrowed until they passed the line of people waiting outside. Then recognition lit her face. “No! Put me down! I won’t go in there.”

When she started struggling, Julian tightened his hold. He curved one hand possessively on her butt and sensed her hesitation before throwing her over his shoulder.

“What—?”

Leah’s breath whooshed out of her as she found herself staring at the pavement. Her mouth dropped open. Blood rushed to her head. Did the brute really throw her over his shoulder?

Fury ignited, burning away any vestige of lust from earlier.

“Let me go!” She pounded on his back, but she might as well have been a fly, for her efforts had no consequence. She would’ve kicked, but he clamped one arm over her thigh, locking the other over her calves, leaving her no room to move.

“Welcome, Mr. Blackmore.”

She ignored the bouncer’s greeting and shouted over him, “You can’t take me in there! You just molested me on the street!”

“I saved you from two hungry vampires.”

Leah barely heard the end of Julian’s sentence as he stepped through the doors. Music, hard and heavy rock, blasted her from all sides, so loud she couldn’t hear herself think. She was sure she had a smart reply for the Neanderthal carting her around like a piece of meat, but it wasn’t worth it shouting against the music to argue with Blackmore.

Besides, her curiosity got the better of her. Everyone avoided Julian as he passed. Her vantage point was limited but what she could see though—the vampire feeding in the booth they just passed or the two or three people having sex in the corner—confirmed all those rumors she’d heard about the vampire clubs.

Sex. Feeding. Ecstasy.

Dimitri and the rest of the Organization called this a place of sin, a glaring example of the vampire’s depravities, and a place for the seduction of innocent souls to hell.