“You need to think of a happy place,” she told him as she lifted the cloth off the tray on the coffee table. She checked to make sure he wasn’t peeking.
“Are you thinking of your happy place?”
He nodded, his eyes remaining closed. “Uh-huh.” His lips parted just a little with those words, all relaxed and full and...sexy. She realized she could look her fill without him being aware of her stare. The man was crazy gorgeous. But she knew a lot of good-looking men—what was it about Zane that fascinated her so?
“Great. Think of the smell of it, the feeling you get from being in there, the happiness and peace...”
She lifted a needle from the tray, and jabbed it into his forearm.
Zane roared, bolting upright, his eyes glowing red, his incisors lengthening.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed. He eyed the needle in her hand in shocked anger.
She shook her head. “You didn’t stay in your happy place.”
“You stuck me with a needle!”
“And all it took was one tiny prick to get you to go full, raging vamp,” Vivianne stated calmly. “How long do you think it would take before you felt that annoying little stab within your pack, and turned on them?”
Zane settled back on the couch. “That’s not fair.”
She smiled sweetly. “Life’s not fair. You need to learn to control your emotions.” She wagged her finger at him. “You need to learn patience.”
His lips tightened. “I can be patient.”
Vivianne’s eyebrow rose as she replaced the needle on the tray, pulled out a shaving mirror and covered up her other tools. “That would be interesting to see. Maybe my father has a point. All you lycans revert so easily to your animalism...”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Zane commented.
“No, your kind wouldn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “It must be exhausting, swinging from one extreme emotion to another. You really are animals,” she surmised, purposely baiting him.
He straightened, frowning. “We have certain traits, just like vamps do—you know, cold-blooded, callous, ruthless.”
She kept her expression calm, although his words hurt, just as his words the previous day had hurt. He saw vampirism as something monstrous. Evil. Abhorrent. Was that how he saw her? Cold-blooded? Callous? She shoved the hurt aside. No matter, there was a point to this conversation.
“You mean we think with our heads, and lycans...don’t.” She tapped her chin. “So I guess it begs the question, what actually makes killing lycans different to killing, say, a pigeon, or a chicken?”
His eyes flashed red, and his fangs lengthened, and she held up the shaving mirror, showing him his reflection. He reared back when he saw the changes in his face, then covered his face with his hands.
“Get rid of it.” His voice was low. Angry. Ashamed. She felt a pang at being responsible for creating these emotions in him, but she had to in order for him to learn his triggers—his vulnerabilities—with this new side of him.
“Anger and pain are transformative emotions for us vamps. As is fear,” she told him quietly as she placed the mirror face down on the coffee table. “Also, hunger. You will need to feed often, as the longer you leave between feeds, the stronger the cravings, the more difficult it is to control.”
He dragged his hands down his face, and she sighed. He looked tired, drained. Despite his enhanced strength, speed and reflexive thinking, he was still a newbie vampire, grappling with bloodthirst.
“Come with me,” she told him, and stood. He rose, and followed her to her kitchen. She opened the fridge door. Next to the yoghurt, salad ingredients and milk was a neatly organized tray of blood bags. She removed two and handed one to him.
“When you have this under control,” she said, lifting the blood bag, “then you can enjoy that.” She indicated the other items in the fridge. “If you haven’t fed, then all this will do nothing for you until you do.”
His lips tightened. “I don’t want to be ruled by a thirst for blood,” he said bitterly.
She smiled, but there was a bittersweet tinge to it. He found everything about vampirism repugnant—did he also find her repugnant? “Zane, it’s what we need to consume in order to survive. Lycans and vamps are alike in that way. We each have a diet necessary to our survival. You guys hunt animals, feed on blood and meat—”
“Mostly meat,” Zane muttered.
“My point is,” she said succinctly, “you and I aren’t so different. We feed to live.” She grinned. “Lycans are just more squeamish when it comes to blood.”
“You say squeamish. I say we have a conscience.”
“I bet you don’t agonize over hunting little squirrels, do you?” She’d seen werewolves on the hunt, and they went after their prey in much the same way vampires did.
“That’s the difference, though. Vamps think they’re higher in the food chain—you equate people with squirrels when you hunt, but you don’t think you’re squirrels, do you?”
She thought about it for a moment. “You’re right. I don’t think I’m a squirrel.”
He shot her an exasperated look, and she waved her hand, acknowledging his point without agreeing with it. The reality for her was that people were her food, and she needed their blood to survive. You didn’t have to kill them to feed off them, though, and she hadn’t killed a human in many years—not that she let that fact out of the bag with her colony... “Drink up, and let’s get on with it. Harris will be back soon, and you’ve got to be out of here when he returns.”
It had been hard enough to explain Zane’s intrusion to her guardians when they revived—and why she didn’t want him killed for his audacity. She still couldn’t believe Zane had managed to get past over a dozen Nightwing guardians, as well as her private guard. That had been a Herculean effort, and unprecedented. She wondered briefly if this new shift gave him an added advantage with speed and strength, more so than the average shadow breed. She gazed at him. He did look strong. He had broad shoulders and lean hips, and the cloth of his T-shirt clung to the breadth of his chest, faintly delineating his pectoral muscles, before draping over what she knew was a flat, muscled abdomen. He was worried about the bloodthirst, she knew, and the threat he posed to his pack—and J.J., but she knew that worry was unfounded. Zane was one of the strongest people she knew.
Zane tilted his head back and drained the blood bag, the strong column of his throat moving with each swallow. She eyed him as she drank her own snack. He looked good today. He wore a khaki green T-shirt and jeans, and a brown jacket that emphasized his physique, his strength. She averted her gaze. Good enough to eat.
Not in a vampire-slaughters-prey way, but in a stay-the-night-and-play way...
She scrunched up her now empty blood bag. When was the last time she’d had a man stay in her home for the night? Long before her attack, she remembered that. She frowned. When had she apparently given up on male company? She’d lived so long, and was so focused on her colony, so guarded with her associations—she’d dodged so many assassination attempts, as well as the sneakier, manipulative, seductive efforts to either harm her or wrest away her control of the colony, that she’d somehow decided relationships were more trouble than they were worth.
Why was it Zane who was waking up that desire for companionship, for frivolity, for...a closeness that wasn’t just physical? He’d told her sharp and deadly didn’t scare him. Well, the fact that it didn’t scare him, scared her. She was able to control most guys with her cool demeanor. She could take her fun, and walk away, and everyone understood it was just temporary. No strings.
But she couldn’t control Zane like most guys, and that scared the hell out of her. He wasn’t buying any of her distance-building tactics, and the man seemed to have a beacon on any attempt she made to deceive him, to mask her true emotions.
He was also the only person she
believed she could trust with her new problems, and didn’t that confuse the hell out of her?
Damn. She needed to focus on what they were doing here, and why.
If Zane didn’t learn to control his bloodthirst, his pack would realize he was vamping out on them. They’d either cast him out, or kill him.
If she didn’t control this annoying habit of randomly shifting into the hairball from hell, her colony would realize she was no longer a pure vampire—and they’d kill her.
And her father would probably be leading the charge.
Just the image of her father discovering what was going on with her was enough to prod her back into reality. This is why she and Zane were spending time together. It wasn’t because of some weird, unnatural desire for each other. He didn’t take down thirteen of her guardians because he wanted a date. He hadn’t sought her out with a desire to romance her.
No, he needed her help—and she needed his.
She threw the crumpled blood bag into the trash bin near the back door. “Come on, we have work to do.”
Zane tossed his empty bag into the sack and stretched his neck. He already looked much more relaxed. It was amazing what a pint of AB negative could do for a vampire’s disposition.
“Fine, what are we doing next?”
She was tempted to do more stimulant testing, but now that he’d fed it would be harder to get a reaction from him. So she decided to not fight the blood high, and use it to their advantage.
“Meditation.”
Zane’s shoulders slumped. “That sounds boring.”
“Did I mention you’ll be dodging knives?”
Zane tilted his head. “You really are about as warm and fuzzy as a viper, aren’t you?”
She smiled. “I told you, sharp and deadly is more my style.”
He strolled up to her, eyes keenly assessing her as he braced his hands against the kitchen bench behind her, once again bracketing her within his arms.
“And I told you,” he said softly, his gazing dropping to her mouth, “you don’t scare me.”
Vivianne took a hesitant breath. Just like that, he’d changed the mood from professional to intimate. Anticipation zinged through her, awakening all of her senses. She glanced down at his chest—that massive, muscled torso so damn close to hers...
“Back in your office, I had some thoughts about you...and me,” he told her, his breath whispering against her neck as he grazed his lips down the side of her throat.
Her eyes widened at the tickling, yet carnally seductive sensation. She swallowed. “Really? What thoughts?” she almost gasped the words out as his hands rested briefly on her hips, before sliding up to the indent of her waist. Her breasts swelled in her bra, and heat pooled between her thighs. This man had the most enlivening effect on her body. So much so, he robbed her of her customary caution, dampening any kind of resistance.
“I thought of doing this,” he said, lifting her up on to the cool marble of her kitchen counter top. Her nipples tightened at the easy display of strength for him. He stepped between her legs, only getting as close as the taught fabric of her skirt would allow.
“Really?” she asked casually. The splinters of green in his irises started to warm among the honey brown. Damn, the man was gorgeous. She eyed the sexy man standing between her thighs, could feel her center melt at the frank look of desire in his eyes, his attraction—for her. That should have made her push him away. He was a werewolf. Forbidden. A man she was supposed to despise, to repudiate...to escape.
And yet, she’d never felt threatened by Zane. She’d never felt the intense dislike she was supposed to for his kind. She’d met him as a trapped man fighting against the yoke of death, and watching him struggle, with dignity and humor, had sparked respect instead of disgust. And now he was so much more than just a werewolf, more than just a man. He was the one she’d turned to when she was desperate for help and not wanting to admit it to anyone. He was the one man she trusted more than her brother, more than any of her guardian protectors. More than Harris...
“What else?” she asked, her eyebrow arching.
His lips curved, slow and sexy, and she caught her lip between teeth as his hands slid up her thighs, lifting the skirt back with it.
“I thought about doing this,” he said, lifting her slightly by sliding his hands beneath the cheeks of her bottom and the counter top, taking her garment with him, until the fabric was bunched about her waist. That heated core of hers just turned molten, and her breasts swelled even further, the fabric of her lacey bra tight against her skin. Her heart thumped in her chest.
“And?” This time her voice was just a little husky. Zane grinned as his hands slid to her waist.
“And this.” He dragged her hips forward, and leaned down to capture her lips with his.
* * *
Zane closed his eyes, totally enthralled by the taste of her. This hadn’t been his plan. Not at all. She was a vampire, and a vampire prime, at that. She commanded a colony of a breed he’d grown up to hold in contempt and disgust. Yet what he felt for Vivianne was nowhere near contempt, nor disgust.
Her lips softened against his, her mouth opening, and he slid his tongue inside.
The corporate crocodile he’d thought she was turned out to be a very carefully created illusion she nurtured in order to hold her position. A corporate crocodile wouldn’t meet with him in secret, keep their relationship from her father, her people, and risk not only her position, but possibly her life, in order to help him.
She sighed against him, and he pulled her even closer, his hands sliding up to her back. Her warm curves had been driving him insane. She’d told him to picture his happy place. Well, from now on, this was his happy place, with her in his arms.
Vivianne entwined her arms around his neck, meeting the slide of his tongue with gentle thrusts of her own, changing the pace, the tension of the kiss. Heat raced through him. Zane was now throbbing, trying to get even closer to the damp heat he could feel between her legs.
She moaned, writhing against him. Vivianne was no shrinking violet, and he relished that she showed him her desire, a desire that matched his in heat and fervor. Her hands clutched at his chest, and for a moment he thought she was going to push him away, and then he felt his jacket slide off his shoulders, her hands reaching around to caress his back. He shuddered at the contact. Her nails raked him gently through the fabric of his T-shirt, and tendrils of arousal snaked down to his groin.
He drew back just enough to kiss her neck, his teeth gliding down the soft skin of her throat. She gasped, and her hips jerked against his. She wrapped her legs around him, crossing her ankles, anchoring him to her.
His beast inside him rumbled with pleasure, and the sound echoed through his chest. He slid his hands to the front of her silk blouse, slipping the buttons through the holes in the fabric, but apparently his patience was not appreciated. Vivianne gave a soft little growl, a sound that was so cute, yet so damned sexy, it had his beast and other parts stand to attention. She pulled at her shirt, and the buttons popped, some hitting him on the chest, others clicking onto the counter and floor around them. He leaned back. She wore a smoky gray bra with black lace panels, and she looked so damn gorgeous, he could only stare.
Her breasts were heaving, swelling over the top of the constraining bra, and her eyes were glowing a warm gold as she reached for him. She yanked his shirt over his head, sent it sailing.
Her movement made something snap inside him, and he lowered his head, kissing his way from her collarbone to her chest, hands sliding around to easily deal with the bra’s clasp at her back. He didn’t lift his head as he stripped the clothes from her body. Vivianne cried out softly as she raked her nails up the back of his neck, lightly scoring his scalp. Her touch awakened sensors he wasn’t aware of. His scalp felt alive, his skin felt alive, alert, anticipating her touch.
His c
ock throbbed, and he rubbed himself against her molten heat as he took one of her sweet, rosy nipples into his mouth. She keened in response, her head tilting back as she arched into his embrace. Her hair brushed the backs of his arms as he held her up, it was one of the most sensuous sensations he’d ever experienced.
She was so damn hot, writhing in his arms. He suckled her flesh, rubbing his tongue against her nipple, his heart rate throbbing in his ears, in his groin.
“Please,” she gasped, pulling him closer, tighter. He raised his head.
“Please what? Stop?” God, if she wanted him to stop now, it would kill him, but he would. He was wound so tight he felt like he would burst.
Chapter 14
Vivianne’s eyes widened as her gaze met his. He was waiting for her response. The muscles in his neck where tight with restraint. His arms were solid steel bands, entwined around her, his biceps against the sides of her breasts, and his chest was... She gulped. So. Damn. Gorgeous.
“Don’t you dare,” she rasped, and Zane grinned. She reared up, arms around his neck, and she took his mouth in a hot, passionate kiss. She was so hot for him, so damp, so ready... He was tying her in knots, but she was confident she could do the same to him. She moved, writhing, pressing against him, and he groaned, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, his hands curling against her waist. This was not slow. This was not exploratory. This was hot and fierce and demanding. She felt something unfurl inside her, something that was triumphant and responsive to Zane on a level that went beyond the physical. She would have startled, but Zane, and what he was doing to her body, distracted her. Her pulse beat strongly in her ears as he dropped one hand to his fly, and lowered his zipper. She could feel the back of his hand pressing against her. He’d be able to feel her liquid heat—he had to. As if in total sync, Zane groaned again, low and deep, as though touching her was like setting a match to tinder. His lips pressed harder, his urgency matching hers as he pulled himself free of his jeans.
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