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“Not crazy at all, my little witch.” Griffin was still sitting on the far side of the couch to put distance between us but now he reached out and stroked a cool finger down my cheek.
His touch made me shiver with longing. I wanted to get closer to him—but I sensed it would be very difficult for him to be near me so soon after seeing the key, so I stayed where I was.
“Do you think…” I hesitated, not sure how to phrase my next question.
“Yes?” Griffin looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
“Do you think that the only reason we want to…want to be together is because of these necklaces we’re wearing? Because of the lock and the key?” I asked in a rush. I was hoping his answer would be no—but desperately afraid it would be yes. After all, why else would someone as gorgeous as him want to be with average-looking me?
Griffin took his time about answering.
“I don’t think so,” he said at last, looking thoughtful. “The lock around my neck keeps me from drinking and it keeps me in perpetual thirst, but it does not control my emotions.” He ran one finger down my cheek again. “From the first moment I laid eyes on you, all I wanted was to be with you, Megan. I wanted it so much it frightened me—I was afraid I might hurt you.”
“You won’t,” I said, scooting a little closer to him.
“Not as long as you keep your key far from my lock,” he said dryly. And then, more seriously, “I think it would kill me if I harmed you—I would want to die. That’s one reason I tried to stay away from you at first.”
“I wanted to be near you too,” I confessed. “Although I didn’t know why. And…and the feeling keeps getting stronger. It’s hard to believe I’ve only known you about a week. I feel like…like we’ve known each other forever somehow. I know that sounds bizarre.”
“No it doesn’t.” He shook his head. “I feel the same for you. Almost a kind of bonding that was meant to be between us.”
“Exactly!” I exclaimed. “It doesn’t make sense but that’s how I feel too.”
It was a little like the instant sense of connection I’d felt with Avery and Emma and Kaitlyn, I thought. The feeling almost of predestination—like we had been marked for each other in some long distant past and now we were coming together like pieces of a puzzle finally fitting into place.
Griffin looked at me intently.
“I want to be closer to you—I want to hold you in my arms.”
My heart leapt and then started beating double time. I could feel my pulse racing and it seemed hard to get a deep enough breath.
“I want that too,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice calm and not succeeding very well. “But…well…is it safe?”
He nodded. “I think so. As long as you keep the key hidden. It will be torture of course, to hold you close and smell the delicious scent of your blood rushing in your veins, but a sweet kind of torture. One I desire very much. Come to me, Megan.”
57
I went to him then—I couldn’t stop myself from going. I meant just to sit beside him but before I knew it, Griffin had pulled me into his lap and I was leaning against him with my cheek pressed to his chest and his chin resting on the top of my head. His long arms wrapped around me, making me feel secure, and I could hear the slow, deep drumming of his heart as his cool, spicy scent enveloped me.
“This is good,” Griffin rumbled, stroking one hand over my back soothingly. “This is what I’ve wanted from the first moment I saw you—to gather you close and hold you to me, little witch.”
“It feels right,” I admitted. “Like we were meant to be together. Why…why do you think that is? Is it because I’m wearing your mark?”
“I don’t think so—though that probably enhances it.” He sounded thoughtful. “I don’t fully understand it myself—I’ve never felt like this for any other girl, ever.”
I thought of the girls he had woken up beside—the ones who were dead with their blood smeared on his mouth and hands. But I didn’t believe Griffin had done that—he was holding himself back from hurting me even now because he wanted badly to be close to me, to hold me.
I didn’t feel in my heart that he was a killer.
“I haven’t either,” I said. “Felt this way about a guy, I mean. I’ve had crushes before, of course. But this just feels like…”
“Forever,” Griffin finished for me, stroking a hand through my hair gently.
“Yes,” I sighed. A need welled up inside me—a longing to be closer—to have more. Daring greatly, I reached up to thread my fingers through his midnight black hair and tried to draw him down for a kiss.
