Page 137 of A Taste of Bliss

I force myself to look at his face, instead of his abs. Seeing again how sallow his skin looks helps shake off my lust. He needs to feed. And soon.

“Pisces, I—” I don’t know how to start. I try again. “If I saw a rune in your eye, I would have told you.”

He doesn’t so much as look at me.

“I know how the mating bond works, Bliss. If I see a rune in your eye, you see one in mine. That’s how it works.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I promise you, I don’t see one. But we can try to figure it out.”

“Just stop.”

I shut my mouth, preventing more words from spilling out. Instead, I take a deep breath and nod. He needs time to cool off. Fine. It’s not like we won’t have plenty of time to talk later.

But there is a more pressing matter. So I switch gears.

“Pisces, if you don’t feed and you get too low on power, you’re going to attack me and it will be painful.” I get up off the bed, going to stand in front of him. I’m not going to take no for an answer this time.

“I can go a while without that,” he mumbles, not looking at me. I step closer into his space.

“But you don’t need to suffer.” I kneel down in front of him, trying to get him to look me in the eyes.

“I’ll wait,” he says, looking at me for a few seconds. He has to squeeze his eyes shut, as if looking at me is painful for him.

“We aren’t getting out of here anytime soon, Pi.”

Pisces snaps up out of the chair, and suddenly I find myself lifted off the ground, back slamming against the wall, his hands caging my head in. “Don’t call me that, ever.”

I can’t breathe for a minute. He’s towering over me, a wall of muscle and height and anger. Swallowing thickly, I nod. “Okay,” I whisper, eyes falling to the floor.

He stiffens and sighs, arms falling away.

“There’s this other way to feed, a lure.”

“What’s that?”

“I focus on someone and sing, and they come to me. I didn’t kidnap you, okay? But it was my fault that you sleepwalked. I wasn’t trying to,” he adds hastily. “I was trying to lure someone else, but it didn’t work.”

He was trying to lure someone else? Another woman, maybe?

For some reason, that stings.

He lowers his head, almost touching his forehead to mine. His damp hair brushes my skin, he’s that close. If I move just alittle, it would be so easy to close the distance and kiss him. Why do I even want that? Suddenly, I’m no longer afraid of being caged in by him, but it’s like he reads the change in my energy and backs away, going to sit on the edge of the bed.

I stay leaning against the wall.

He looks up at me, his bottom lip curled inward the way it does when he’s upset. “Can I try the lure on you again? I’ll feed off your emotions instead of your flesh.”

Shakily, I nod. I don’t want to lose control like that, but it’s probably better than having those insane teeth shred my skin to pieces.

He closes his eyes and he’s silent for a little bit. He opens his eyes and they find mine, and he starts to sing. It’s not a song I’ve ever heard before, but the lyrics cause goose bumps to erupt all over my arms. Suddenly I’m striding forward, pulled to him by some invisible force. I come right up to him, standing in between his legs.

He reaches out and grips me by the hips. “I think physical contact is part of it,” he says, more to himself. But I barely register it. I’m too focused on his lips, on the way he always breathes through his nose. Strong breaths, because he has strong lungs. I place my hand on his chest, wanting to feel his heartbeat, wanting to feel his skin. I wonder what emotion he’ll feed off, because in this moment I only feel the closeness between us, the desire to touch him.

I only know he’s done feeding when it feels like I’m waking up from a half-sleep. My vision becomes sharper, and more awareness floods into me.

“Was that it?” I ask, a bit awed. It seems too easy.

He nods, a bit more color in his cheeks and a soft glow to his skin. Skin that I still want to touch.