Page 13 of It's in His Bite

Bloody hell, this was ridiculous. And I knew it would be like this. The moment I touched her, kissed her, I knew it would diginto me, become something I would always crave. It was why I hadn’t let her follow through on the offered orgasm. Just the strawberry taste of her blood was enough to have me spiraling. If she’d added the feel of her hands gripping me? Her tongue tracing me?

My dick twitched in anticipation. I crossed my ankles the other way and twisted a bit more toward the counter.

Harlowe pulled open her laptop and started writing in the notebook she’d been using last night, her breakfast only half-finished.

“I thought you weren’t taking classes.” I tried to keep my voice neutral, one acquaintance speaking with another. It came out a bit too hoarse for my liking.

She shook her head. “I just found out I got an archeology internship in France. I’m trying to sort through all the logistics.”

France.

The word settled in my stomach like a stone, the exact reminder my body needed right now.

“Congratulations. I’m sure Joshua and Meredith are ecstatic.”

I shouldn’t bring them up, but it’s self-preservation at this point. I can’t keep standing here, watching as her lips fold over the fork tines and her throat moves with every half-forgotten swallow. It’s fucking torture.

“They don’t actually know yet,” she admits after a minute, another blush staining her cheeks. “I’m planning on telling them when they get here.”

I have no good response to that, most of my blood now in a head that doesn’t give a damn about niceties or propriety or any of the other things I’m supposed to care about. I focused on finishing my eggs and then pulling the tea leaves from my mug. Once the breakfast dishes were cleaned and put away, I closed the distance between us.

“Let me see your wrist,” I ordered, holding out my hand. The command was too aggressive, the words too hungry, but I was doing my best. Keeping my hard-on away from her watchful gaze was taking most of my self-control right now.

She pursed her lips, her eyebrows drawing low, even as she held up her left wrist without hesitation.

“Do you need more? Sorry, I should have asked you before focusing on all of this.”

I shook my head. No, I didn’t actually need more of her blood. I wouldn’t for days yet, the benefit of her being a preternatural. But if she was offering? My fangs extended at once, my gaze sharpening.

Her breath caught, and the flush rushed down her neck and into her chest. She shifted in her seat, and the collar of her dress moved, revealing a dark bruise straddling her left collarbone.

My mouth went dry.

“Your other wrist,” I choked out. “I want to check how the punctures are healing.”

She stared at me for nearly a minute, like she didn’t understand what I’d asked of her. Indecision flashed in her eyes as she looked down at her wrist and then back up at me.

“It’s fine,” she said, all of her usual sass missing from her voice. She sounded… scared. “I took care of it upstairs.”

She gestured to the punctures in her throat, the clear sheen of the anti-itch cream distorting the newly-closed skin. They looked leagues better than they had last night, my tongue helping heal them, too, despite them being almost two days old.

“Even still,” I said, taking a half-step closer. “Let me check on it.”

My knee brushed hers. Her chest shuddered, and her pulse beat like a hummingbird in her throat. Fuck, I wanted to taste her strawberry again, feel the warm heat of it on my tongueand down my throat. And then I wanted to tasteher, chase the strawberry of her blood with the clean, rich taste of her cunt.

My dick was achingly hard again, awoken from the half-asleep place I’d managed to coax it over the last five minutes. Bloody hell.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she offered the wrist I’d fed from. The punctures were clean and scanned over entirely, the skin around them bruised a deep purple. I’d bitten a bit too deep, not quite piercing her where the damage would be lessened. I couldn’t help but stroke my thumb across it. Her palm brushed my forearm with the movement.

She shuddered, her legs squirming like she was uncomfortable. Of course she would be. My bite must be itching to high heaven, and me touching it would only make it worse. I pulled my thumb away but didn’t drop her wrist.

“Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t have touched it. Let me grab the aftercare cream.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine. I don’t need it.”

Don’t need it? Why wouldn’t she need the anti-itch cream? She’d clearly only applied it to the bite on her neck. Her wrist must be uncomfortable as all hell.

And then it slammed into me, more forceful than a summer gale. God, no wonder I’d been borderline obsessed with her the last year despite all the reasons I knew it was folly in the extreme.