“I’m not doing this for your gratitude, either.” Gabriel jerked away from his touch. “When the dust settles and you’ve finally secured the bonded witch, I’m leaving. And I never, ever want to see you, hear you, or smell your traitorous blood again,yourhighness.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Don’t take another step, dickhead.” Charley stood in front of the bedroom door, stake at the ready.
“Dickhead?” Dorian glanced at her weapon, a smile quirking his lips. “I see we’re feeling rather confident now.”
“I swear on my father’s grave, Dorian Redthorne. Iwillstake you.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubts about your intentions, Buffy.”
“So you have a death wish?”
He strode toward her, stopping only when the pointy end of her makeshift stake was pressed against his sternum. “That depends. Are you strong enough to break through the bone and pierce the beating heart behind it?”
“Test me and let’s find out.”
Dorian raised his hands in mock surrender. “By all means—have a go. But Charlotte?” He grinned again, fangs descending before her eyes, sharp and terrifying in the moonlight. “Don’t miss.”
Her whole body trembled, their gazes locked in a fierce battle of wills, her stomach flip-flopping. Never before had she felt such an acute mix of terror and exhilaration. It rendered her speechless and paralyzed, lost to the magnetic pull of a dangerous monster she should’ve run from.
Should’ve killed.
You are my ocean tide, Dorian Redthorne, come to steal my soul…
“Lesson one,” he said, and the room spun into a smudge of indiscernible shapes and colors. Before Charley could suck in another breath, she was face-first against the wall on the other side of the room, his body pinning her in place, her pathetic stake clattering to the floor.
Dorian gripped the back of her neck in one impossibly strong hand, the other capturing her wrists behind her back. Then, mouth close to her ear, “If you’re going to threaten an apex predator after he specifically warned you not to, best to follow through.”
“Fuck… off.” She jerked against his hold, but it was no use. He was a wall of solid muscle and supernatural strength, and he had her exactly where he wanted her.
Trapped. Helpless. Vulnerable.
“Quite the conundrum, isn’t it?” He dragged his mouth along the curve of her neck to her shoulder, then back again, pausing behind her ear, his breath hot. “You’ve managed to trigger the predatory response in a beast that could kill you faster than you could draw your next breath.”
“Do it, then, you fucking monster!” she cried, tired of the power games, the secrets, the lies. She’d come all this way to spy, to help her crew rob him blind… Maybe she deserved to die at his hand. At his bite. “If you’re so set on killing me, finish it!”
“Killing you? Now that doesn’t sound like any fun at all.” He spun her around, then pushed her back against the wall, wrists pinned above her head as he shoved a muscular thigh between her legs.
She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to look into his eyes. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear.
Her desire.
“What am I to do with you, little prowler?” he asked, lips brushing her mouth, her jawline. His thigh pressed closer, teasing her. “Posing as a guest at my fundraiser. Snooping around my manor. Threatening to stake me in my own bedroom.”
“I don’t carewhatyou do with me.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” He shifted his thigh, sending a zing of pleasure through her core.
Charley fought off a shiver. It took her a full beat to realize her hips were moving, rocking against the delicious pressure of his thigh, desperate for the heat, the friction.
She knew she should stop. Beg him to let her go. To forget they’d ever crossed paths.
But she couldn’t.
Because deep down, beneath all the bravado and F-bombs, Charleywantedto be here. Wanted him.
“Look at me, Charlotte.”
