Page 75 of Inked & Bloodbound

The dismissiveness in his tone ignites something indignant inside me. I sit up, clutching the towel to my chest, my whole body trembling with a cocktail of arousal and rage.

“Bullshit,” I snap. “It won’t be up for hours. You can’t use that excuse with me. What’s the real reason?”

He won’t meet my eyes as he stands, smoothing down his shirt like nothing happened. Like I wasn’t just writhing underneath him, begging him to take me. Like he wasn’t just as desperate as I was.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and the words sound hollow. “I just don’t want to hurt you again. Tomorrow night…be ready. Wear something dark, something that would fit in at a vampire club.” “I’ll be back at nine to get you.”

“That’s it?” My voice cracks with disbelief. “You’re just going to…leave? After that? Why do you always do this to me? Do you get off on rejecting me or something? Do you love it when I beg for scraps of your affection?”

He doesn’t answer, so I force myself into his head.

I’m not just a human spirit box. I’m a whole fucking person, Cassini. I have needs, too.

“Cass?”

Cassini!

He finally looks at me, and there’s something desperate in his expression that makes my rage falter for just a second.

But then his mask slides back into place, and he’s the untouchable vampire again.

“Get some sleep, Lily.”

And then he’s gone. The front door closes with a soft click that echoes through my empty house.

I sit there in the dark, hair still wet, my body still aching with need and my mind reeling with rejection.

Again. Once again, I’ve thrown myself at him and been turned away like I’m asking for something I don’t deserve.

The venom flowing through my amped-up nervous system makes everything feel heightened. The humiliation, the anger, the desperate want that he’s left me drowning in. I want to scream, to break something, to chase after him and demand an explanation.

Instead, I pull the towel tighter around myself and try to pretend my heart isn’t shattering into a million pieces.

25

CASSINI

The silence in the Maserati is suffocating.

Lily sits pressed against the passenger door like she’s trying to meld with the metal, her body angled away from me, staring out at the Austin night through the tinted glass. The strappy black dress she chose hugs the curves of her body in ways that make my stomach constrict—not from desire, though that’s always there, but from the knowledge that every vampire in the festering cesspit that is Nocturne will notice her too.

She’s wearing heavier, darker makeup than usual. Smudged black eyeliner rings her deep blue eyes, and her lips are dripping with red, the color of warning. Not a word has been uttered since I picked her up twenty minutes ago. I opened the passenger door and leaned in for a kiss, but she ignored me. Just slid into the car and buckled her seatbelt like we’re a couple of strangers sharing a ride. She’s even worn the silver “L” necklace, a surefire way to keep me away from her throat.

I deserve this. I know I deserve this.

But that doesn’t stop the memory from clawing at my chest—the sound of her crying last night. I’d buried myself six feetunder the tree in her backyard, letting the cool earth cover me like a blanket, trying to escape the thread that pulls me to her. Even surrounded by dirt and darkness, I could hear her sobbing. Each broken breath felt like a blade sliding between my ribs.

I want you,she’d whispered in that bedroom.Promise me I’m yours.

And I’d walked away. Because I can’t promise her anything. The deeper I fall for Lily, the more inevitable her demise becomes, and I can’t face that.

Love makes me stupid. Love makes me dangerous.

And I’m falling so fucking hard for the woman sitting two feet away from me that I can barely breathe.

“We need to go over the plan,” I say finally, my voice cutting through the tension like glass.

She doesn’t turn to look at me, her glossy lips locked in a pout. They don’t move, but I hear her voice inside my head.