She had to force herself to remember to breathe as his thumbs stroked her cheeks in a soft caress. Ah yes, this was what her body wanted. Needed. His touch. His scent filling her with sandalwood heat.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she struggled to demand.
“It means that while many of us appear human, we’re not. We don’t live by the same set of morals and rules as humans and we don’t hesitate to kill when we feel it necessary.”
She searched his expression, finding no hint of apology in his dark, finely chiseled features.
“That’s a big comfort.”
“I’m sorry, querida. I don’t mean to frighten you, but you have to understand that there are dangers beyond Morgana le Fay.” His hands tightened on her face. “I will do everything in my power to protect you, even if that includes hiding the truth when necessary.”
She struggled to think of an argument. Some reason to insist that he put all his cards on the table so she didn’t feel as if she were walking blindfolded through a minefield.
But if he was right…
If the truth really could kill her, well then, maybe she should rethink the whole tell me what I want to know right now or I’ll break your nose thing.
Just maybe stumbling around in the dark wasn’t quite so bad.
Before she could come to any conclusion there was a sharp knock on the door and with that low growl that she was beginning to recognize as annoyance (oh, and sometimes God-that-feels-good), Cezar turned and crossed the tiled floor.
He opened the door just far enough to slip through, conducting a low-voiced conversation with a person on the other side before stepping back into the room and closing the door.
“Your bag,” he murmured, holding out the leather suitcase until she moved forward to take it. Almost as if he didn’t trust himself to come closer. “If you want there’s a hot tub in the bathroom. I’ll order you dinner while you soak. What do you prefer?”
Although food was the last thing Anna desired, she knew that she should try to eat something. Being weak from lack of sustenance seemed like a bad idea.
“Do they have food here?”
“Viper has a full kitchen staff to serve the fairies.”
Setting down the suitcase Anna was struck by a sudden thought. “And what about you? Are you going to…eat?”
The dark eyes flared with a raw, pulsing hunger that struck Anna with the force of a blow.
“Are you offering?” His voice deepened, his fangs glistening in the light of the chandelier.
Anna took an instinctive step backward. Not because she was horrified by his words, but because she wasn’t. She wasn’t even frightened. Instead, her entire body tingled with a sensation that could only be…excitement.
And desire.
Desire that raged like a sudden inferno.
Dear God, she remembered the feel of those fangs sliding through her flesh. The feel of him sucking her blood as her body convulsed with such bliss she had thought she had surely died and gone to paradise.
“Anna?” With that fluid speed he was standing so close she could feel the brush of his cool power. His dark eyes held a compelling heat as he stroked light fingers up the bare skin of her arm. “Will you allow me to drink from you?”
“No,” she said, more to end her erotic thoughts than in response to his question.
His jaw tightened before he shuttered his expression and stepped backward.
“Then I’ll have to find my blood elsewhere.”
Anna reacted without thought. One moment she was listening to the words leaving his mouth and the next her powers were stirring and Cezar was thrust back against the door.
Hard.
“You ass,” she hissed.
With a frown, Cezar pushed his hair from his face and glared at her flushed face. “What the hell was that for?”
She pointed a finger in his direction. “You’re going to those fairies, aren’t you? You’re going to suck their blood and…”
Astonishingly, his expression eased and a tiny smile touched his lips. “And?”
She turned away. She didn’t know what was written in her expression, but she was certain she didn’t want Cezar reading it.
“I saw what was going on in those rooms,” she muttered, her unstable powers once again threatening to burst out of her at the mere thought of Cezar climbing into one of those glass rooms with a beautiful fairy. A fairy who would no doubt be happy to offer up a hell of a lot more than just blood.
“What would it matter, querida? You’ve made it clear that you no longer want me as your lover.” When she didn’t respond, he unpeeled himself from the door and crossed to grasp her shoulders. With a relentless tug he forced her to turn and meet his narrowed gaze. “Anna? Why are you so angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
“You just cycloned me into the door,” he said dryly. “If you’re capable of calling on your powers then your emotions must be…aroused.” Aroused? God, she was burning as if a fever was running through her body. “Could it be that you’re jealous, my little shrew?” he demanded.
Well, duh. Of course she was jealous. Card-carrying, board-certified, over the top jealous.
Despite all the anger she had harbored and nurtured over the years for Conde Cezar, there had been a part of her that had thought of him as her own.
He was her first lover. Hell, he was her one and only lover. He was also her first known exposure to the world beyond her mundane human existence. At least her first exposure that she actually knew about. (She had never suspected her cousin Morgana was anything more than a bitch.) And heaven knew that he had managed to haunt her over the past two centuries.
It was no wonder that she was feeling a little possessive.
All right, so she was feeling massively possessive.
“I thought we were supposed to be avoiding fairies?”
“Their powers are limited in this building.” He slowly smiled, his fingers running a path up her throat. “You didn’t answer my question, querida. Are you jealous?”
“I…” She was forced to halt and clear her throat. “I’m going to find that hot tub.”
The dark eyes smoldered. “The hot tub can wait. I can’t.”
His head swooped down and before she could guess his intent he was kissing her with the sort of impatient, forceful hunger that had tormented her for the past two centuries.
This was no soft seduction, no pleading, no tentative foreplay.
Just a stark demand that made her knees quiver and her head swim.