Page 8 of Bite Back

ASHER

This woman. Where did she come from? God.

That sounds like a cheesy pickup line. It’s been a year since Ryan and I broke up, three since I dated, and I’m rusty.

It’s one thing to pretend, to lure in vamps with a smile and a slick line.

It’s another thing to do that when your heart’s pounding and your brain’s scrambled.

At least I’m practiced at keeping my face schooled.

So, even though I feel ridiculous, I don’t look like it. Hopefully.

From the way the white woman moves, I can tell that she’s not a vamp, with their eerily graceful movements.

Even though this club’s a hot spot for them.

Not the nice type of vamps either. The name says it all: Aconite.

Means wolfsbane. This place is for the vamps who think they’re better than werewolves, better than other supernaturals, and, most of all, better than humans.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. They still associate with humans, even though they wouldn’t be caught dead with a shifter. But they don’t see them as equals. Humans are food. And maybe sometimes fucks.

Is that why this woman is here? It’s definitely a thing. Human women hunting for vampire dates. Not realizing that, really, they’re the ones being hunted.

She carries herself with her spine straight and shoulders thrown back.

She’s tall. Not as tall as me, but I’d put her at five ten or eleven.

Her eyes are an arresting shade of light blue, the color of the sky on a clear spring day.

Her black mini dress hugs her curves, skimming over the swell of her belly and the generous flair of her hips and ass.

Long waves of dark hair tinted with cherry cola red fall down her shoulders.

The color contrasts sharply with her porcelain skin.

She wears a slash of red lipstick across her lips.

With her pale skin and soft curves, she looks like a woman out of a Renaissance painting.

Otherworldly, almost. Like some kind of goddess.

But there’s also something sharp about her.

Maybe an avenging angel. In short, she looks like a woman you don’t want to mess with. The kind of woman who breaks hearts.

It’s a good thing I don’t have a heart left to break. After things ended with Ryan, I’ve met up with a few men and women from hookup apps, no strings, no feelings, strictly casual. Nothing that would qualify as dating.

She pulls me onto the dancefloor, weaving through the crush of bodies.

People jostle all around us, and I draw closer to her on instinct.

She leans back into my touch, pushing her body back into mine.

We fit together like pieces of a puzzle, her form lining up with mine like we were made for each other.

I’m hyperaware of every inch of her that presses against me, from her shoulders against my chest to her ass against the zipper of my jeans.

And then she begins to dance, and I lose my goddamn mind. It’s intoxicating. The press of her against me, grinding against my hardening length. The way she tosses her hair over her shoulder, bobbing in time with the beat. The way she first mouths then screams the words to the song.

She loses herself in the music. Or maybe she finds herself. I’m completely and utterly entranced.

In the past, people dated me because I’m a hunter. They think that’s dark and dangerous and devastatingly mysterious. Or they think I’ll keep them safe from the things that go bump in the night.

This woman doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know my job or my reputation.

And maybe that’s why I’m so goddamn turned on right now.

Because even though we’ve only shared a few sentences, this moment, this dance, feels a hell of a lot more real than so many previous dates I’ve had.

She’s here for me. And she’s here for herself, her own fun, her own pleasure.

She looks over her shoulder, eyes gleaming up at me. As she rotates her hips with increasing pressure, a low moan escapes me. Entirely involuntarily. And, I’d like the record to show, I don’t usually moan in public. And by usually, I mean ever.

I’m not the kind of guy who picks up strangers in clubs. I’m not the kind of guy who spontaneously dances with them. And I’m certainly not the kind of guy who makes out with said stranger in the middle of the dancefloor.

Except it turns out I am. She leans in or maybe I do. We collide, drawn together like magnets. Her lips are on mine, and I don’t ever want them to leave. This isn’t a gentle, tentative kiss. No. This is something else. Hard and hungry. The kind of kiss that leads to more.

A claiming, almost. She twists around so that her front is pressed against mine.

I bracket her hips with my hands, pulling her towards me, shrinking the already nonexistent space between us even further.

Her arms snake up around my neck, fingers curling into my now loose hair, holding my neck in place adamantly.

As if air’s unnecessary. As if she’s insisting I not break the kiss.

As if I would. As if I could. This woman has me utterly under her spell.

Time stands suspended as we kiss, an inferno in the middle of the dancefloor. I’m consumed by this woman and this kiss and this moment. I don’t ever want it to end.

But as much as I want to stay like this forever, I also want more. I want what comes next. I want her. Unwilling to break the kiss, I shuffle her towards the edge of the floor. My back bumps up against the dancing bodies surrounding us, but I don’t care. I lose myself in her.

We reach the edge of the dancefloor and pull apart.

My breath comes out in wild gasps. She’s panting too, eyes glazed, pupils wide.

But a smile breaks across her face, wide and heady.

And she grabs me, fingers tight around my arm, more running than walking, yanking me towards a shadowy hallway by the emergency exit.

Velvet drapes frame the mouth of the hallway, partially obscuring it from view of the main club. I follow her. I’d follow her anywhere.

The shadows welcome us as she tugs my head back down to hers.

I lose myself in the caress of her lips on mine, the press of her body against me.

The softness of her lips contrasts with the assertiveness with which she wields them.

It’s too much and not enough. I should invite her back to my place.

We should take this somewhere that we can see it through.

Where I can do everything my body wants.

Where I can give her everything she wants.

I flip us around, pushing her back against the wall and pinning her hips against mine. Now she’s the one moaning, hungry and desperate. And I can’t have that. I aim to please.

My hand skates up her waist, stopping just below the swell of her breast. I pull back and lock my eyes with hers. “What do you want?”

It comes out in a murmur, low and heavy with need.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Her voice pitches high, and something curls in my core. I want to satisfy her. But I want to be sure. I only want it if she does.

“Yes to what? Tell me.” A tremble of anticipation runs through me.

“Yes to whatever. Touch me. Feel me. Fuck me.”

I don’t wait any longer. Can’t. Her words shoot through me like a jolt of electricity. My hand slides up, palm enveloping her small breast, while my other grabs her generous ass. Her nipple hardens under my palm, and my pants grow even tighter.

I spin her around so her chest faces the wall and her ass is towards me. A loud whimper leaves her at the loss of friction, but I quickly stifle it with a hand over her mouth. The music’s quieter here, and I can’t have anyone catching us. Can’t have anything stopping this.

I slip a hand under her skirt, seeking out her core. This is wild. We could get caught. Anyone could spot her here, skirt riding up to her waist. The curtains and shadows only offer so much cover. I don’t care. I can’t stop.

I pull the top part of her dress down as well so the whole thing hangs around her waist. She gasps into my hand as I bend down and kiss a line along the swoop of her shoulder.

At the same time, I run my other fingers along her slit, finding her wet and soaked for me.

I like that. I like it a lot. I begin to work and tease her, and she arches back into me, head going limp.

I circle her entrance gently, before curling a finger inside her core.

“More,” she whimpers. And so I give her more, adding a second finger as my palm presses against her clit. Her walls clench my fingers tighter and tighter, and I maintain a steady rhythm until she flutters around me. She moans, a messy, wanton thing.

It damn near undoes me. I don’t think I’ve ever been this rock hard in my life.

“Yes, yes, come for me. Look at you, look at you.” My words tumble out in a nonsensical jumble.

She pulls my fingers into her mouth, licking her tongue over them, and my mind races at the thought of that mouth, that tongue, elsewhere on my body.

My fingers trace the sharp spike of an elongated canine. The spell breaks.

I jolt back, wrenching my hand from her mouth. She carries herself with the stance of predator for a reason. A damn good one. A damn obvious one. She’s a goddamn bloody vampire, and I’m a fucking fool.

Technically, there’s no reason I can’t fuck a vampire.

It’s not against the Academy’s code so long as the vampire isn’t breaking any laws.

And I have no reason to suspect she is. Okay, I mean we probably just broke multiple laws.

Public indecency and all that. But nothing important, nothing truly dangerous.

As cliché as it sounds, it’s not her, it’s me.

I just can’t. Not after what happened. Not after what I promised myself.

I have to protect myself. Because, once upon a time, I couldn’t.

The images of that night rise up in my mind unbidden.

Red, hot and sticky, painted everywhere, coating their bodies and my hands.

A ringing sound fills my ears and bile rises in my throat.

I swallow it down. Slow my breaths to a steady flow.

She’s watching me now, eyes wide. They’ve lost the dazed look they held earlier. She adjusts her skirt and yanks up her top, hurriedly covering herself. Tears well and glisten in her eyes. Understandably so. I inadvertently subjected her to a game of hot and cold.

But even now, even now that I know, my gaze traces over the flush painted across her cheeks in the dim light. She’s gorgeous. Everything I want. Everything I can never have again.

God. Fucking. Damn. It.