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I got out of bed, aware I was being an ass. But it seemed imperative to reassert my control over Eden. Or maybe myself, because the woman hadn’t been back for forty-eight hours, and already, I was ready to go up against my primus for her. Already, I’d all but begged her to say she was mine.
I busied myself checking my phone. “Take a shower,” I said without looking at her. “I’ll text someone to bring you some clothes. You can’t go dressed in that Catwoman outfit.” For a formal meeting like this, she’d need something more subdued. An outfit like that might even be considered an insult.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eden roll her lips in. Then she rose from the bed and strolled past me naked and proud as a queen.
I texted Kerry to have someone bring Eden a nice dress and a pair of heels, then put the phone down and blew out a breath.
Where were these inconvenient feelings coming from? I’d never felt like this about a thrall before. Why now? Why her?
And that was my legs moving, following her into the bathroom.
Instead of a tub I’d probably never use, I’d had a doorless shower installed with a heated towel rack and multiple showerheads. A second section with a handheld shower had a teak stool against one wall. Eden used to sit on the stool to shave her legs while I watched.
I rounded the partition between the shower and the toilet. Eden had turned on the lower five showerheads, leaving the rain shower off so her hair didn’t get wet.
She stood in profile to me, eyes closed, one hand on the rough slate tiles, letting the hot water flow over her. Slippery and pink-skinned and so beautiful my heart did that constricting thing again.
“Hey,” I said.
She opened her eyes and turned toward me, swiping her hands over her face. The gold cuff on her wrist glinted in the muted lighting.
“I’m done.” She went to brush past me.
She’d closed down. That’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? A thrall who didn’t make inconvenient demands for things like affection or time outside of the bedroom.
So why did it feel like she’d shoved a screw into my chest and twisted it?
I caught her arm, trapping her between my body and the tile wall.
Sea-glass eyes met mine, their color intensified by the water droplets dotting her dark-gold lashes. “What?” she asked flatly.
I stared down at her with what felt like a fishbone lodged in my throat. Slowly, carefully, I brought her wrist to my mouth, kissing the inside just below the gold cuff that symbolized her bond to me.
My intent was to remind us both who she belonged to. That this wasn’t a relationship but a transaction—vampire to thrall.
But it didn’t go down like that, not with her blood pulsing in the vein beneath my lips. Not with her scent enveloping me.
Heated skin.
Feminine spice.
Against my will, my fangs lengthened. I scraped the tips over that tempting blue line.
Mine.
Feed.
Without warning, the blood-hunger wrested control of my brain. I made a low, animal sound deep in my throat.
I wanted—no, needed—to bury my fangs in the clean-smelling hollow at the turn of her shoulder.
Needed to shove her up against the slate tiles.
Needed to fuck her, deep and hard, until she felt me everywhere from the crown of her head to her pretty pink toes.
She’d accepted my blood bond. She was mine.
She tensed. “You’re hungry.”
