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Instead, I said, maybe honestly, "I wasn't taunting you."
He didn't move, not until he lowered his head, his lips even closer to mine than before. "You wanted me a moment ago."
This time, his voice was quiet, his words not the challenge of a Master vampire, but the entreaty of a boy, of a man: I am right, aren't I, Merit? That you wanted me?
I forced myself to be honest, but I couldn't force myself to speak. So I stayed silent, and let the silence stand for words that I couldn't bring myself to say: I want you. Despite myself, I want you. In spite of what you are, I want you.
"Merit."
"I can't."
He dropped his head so that his lips hovered just above mine, his breath on my cheeks. "Give in to it."
I flicked my eyes up to meet his, which were the deep, dark green of primeval forests - ancient, unknowable, and hiding monsters in their wooded depths. "You don't even like me."
He smiled a little evilly. "That doesn't seem to matter."
A slap wouldn't have pulled me out of the trance any faster. I twisted beneath his braced arms, then moved away. "I see."
"I'm not happy about this either."
"Yes, I get that you don't want to be attracted to me, that you think I'm beneath you, but thank you for pointing it out anyway. And in case you haven't realized it, I'm not thrilled about it, either. I don't want to like you, and I certainly don't want to be with someone who's appalled by me. I don't want to be . . . desired begrudgingly."
He stepped toward me with the grace of a slinking panther. And just as dangerous.
"Then what do you want me to say?" His voice was low, thick with lambent power. "That I wanted you to taste me? For all that you're stubborn, sarcastic, completely unable to take seriously my authority, and patently disrespectful, that I want you? Do you think this is what I would choose?"
There it was again - the list of flaws. The reasons he shouldn't have been attracted to me. The reasons he hated the chemistry that, against both our wills, flared between us. My voice quiet, the sound oddly far away, I told him, "I don't want anything from you."
"Liar," he accused, and lowered his mouth to mine.
He kissed me, and the circuit closed again.
His lips were soft and warm, and implored a reaction, challenged me to join in, to give in, even if only briefly, to the chemistry. My limbs loosened, my body daring me to sink into it, to revel in it. But I'd come close enough to the fire, when I'd nearly jumped him to pull the blood from his veins. That had been enough. That had been too much. So I kept my lips together and tried to turn my head away.
"Merit," he intoned, "be still." Ethan's fingers slid along my jaw, knotted into my hair, and he used his thumbs to tilt up my chin. He took a small step forward, our bodies aligning, just touching.
He dipped his head and kissed me again, thumbs stroking my cheeks as he moved his lips across mine, caressing, calming, not coercive. Then, when his tongue slipped between my lips and stroked mine, when the electric thrill slid up my spine, I gave in.
Tentative at first - and only responding after promising myself that I'd never, ever touch him again - I kissed him back. I gave back his kiss, sucked on the tongue he offered me, responded to his nips and bites with my own.
I couldn't seem to help it. I couldn't not kiss him. He tasted so good, smelled so good. He was heaven, a golden beacon in the supernatural darkness that spindled around me. But this wasn't something to blame on magic. This was much more elemental, much more powerful. It was want, desire in its most basic form.
But I couldn't afford that, not to want someone who didn't want me. Not really.
So I put my hand on his chest, and felt the thud of his heart beneath the soft cotton of his dress shirt before I pushed him away. "Stop."
He took two halting steps backward, his chest rising and falling as he pulled in air, and stared down at me.
"That was a mistake," I said. "It shouldn't have happened."
He wet his lips, then ran a hand across his jaw. "No?"
"No."
Silence, then, "I could offer you more."
I blinked, looked up, met his eyes. "What?"
"Power. Access. Rewards. You'd need be available only to me."
My lips parted, words momentarily failing me, the shock of it was so overwhelming. "Are you asking me to be your mistress?"
He paused, and I had the sense that he was deciding if that was, in fact, what he was offering me. Likely weighing the costs and benefits, deciding if easing his erection was worth the trouble I'd cause. A flush crossed his sculpted cheekbones. "Yes."
"Oh, my God." I dropped my gaze, put a hand at my abdomen, wondering how this night had suddenly become so bizarre. "Oh, my God."
"Is that a yes?"
I looked up at him again, saw the flash of panic on his face. "No, Ethan, Jesus. Definitely not."
His eyes flashed, and I wondered if he'd ever been turned down before, if any woman in his nearly four hundred years of existence had rejected the opportunity to service him. "Do you understand what I'm offering you?"
"Do you understand that it's not 1815?"
"It's not unusual for Masters to have Consorts."
"Yes," I said, "and your current Consort's in my kitchen right now. If you need . . . relieving, talk to her." The shock - the sheer shock of his offer - was beginning to wear off, replaced by a little bit of hurt, a little bit of insult that he didn't like me enough to offer me something else, and that he thought I'd be flattered by the little he did offer.
"As much as it pains me to say it, Amber isn't you."
I stared at him. "I don't even know what that means. Should I - What? Be flattered that while you don't like me, you're willing to sacrifice just to get into my pants?"
His nostrils flared, a tiny line appearing between his eyebrows. "You're crude."
"I'm crude?" My voice, the whisper that came out, was fierce. "You just offered to make me your whore."
He took a step closer, his jaw clenched, the muscle trembling. "To be the Consort of a Master vampire is an honor, Initiate, not an insult."
"It's an insult to me. I'm not going to be your - anyone's - sexual outlet. When that . . . happens for me, when I meet him, I want partnership. Love. You don't trust me enough for the former, and I'm not even sure you're capable of the latter."
He flinched, and I immediately regretted the words.
I took a breath and took some space, moving to the couch.
