Page 129 of Hunted

His eyes darken.

Of course he knows.

‘Hush, little hunter,’ he says, voice low enough to vibrate through my bones. ‘You will remain intact. Today is not the day I will break you open.’

Alarm and heat crash together so violently I almost laugh. ‘Cool. Super comforting phrasing. Love that for me.’

His fangs linger another second, then retract with visible effort.

Before I can decide whether to be relieved or weirdly disappointed, he moves.

The world tilts.

One heartbeat I’m flat on my back in silk sheets, trying to remember my own name. The next, he’s flipped us so he’s on his back, spread out across that monstrous bed like a decadent feast laid out for a queen with terrible judgement.

His arms stretch above his head, one hand gripping the iron bars of the headboard, the movement pulling every muscle in his torso taut and making the mark over his heart glimmer darkly.

Indecent and deliberate. Dangerous in a wholly different way.

He watches me from beneath lowered lashes, all command wrapped in invitation, disarmingly, fucking sexy, then beckons with his other hand.

‘Come here, sexy human.’

My snark is gone, drowned beneath the torrent of his insane hotness.

So I do. Mostly because my body has resigned from management.

He hooks a hand at my waist and settles me over his thighs with brutally lazy power. My knees sink into the mattress on either side of him, and the position is suddenly, wildly intimate.

Me above him. His body beneath mine. His gaze fixed on my face like he’s studying what kind of havoc I’ll choose.

Then he says, calmly, like he’s discussing meeting logistics, ‘Touch me however you please. Pleasure yourself on me if you wish. You have ten minutes.’

I stare. ‘Umm… what?’

‘Either you make us both come in that time,’ he continues, one dark brow lifting in pure challenge, ‘or I take over.’

It’s a dare.

And shit, I am weak at refusing dares.

I’m also, catastrophically, a virgin currently straddling a centuries-old vampire who looks like he was handcrafted by a consortium of indecency and old money.

I’m not a nun.

I’ve read things. Heard more. In moments of weakness, I’ve bookmarked things. I’ve also bought a toy or two, one I threw away when the battery died and the other I use sparingly because, dammit, it did not deliver what it said on the box.

So pleasing a vampire this old, this skilled, this composed while he’s hard enough to dent steel and apparently capable of timing orgasms like a military operation?

My confidence flickers.

His smile deepens, as if he scents that too. ‘Tick tock, little hunter. We will not leave this room until we both come.’

A reckless plan sparks.

Make him come first. Blow his mind. Get him off, then touch myself and, given how close to the edge I already feel, surely I can tumble over with minimal effort.

Efficient.