I whirled on him right as he closed the door, his shoulders moving deliciously beneath his suit. Damn it, even angry I wanted to eat him.
No, especially then.
“How so?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“I’m related to the owner.”
Oh, well then. I should’ve known that, yes? But of course, I didn’t. I clenched my jaw to keep my comment to myself.
He swiped the card key on the inside reader. A beep and a light went off on it. Just like that, I was sure that he’d locked us inside this private garden during the opening dinner for the design festival.
My father was somewhere outside.
His ex, too.
“Come.”
“Why?”
He threw me a stare that almost made me shrink back.
“Liv, you need to get fucked. Now. Come.”
My mouth fell wide open, my eyes shooting even wider. I stumbled back, disbelieving, unable to grasp what he was demanding…and about to lose my mind at the image of him taking me right there.
Fuck, behind him I could see a bench, tucked inside the wall, low enough to be covered by the artificial fog they were pumping into the place. “What? What do you mean? I—”
Calum stalked up to me. I blindly stepped back, bumping into the metal railing behind me.
“Now, Liv.”
I swallowed, my body vibrating as he got closer. “Now?”
Calum stepped up to me, pressing his body against me. He cupped the back of my head in his large hands and tilted it back. His eyes searched mine. Sucked in, I could do nothing but stare back, fighting the need to arch into him.
When he stared at me like that, jealousy was forgotten. There was no way I could do anything other than give into the pull of that stare, the way he seemed to be fucking me in his mind.
“Tell me something, Livana.”
I swallowed again, realizing that I was having a hard time breathing.
“Were you jealous of Diana just now?” He asked the question so calmly, his voice pure silk. He fisted my hair, not caring if he ruined the bun I had it styled into. All I could do was stare at his lips, hungry for them. It became clear that he wasn’t going to budge, nor was he going to let me move.
He was waiting for my answer.
“Yes,” I admitted in a low tone. Closing my eyes, I blocked him out, feeling ashamed at the admission and not knowing why.
Calum’s response surprised me. He pulled me, using his hold on my head, and brought me flush against him.
His cock was hard, throbbing into my lower stomach the moment we made contact.
“Good.” He growled, his eyes falling back to my lips. “I want you fucking jealous. I want you infuriated at the thought of another woman near me.”
The mouth he was staring at fell open again as shock and anger shot through me.
He fucking what?
Calum licked his lips before leaning down and possessively tugging on my own. I was too shocked to move, too turned on to do anything but let him.
Even as I wondered if he had lost his God damned mind.
“Tell me how it made you feel, seeing her hug me,” he demanded against my mouth.
“Fuck you.” Galvanized and hurt because he wanted to make me jealous, I pushed and tried to get away.
“Tell me, Livana. Did it make you want to pull my eyes out? Hers? Did rage make you see red to the point that you wanted blood covering the walls?”
I froze, panting. That’s exactly what had fucking happened! Thinking back on it, that hug replayed in my mind, making me want the blood covered walls all over again. I’d never felt anything like this, had never drowned in such a miserable rage.
Not even when I found out my first and only boyfriend had been cheating on me with my ex-friend. Nothing could compare to the things I felt when I replayed Diana’s hands on Calum.
“Damn you,” I whimpered, surprised when my eyes teared up again. “That’s exactly what I felt. How dare you do it on purpose? What the fuck is wrong with you, Calum?”
He stared down at me with a hard, almost desperate look. “I didn’t do it on purpose.” He all but dragged me up the length of his body, his hold pulling on my neck. “But it worked out perfectly.” He fed a rough kiss right into my mouth, plunging his tongue deep.
As much as I wanted to punch him, I still couldn’t hold back the moan that left me. He’d always been intense.
This went far beyond that. Something was off. Something was wrong with him.
And I kind of loved it.
“You feel that, baby?” he pulled back to pant, his tongue tracing my lips. I gave in, opening for him, my tongue shooting out to chase his. “Feel that?”
I nodded, breathless. Desperation. Coursing through me. Leaking out of him. Palpitating in the air around us.
“I need to claim you and you need to claim me.”
Those words almost sent an orgasm through me, my sex fluttering and pulsing in response to his words. I recognized that he was right; something was happening to us that was strictly biological and territorial.
We each felt threatened. Our exes had set off alarms, however unwarranted or based in reality. I couldn’t handle the idea of Diana near him; he had to deal with my ex-lovers being around.
If any weekend ever promised to be a fucking mess, it was this one.
“I need to have you.” Calum circled one arm around me, holding me still and thrusting into me.
“Take me,” I whispered, giving in. It was the only way we were going to regain some sanity. The only way I could get through the weekend, knowing that bitch was around with her hungry stare focused on him.
Calum’s eyes flashed. Tugging me, he headed straight toward the bench that I’d been eyeing.
And I didn’t care. I didn’t care that there was a glass wall, that my father was around, or that people we knew could pass by.
I needed him. I needed him now. He needed me just as badly and no matter what, I couldn’t fathom denying us this.
Which was the first moment that I knew that I’d done the unthinkable. I’d fallen in love, and was so far gone that it bordered on obsession. He’d become the one thing that I was addicted to, and there would be no easy extrication.
He was it for me.
And I had to find a way to make sure I was it for him.
Turn the page for an exclusive sneak peek of the first book in the Szolite Series.
Blood Flows Deep in the Empire
By N, Isabelle Blanco
Dyletri, God of Fertility, has locked away his powers. No woman is allowed to touch him, not until he can return his long-dead lover back to life. All he has to do is sacrifice one human girl, a girl who unlocks his powers and rips his dormant lust right out of his body. Trapped by his promise, Dyletri has no choice but to watch Ismini die, no matter how much he wants her.
Yet the darkness of his calling is spiraling within him, demanding he claim the human as his. If he goes back on his promise, the energy of the Fates will cause untold destruction in the Universe. That doesn’t change how Dyletri’s begun exhibiting symptoms that point to more than just lust. How does he allow Ismini to die when she’s come to own him from the inside out?
Desire and torment spiral into something much darker than obsession, more turbulent than an addiction, and something much more brutal than a mere soul-mating. As a war is being rekindled right under his nose, Dyletri will have to come to terms with a destiny eleven thousand years in the making. He thought he’d known what path his future would take, but he’d been wrong. Now the one woman he truly loves might pay the price for his decision.
Blood Flows Deep in the Empire is the first in a series that will pit free-will against Destiny, Destiny against Fate, and love against brutal desire. Everyone likes to think they have a choice as to who they end up with, but as they rise to face the greatest threat they’ve ever known, even the Gods will learn they have to bend to Destiny’s whim to survive.
Something caught Ismin
i’s attention, making her turn her head. There was a low sound coming from her far right, and as soon as she took two steps toward it, she knew what it was. Her whole body roared to life, and before she knew it, the mating rushed up on her and she was moving.
Ismini walked the length of the balcony with light but hurried steps. She made it halfway around the circumference of the compound when the moonlight illuminated a figure she’d come to recognize so well.
Dyletri stood in front of the stone balcony railing, staring off into the night. Ismini knew she should walk away, but something in his expression made it impossible.
His shoulders were slumped forward. He looked exhausted in a way that no being like him should have been. Even taking into account the moonlight reflecting off his white hair, Ismini could tell he was too pale.
Worry got the best of her, and before she had a chance to think better of it, she was approaching him and calling out his name.
“Dyletri?”
His entire body went rigid. So much that Ismini feared for a second that he was on the verge of jumping right off the balcony. There was something about him that throbbed with energy, but the way he seemed to tremble and refused to acknowledge her had her taking one more cautious step forward.
“Are you okay?” Ismini knew she couldn’t hide the worry.
He glanced toward her, most of his face hidden in shadow. She tried to keep her distance, she really did, but her body was rebelling against her in the worst way. Next thing Ismini knew, she was walking closer to him again and the closer she got, the more she saw that he was, in fact, trembling.
“I’m serious. What’s wrong?” she asked again, fighting the urge to reach out to him.
“Ismini . . . ”
Ismini had been told that beings like him couldn’t get sick. But at that particular moment, she was doubting that with every fiber of her being, and the mere thought of something happening to him made her want to die.
She wasn’t being melodramatic, either. Vedlyl had explained that if Dyletri did somehow die, Ismini was going with him, no matter what.
A mated being couldn’t live without their mate, plain and simple.
“Please. Please tell me what’s wrong.” She continued her advance, not even realizing how odd it was that he was walking backwards.
That he seemed to be fleeing from her.
Dyletri’s back met the end of the balcony, where the wall was. “I need you to stay back,” he said, his tone menacing.
Ismini couldn’t see his face. But she could still see those damned tremors. She couldn’t have forced herself to walk away even if she had wanted to.
Dyletri shook his head and stepped away from her. “No. I need you to stay back.”
Huh?
“I’m serious, Ismini. Stay back!”
She was a mere three feet away from him and couldn’t stop. His energy had leaked into the air and was throbbing around her, vibrating and hypnotizing her and drawing her closer.
“There’s something wrong with you. You’ve been looking sick for days!”
Please, just tell me you’re okay. I’ll force myself to leave somehow . . . just say you’re all right.
Ismini stopped in front of him. Past the point of rational thought, she raised her hand and placed it on his shoulder.
She had thought he’d done all he would do to imprint himself on her mind and body.
Ismini had been so wrong.
Moving at top speed, Dyletri grabbed her and turned them both. He pressed her front against the wall he’d just been backed up against. Ismini almost died. The very air she breathed became molten inside her.
He was close to her back. Too fucking close. So close Ismini just wanted to whimper and press herself against him. She wanted to rotate her hips and beg him to do something about the ache inside her.
Exhaling shakily, she wished there was a way she could dig her nails into something. Anything.
The same way his hand was digging into the stone next to her head.
Dyletri leaned closer, his face nuzzling her hair. Ismini swore that the strands had developed nerve endings all of a sudden. She felt his touch shooting through them. Up into her scalp. Down into the fabric of her skin.
Lower.
A gasp left her. She was barely holding on to her sanity. “Dyletri.”
His hand, the one that that had been digging into the stone, disappeared. It came back, slamming so hard into the wall that Ismini jumped. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the cracks spreading out from where his fingers were.
Ismini shouldn’t have been able to see those details in the dark, but Dyletri’s skin was glowing again. His veins were lighting up in the same way they had in the alley back on Earth. No, wait, it was more than that. Every individual vein on the back of his hand glowed.
Then Dyletri murmured her name. “Ismini . . . ”
She shuddered and almost came right there. His voice was seductive against her ear. Her entire uterus throbbed and threatened to leave her body, and the resulting gush was embarrassing. She shook as she fought the urge to force herself on him.
There was no way she could ever overpower him, but she wanted to. God, did she want to.
Ismini heard the stone on the side of her head crack some more. Heard the stone railing to her left fracturing as well. She should have been frightened by how powerful Dyletri was, but instead, she felt something inside her snap loose. Felt whatever control she had over the mating turn to ash that was swept away and consumed by a tornado of need. She was defenseless.
“Ismini . . . stop me. Tell me to stop.”
His voice slid into her. There was something in his tone that her body instinctively recognized. Something her body bowed to, but her will refused to obey.
“No,” she whispered. “No, I don’t think I want to.”
About the Author
N. Isabelle Blanco was born in Queens, NY (USA). At the age of three, due to an odd fascination with studying her mother’s handwriting, she began to read and write. By the time she’d reached kindergarten, she had an extensive vocabulary and her obsession with words began to bleed into every aspect of her life.
An avid reader in her teens, her fascination with Japanese anime eventually led her to the universe of fan fiction, which became her on-again, off-again hobby for the next ten years. During that time she amassed a following of fans that, by her own admission, she would never be able to live without. It was those fans who encouraged her to step beyond the fan fiction realm and try her talent in the publishing world.
N. Isabelle Blanco now has three novellas and two full-length novels under her belt, and spends her days working as an author, web programmer, marketer, and graphic designer. That is when she isn’t handling her “spawn”, as she calls her son, and brainstorming with him about his future career as a comic book illustrator.
Other books by N. Isabelle Blanco
Destructively Alluring (Allure #1)
Addictive Lunacy (Compulsions #1)
Blood Flows Deep in the Empire (Szolites #1)
A Debt Repaid (Retaliations #1)
Teasers for all of N. Isabelle Blanco’s
upcoming works are now up at
www.houseofmalfunction.com.
Allure Magnified Page 10