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Her gaze flickered, but he continued. "I think what's got you so pissed is you want something bad and you don't like not being in control of your impulses. Humans are all about figuring out which impulses to follow and which to contain."
As he spoke, he was closing the distance between the two of them. He might be crazy, because she wasn't moving, retracting the fangs or looking one whit less scary. But with every step he made toward her, he saw that hunger rising in her eyes. He even noted a slight tremor sweeping through her body, like the quiver before a predator sprang. God help him, it drew him like a magnet. He stopped in front of her, toe to toe.
Her lashes rose, those fiery eyes resting on his face. No, not his face. She was staring at his throat. He swallowed.
"I'm not doing it," she said, sharp as a razor blade. "I won't make you my full servant, Quinn."
"I'm saying yes, Selene. Maybe I haven't thought it through. Maybe I'm not supposed to. It's like the decision to have kids, get married, name-your-life-fork moment. Some level of thinking is smart, but at a certain point, when the desire is strong enough, you just push past it all and say fuck it, make the leap. You're not turning me to a vampire against my will, like your sire. I'm so goddamn sorry that happened to you. But we're talking about you turning me into your servant, and I'm saying yes."
"You need to leave." She looked as if she were made of glass, and if he so much as touched her, she'd shatter like an explosion, cutting them both to pieces.
"How about this?" Despite the volatility of their emotions, he went with a conversational tone. "Concede I have enough of a point about us being in the middle of nowhere to give me the second mark. Let me at least lend you energy and connect to you that way."
"When I leave, if you encounter another vampire and they detect that second mark, they would kill you. Or make you their servant."
He digested that, took a breath. "Again, what are the chances, if you move on," not happening without him, but that was another argument for another day, "that some vampire will be in this part of the world someday and get close enough to me to find that out? The risk has got to be pretty low, right? Let me make that choice, accept that risk. Let me help you, be close to you. This is where I live, where I'm going to be, Selene."
His yearning to connect so intimately to her was rising hard and strong, impossible to resist. He willed her not to resist it as well. He wasn't the type of man who petitioned or pleaded, begged for anything. But as he exhorted her to give him that second mark, he knew he was striking a match against the Mistress side of her, the one that would have a hard time resisting a plea from the man she knew belonged to her.
Because he knew it now too and that made it even more potent.
At long last, she lifted her gaze. "Quinn."
"Do it. Please." He whispered it, sliding his arm around her waist, drawing her closer. Cupping her face, he caressed her cheek with his thumb, found the tip of her fang. It was sharp enough to prick, and thinking on that, he pressed harder. The drop of blood welled up, and he traced her lips with it, watched them part and her delicate tongue take the drop away, making his cock get even harder, though it was pretty much at full tilt now. She'd gone even more still, yet he sensed a soul-deep tremor from her, the energy building, close to conflagration point. He pushed his thumb into her mouth, drew in a breath as her lips closed over it, sucked, making him bite back a groan.
He wanted whatever would bind her to him. The intense feeling of possession he felt for her was so unusual it rocked him.
"Selene. Please. Mistress." If she didn't stop running her sweet tongue over his thumb he was going to strip off her clothes and bury his face in her cunt.
With a cry, she wrested away from him, but this time an answering fire surged up in him. Before she could do that vampire sprint, he'd seized her wrist, turned her and slammed her against the same wall she'd held him against. He saw her eyes fire at the challenge, but he was the one on the bull now, not her.
"Goddamn it, Selene." He gripped her slender shoulders, holding her. "This is what I want. Whatever you have to do, do it, so I'll know every minute of every day and night you are mine, and only mine."
He took her mouth with a voracious hunger so intense it shook him. Lifting her off her feet, he shoved himself against her core, ground there with crude, undeniable intent. As he did, he stroked his tongue in her mouth. He was doing his own feeding now, drawing her into himself. His fingers dug into her shoulders as he pressed his body hard against hers.
"Feel that?" he gasped when he lifted his mouth. "Feel my cock? I'm so damn hard for you one touch and I could explode." He nipped the tender line of her jaw. "And that? I'm doing my own marking. Here." He trailed his mouth down her neck and tasted a delicious morsel of skin. "And here?" He licked the spot then scored her with his teeth. "And here?" He nipped at the hollow of her throat, the beat of her pulse thrumming against his tongue.
"Quinn." She shook her head, a wild thrashing. "It's not--"
"The same thing?" He stared into her eyes, knowing he was as close to being out of control as she was. "I don't care. I'm giving you my mark. I want yours, damn it."
Frantically, as if she'd disappear unless he branded her in some way, he reached down and yanked up the hem of her dress. Though she could work a pair of jeans well enough to make a man drool, he was glad she was wearing one of her short dresses tonight. He thrust his hand between her slender thighs, searching for the wet heat of her pussy. Yanked so hard on the insubstantial silk of her panties that the fabric tore and he tossed it aside. When he t
hrust his fingers into her and her muscles clamped down on him it took every shred of his control not to come in his jeans.
This woman was not only addictive. She brought out an over-the-top sense of possessiveness he'd never felt with any other woman.
But then she gave him what he wanted. She turned the tables to possess him.
He hit the table behind him as she shoved him back, but she was following right behind, and put him through the damn thing, turning it into kindling as she brought him down on the debris and straddled him. He felt rough wood dig into his back and didn't care.
She held him down, stared at him. "Second mark," she said. "That's it."
Whatever helps you sleep at night, honey, he thought. Then he realized if she was going to be in his mind soon, he'd probably have to learn how to curtail such thoughts. Unless he wanted one of those broken table legs shoved up his ass.
He slid one hand up her thigh, back under the edge of her skirt. He slowly, slowly, pushed his fingers into her wet core. She bit her lip, eyes fastened on his. As he stroked her, she made a little humming noise. Her heavy-lidded eyes heated, her kiss-swollen lips curving in a tiny smile. It told him her decision had been made. His gut loosened as he saw she was back in control.
"My cowboy takes what he wants," she told him, "but only because I allow it. Remember that."
Sliding his fingers free, he tightened his stomach muscles and used them to lever himself up to a sitting position. Once there, he twisted a hand in her hair, used that hold to tilt her head back as his other arm banded hard around her waist. His heart was pounding so hard he could barely get the words out.
"Is that right?" he growled.
"Yes. It is. And if you want to fuck me, you'll wait for my permission."
*
She was going to do it. She knew she was. Praying she was not making a mistake that would betray them both, reassuring herself this was just the second mark, not one that irreparably bound his life to hers, she bent forward, brought her lips to his cheek. A bolt of sweet inevitability hit her as he raised his jaw, his hands gripping her hips. Now that she was certain of her course, the clawing urge morphed to anticipation. She straightened with just a tiny scrape of his skin and eyed him. Her restless male animal, trapped between her thighs.
