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Do it, he snarled, that fierce gaze daring her to take him to her mouth...damning her for it.
Elise bent down over his wrist and carefully opened her mouth to receive him. The instant her lips touched his skin, Tegan hissed, arcing sharply. Elise drew gently, using her tongue to lap at the twin openings in his skin. His blood was hot and tingly as it slid down her throat, filling her with a heat that soon became a roar of swelling, compounding power.
It hit her so fast, she moaned from the intensity, feeling instantly overwhelmed. Warmth boiled through her limbs and into her core, pulsing hard, rolling like a tide.
She hadn't been prepared for such a swift, stunning reaction. Inside she was molten, going liquid and boneless...wanton.
When she tried to pull away, Tegan placed his palm on the back of her head. His large fingers spanned her skull, burrowing through her hair. There was no denying his strength, yet the pressure he held her with was light. But it was also unyielding.
Elise glanced up at him, anxious now. Maybe this wasn't a good idea at all. Maybe she'd been wrong.
Tegan's eyes glittered, pupils swamped by fiery amber.
You shouldn't have started if you weren't prepared to finish. His face was starkly serious, unforgiving. Take more. You know you need it.
Her breath sawed out of her at his invitation. God help her, but she did need more. Already she could feel Tegan's blood mixing with her own, pounding in her temples. She licked her lips, savoring the wild, powerful taste of him on her tongue.
Tegan's jaw went visibly rigid.
Christ, he ground out tightly. His fingers were a searing presence across her nape and up along the back of her head. He could have pushed her down so easily, but he only held her there, tender beneath all that coiled Breed power. Take more of me, Elise. Panting now, every nerve ending firing off inside her like a hail of sensory explosions, she lowered her head and latched on to him once more.>Tegan cursed low under his breath. He had to get the hell out of there, and the way things were going, tomorrow night's flight to Berlin wasn't going to be soon enough.
He had somewhere he could go--the place he always went when shit started bearing down on him. Sometimes he'd disappear there for nights on end; none of his brethren in the Order had ever been there. It was his own private hell, a forsaken, hollow place, filled with death. Right about now, it sounded like a fucking holiday.
Elise stood in the center of a large, mostly vacant chamber in the compound, feeling as if she'd had the wind knocked out of her. She was still shaking from her confrontation with Tegan, but whether it was from humiliation or anger, she wasn't sure. What he'd done to her in front of his brethren was inexcusable, incredibly cold. He had to know that what he suggested was blasphemous and profanely insulting--not just to her, but to the warriors who'd been in the room to hear it. Only the lowest females living among the Breed would engage in a blood bond without a solemn commitment and a deeply shared love.
The blood bond was the most sacred communion between a Breedmate and the male she chose as her own. The ultimate intimacy, it was very often a sexual act, and one never entered into lightly. To use a vampire's blood only to further one's longevity and strength was simply not done. Not by anyone Elise knew.
But she couldn't deny that Tegan's observations of her had been the truth.
What he'd said was cruel and crude...and utterly accurate. She was willingly wasting away, which was her prerogative as a widowed Breedmate. But she wanted to have an active part in thwarting the Rogues, and it was foolish of her to think she could do so if she continued on as she was.
Elise glanced at the barren room around her. The white, windowless walls contained no color at all--no pleasing art or photographs, like she'd seen in the rest of the compound. No sofa, no electronic equipment or computers, no books. Nothing of personal expression at all.
Near the far wall stood a tall black cabinet, and a black wooden bench beside it, underneath which was two pairs of large black leather boots, arranged with military precision. There was a large bed in the adjacent room, but even that wasn't particularly inviting. Just gunmetal gray sheets and a coal-colored blanket folded neatly at the foot of the king-sized mattress. Elise had never seen a soldiers' barracks, but she imagined they'd look like this...maybe not this cold and impersonal.
She knew where she was, of course. She'd known where she was heading when she navigated the labyrinth of corridors after removing herself from the embarrassment she'd endured in the Order's control room.
She knew what she was about to do now, but that didn't make her heart skip any less frantically when she heard Tegan's hard gait approaching from outside the open door of his private quarters.
That long-legged stride slowed, then ceased altogether as the air stirred coldly, announcing his arrival. His immense body filled the door frame, muscular arms crossed over his chest, his powerful, denim-clad thighs spread in a battle stance. He didn't speak at first, but there was no need for words when his emerald-green eyes narrowed on her, as sharp as gemstones and as cold as a glacier.
Tegan--
If you're looking for an apology, you can forget it.
Elise held that menacing gaze as she forced herself to approach him. I'm not here for that, she told him, surprised there was no tremor in her voice for the way her pulse was skittering in her veins. I came here to tell you that you were right back there. I do need the strength of a blood bond, but I'm not looking for a mate. I need an uncomplicated arrangement, with someone who isn't going to care what I do, or when I walk away...so I choose you.
Chapter Thirteen
Every smartass, apathetic reply that might have sprung to his lips fled, along with all the blood in his brain. Tegan stood there in the doorway of his private apartments, struck stupid with shock at what he just heard.
He sure as hell never saw this coming.
And although all good sense told him to deny Elise's proposal--shut the goddamn idea down before another second passed--his mouth didn't seem capable of speech. An erotic mental image burned instantly into his mind: Elise's lips pressed against his skin, her sweet pink tongue lapping at him, her mouth drawing deeply from his vein.
He wanted that, he realized in a flash of disbelief.
Wanted it so bad he shuddered with the force of it.
