Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
“It already is.”
I’d have to keep lying. I would keep betraying my family and friends, but that was better than losing them, right? I didn’t want to lose anyone. That included Theseus.
Lifting my head, I glanced up at him. “So, what now?”
“This.” He lifted my chin higher and kissed me so passionately I nearly stumbled in his arms, but he only held me tighter, my body pressed up against his, his tongue dancing with mine, exciting every cell in my body. Reaching up, I grabbed his hair and pulled him closer, if possible, and when I did, he grabbed my thigh with ease, lifting me with ease off the ground. I felt the air breeze by like a second tornado before I was pinned between the couch and him.
Only when I moved to the hem of his jeans did our lips separate, and he stared down at me worriedly.
“Druella—”
“Are you going to be super cliché and tell me, as all the guys do in those vampire romance novels, that you want to be a gentleman or you worry about hurting me?”
He frowned, and I kissed his lips again, and it was only when he started to kiss me back that I pulled back.
“You wanted me not to see you as a hero but as a vampire. I see you as neither. You are a man. Do not see me as the little girl you’ve watched over all these years. I am a woman, so treat me as one.”
He grabbed my blouse and bra, and with no effort—I barely even felt it—he ripped them off me. “Not any woman, but my woman,” he declared and kissed the mound on top of my breast.
I lay naked with him in his arms. Now, in his bed, all of me was so sore that even the slightest wiggle of my toe sent an ache up my legs. I didn’t want to let him know that I was sure he might have rearranged my organs out of fear that he wouldn’t do it again later.
“You are in pain,” he said, his fingertips drawing on my skin.
I realized now why he’d made the house so warm…it was because being so close to him was cooling. Even his fingertips felt like tiny snowflakes on my back.
“I am fine,” I whispered, opening my eyes to meet his gaze. “I do have questions, though.”
“I am already at your mercy.” He smiled as he brushed the curls from my face. “Ask away.”
“Did it hurt watching me as I went on dates and spent time with other men?” I asked because it came to my mind that he knew he wasn’t my first. That he must have also known when it happened, that he’d seen everything about me from a distance.
He was quiet, a pained grimace on his face, and then nodded. “Yes. I nearly went mad with jealously.”
“One of my ex-boyfriends accused me of setting his house on fire. Was that you?”
“He was a shitty boyfriend,” was all he said as he glanced to my shoulders, where he once again began to run his finger on my skin.
I laughed then winced because I did hurt. “He was a shitty boyfriend.”
“All of them were.”
“No, some of them were sw—”
“All of them were,” he cut me off to repeat and grinned.
“Why, because they were not you?”
“Exactly.”
“In all honesty, I was a shitty girlfriend, too,” I said, tracing over his bare abs. “Relationships require effort and time, but I gave almost all of mine to my coven, and what was left went to my work.”
“You shall not be a shitty girlfriend to me.”
I smirked at his confidence. “How are you so sure?”
“Because vampires do not have girlfriends,” he replied, kissing my shoulder. “You are either mated or not.”
“We are not mated. So, what am I then?”
“Mine,” he declared, playing with one of my curls. “Not a girlfriend—that word is too fickle. Mine, and even if we are not yet mated, you are my mate.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he kissed me so gently that all the words on my lips fell to ash. I held my finger up in his face to warn him. “Just you wait. Right now, my mind goes a little blank when you do that, but I’m going to get used to you and all your charms, so it will no longer work on me. Then I will have the perfect comebacks!”
He kissed my lips again. “I look forward to it.”
My face bunched up as I tried not to smile and give him the satisfaction, but he laughed at me, which only intensified when my stomach grumbled—of all the times.
“I’ll go get you food—”
“I can go—ah.” I winced as a sharp pain went through my waist in protest as I tried to get up.
“Your body does not agree,” he said as he rose out of bed and glanced down at me with a frown on his lips. “I should have been—”