"Stop." I reached across the bar and caught her wrists before she could undo another button. "Just... stop." I didn't know what she was doing, and I didn't want to.
We froze like that, my hands wrapped around her wrists. My thumbs stroked across the inside of her wrists, feeling her pulse jump at the contact. The air between us grew charged, electric, like lightning waiting to strike.
"I can't do this," I said, but I didn't let go. Couldn't let go. "I can't be what you need."
"Why not?" Her voice had gone quiet. Dangerous. "Give me one good reason."
"Because I'll lose myself." The admission felt like it was being torn from somewhere deep in my chest. "Because being near you makes me feel things I haven't felt in a century. Because every instinct I have is screaming at me to claim you, mark you, never let you out of my sight, and that terrifies me more than anything I've ever faced in my life."
Her breath caught and her green eyes widened on my face. "Elias..."
"You want to know how I see you?" I pulled her closer, silently cursing the bar that separated us, until I could feel her magic—riled up again with her emotions—dancing across my skin, settling into something steady and right. "I see someone strong enough to face her own power even when it's tearing her apart. I see someone who keeps fighting even when her own family won't believe her. I see the one person who makes my carefully controlled world that always made me feel safe suddenly feel like a cage I'm desperate to escape."
"I'm not those things," she whispered.
"You are." I leaned closer, drawn by forces I couldn't name and didn't want to fight anymore tonight. "You are. And I should run away so fucking fast from that. Should lock myself in my room and pretend I don't feel this pull between us."
"But?" The word was little more than the slightest movement of her lips.
"But I can't." The confession hung between us for three heartbeats. "I can't stay away from you. Can't stop thinking about you. Can't fucking breathe right when you're not near me, and I don't know what the hell that means except that I'm already lost."
Something shifted in her eyes as she stared at me. Softened. "You're not lost," she whispered. "Maybe you're found." She shrugged a little. "Maybe we're both found."
Her softly spoken words roared through me, and that last thread of resistance snapped.
I released her wrists and moved around the bar with vampire speed, crowding into her space before she could retreat. Before I could think better of it. Before fear could override the need burning through my veins like fire.
Leaning over her from behind, I caged her in against the bar, touching her only with my body, my hands gripping the wood like my life depended on it. Her warmth seeped through the thin cotton of my T-shirt to warm my chest, and I ducked my head, the tip of my nose skimming her jawline as I breathed her scent into my lungs so deep I'd never forget it.
"Elias." My name on her lips heated my blood to the boiling point.
"Tell me to stop." I moved away just far enough that she could turn to face me, then backed her against the bar again, my hands wrapping around her hips. "Tell me you don't want this."
"I can't." Her fingers fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer even as her eyes reflected the same fear I felt. "I've been trying to tell myself that for days, and I can't."
"Then gods help us both." Burying one hand in her wild hair, I crashed my mouth against hers.
The kiss detonated between us like a bomb.
Her lips were softer than I'd imagined, warmer. Her taste sweet and desperate and uniquely her. I growled low in my throat, my fangs throbbing, aching to sink into her soft flesh. She kissed me back with a hunger that matched my own, her fingers tangling in my hair, her body arching into mine like she was trying to crawl inside my skin.
I lifted her onto the bar in one smooth motion, stepping between her thighs and dragging her back against me until her legs wrapped my hips and no space remained. The small sound she made—half gasp, half moan—nearly shattered what remained of my sanity.
"Three days," I growled against her mouth, trailing kisses along her jaw. "Three days I've been trying not to think about this."
"I know." Her head fell back, giving me access to the column of her throat. "I know."
I dragged the tips of my fangs against her pulse point, and we both shuddered as it hammered against my lips, begging me to pierce it. The sound of her blood rushing through her veins was the sweetest music I'd ever heard. And her scent… gods! her scent… it was nearly overwhelming now. Earth and rain and arousal so thick I could taste it on the back of my tongue.
Her hands were everywhere, sliding under my shirt, mapping the muscles of my back, pulling me closer.
I couldn't get enough.
My hands found the buttons of her vest and started to push the fabric aside. I needed to touch her. Needed to taste?—
She went rigid beneath me for a split second before she grabbed my wrists. "No."
Somehow, that single word cut through the haze of my lust. I froze.
