She nodded, the blush rising in her cheeks. “I wanted you. Needed you, actually, but you were fast asleep and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“But you woke me anyway. The sweetest, most off-key melody I’d ever heard stirred me from my dreams. I headed into the bathroom and found you leaning back against the tiles in the shower, your hand between your legs, your skin flushed. Even through the steam on the glass, I knew you’d just made yourself come.”
“I was thinking of you. The way you kissed me. All the things you…” She swallowed hard, the blood racing through her veins, calling out to me just as her songs still did. “…the things you did to me earlier that night.”
“You opened your eyes and caught me grinning at you,” I whispered, afraid anything louder would shatter the moment. “I was so hard for you, I thought I might explode.” My own words painted the fantasy, mixing with the Dream in my system to bring it to life as if it were unfolding right here, right before my eyes. I was hard for her again, my balls aching. “You weren’t shy about it, though. You smiled right back at me, you wicked girl. And when I stepped into the shower, youbeggedme to touch you.”
A teasing smile touched her lips, her eyes glassy, as if she was tripping right along with me. “You refused.”
“I wanted you to make yourself come again. I wanted to watch. And you know something, sparrow?” I leaned in close, lowering my mouth to just a hair’s breadth from hers. “Youwantedme to watch, didn’t you? Wanted to tease me and drive me wild.”
Her breath caught. She nodded, unable to deny it.
“Do you know how many times I’ve played that movie in my mind?” I asked, tracing a fingertip along her jaw, following the path of another rivulet of water down her throat. “How many nights I’ve stood in the shower, still hard for you, remembering the sight of your fingers sliding over your wet skin? The taste of your kiss on my lips? Your breathy moans as you brought yourself right back to the edge?”
“Elian, I… I…” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Muttered a curse.
When she glanced up at me again, the haze had cleared, her eyes flashing with anger.
“Stop,” she commanded. She leaned back against the sink, her hands instinctively going to her dagger, as if the damn thing was a security blanket. “Just stop.”
I raised my hands and stepped back, shrugging as if it didn’t matter to me one way or the other. As if it didn’t feel like she’d just punched a hole through my chest and yanked out my heart.
“I’m not one of your clients, asshole,” she snapped. “So stop incepting me with your hypnotic fae illusions and creepy vampire…whateverit is you’re doing.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her the only power I was using was words. The story of our shared memories unearthed from the deep and brought back into the light.
What Haley and I had shared? It didn’t need a vampire’s influence or a fae’s trickery. It was powerful and magickal in its own right. And even though I’d fucking destroyed it, it still tethered us. Across the years. Across the realms. I could still feel her under my skin. In my soul.
Yeah, I was an asshole to barge in on her tonight. An asshole to push things as far as I had.
But I couldn’t leave it like this.
If she knew what this was doing to me right now…
No. Vulnerability was the surest way to get yourself killed.
I plastered my smile back in place, as cocky as she’d ever known it.
“Too bad you feel that way,” I said. “Might be your last chance to, ah…singfor me before we ship off to hell.”
“Pretty sure I’m already there.”
“If that’s true, then why is your blood racing?” I held my palm in front of her chest, close enough to feel the heat of her skin, but not touching. “I can hear it, little sparrow. Zipping through your veins like it’s trying to escape.”
“Hmm. Are you sure it’smyblood you’re hearing?” Haley laughed. Then, with a cocky grin of her own, she slammed her hand against my chest.
Blood leaked from a fresh gash on her palm, soaking into my shirt.
The magick hit me at once, a hot flush that burst from my chest and skittered across my skin like fire. Stars blinked before my eyes, and the edges of the room darkened. The ground spun out from beneath my feet.
I caught myself on the edge of the sink just before I fell.
“It worked!” She clapped her hands and bounced on her toes, so fucking cute I couldn’t even be pissed at her for whatever mojo she’d just unleashed.
“What… did you do?” I panted, still dizzy. Weak. Not a good look for a vampire-fae, I’ll tell you that much.
“Oh, is there something youdon’tremember about me? That I’m a blood witch, maybe?” She laughed, the sound of it echoing off the tile walls.
