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“Eyes on the road!” Mel shouts.

My heart drops through the floor as I swerve back into my lane, the long, angry honk of the car behind me blaring in my ears. The plastic of the steeringwheel cracks threateningly as my grip tightens. My cheeks glow with heat as the mortification of the moment catches up with me. I have the overwhelming urge to swerve into a lamppost.

In the corner of my eye, I notice Mel slapping Celeste on the arm. “Stop distracting the girl,” the siren says. “Or I’ll put a bag over your head.”

Celeste only smiles and turns her gaze back to the passing cityscape.

‘Maybe if I told you the right words, oh, at the right time,”Tracy sings.‘You’d be mine.’

Heartbeat still stumbling, I keep my eyes glued to the road. Our near-accident shuts Mel up for a whole two minutes before she begins demanding I go faster again.

***

My heart is still racing when I get to Celeste’s house after dropping Mel off, mind alight with excitement. I’m surprised to find myself not wanting the night to end.

I stand a little awkwardly by the driver door after we get out, not sure what to do with myself. I could, of course, leave and take the bus home…

“Come on,” Celeste says as she passes me, walking towards the house. “Or should I tell the cat that it’s his lucky day?”

While I’m still deliberating, my body is already mindlessly walking after her. She stops halfway up the path, swearing. When I reach her, she steadies herself on my shoulder.

“What is it?”

She holds up her broken heel. “I should get this repaved,” she mumbles, looking down at the perfectly adequate path.

I laugh, still high on the rush of the drive. “You’re just trying to get that… what is it? Paladin?”

“Palanquin, kitten,” she chuckles. Then, with a challenging look in her eyes, she puts her arm around my shoulder. “Well?”

Shaking my head, I pick her up. I don’t know how she manages to make me feel like a servant rather than a total badass doing this but she does.

Celeste unlocks the door with a flick of her wrist and I carry her inside, agonizingly aware of how close we are. The more time I spend like this, the harder it becomes not to think of the way she pinned me against the wall in that alleyway. I carry her into the living room, where a fire is already crackling in the hearth, and set her down on her chaise lounge.

She lets her head fall back and laughs when I slip off her other heel. “What are you doing, kitten?”

I take her shoes out to the hallway, saying over my shoulder, “Don’t pretend you don't like to be waited on hand and foot.”

She smirks when I get back, an expression delicately balanced between wicked and sweet. “On hands and knees, actually.”

After having tried so hard to claw control back from my vampire self, it seems inappropriate to feel grateful for it. And yet, when I go to my knees before her chair, looking up at her expectantly, I am. Without it, I’d have never had the audacity for this.

Celeste furrows her brows in an expression of pain, her eyes slipping from my face to my neckline and then over my body. Maybe this is why she wanted me to wear something nice.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says quietly.

She’s not entirely wrong but I’m not about to admit that. “What am I doing?”

She bites her lower lip. “Tempting me.”

“Then I do know what I’m doing.” I feel almost giddy. It’s like the terrified girl living on some shabby mattress has been replaced by someone else. Giving in to the darkness might be a mistake but it's so easy.

She leans forward and reaches down to curl her fingers around my neck, inspecting my face. “And what do you think you’re tempting me into? Sweet, boring sex and then holding you after?”

I blush, inadvertently trying to turn my head away in my embarrassment but she buries her other hand in my hair, gripping it and forcing me to keep looking at her.

“Let me guess,” I begin breathlessly, “You’re not sweet?”

She smiles insidiously. “No. But you might need to be held after I’m done with you.”