AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why should I trust you?”
“I’m the best chance you’ve got.”
He gave a muted bark of laughter. “You’re honest anyway.”
“Yes. And when I make a promise, I keep it.” I stuck out my hand. “I swear on my mother’s grave that you’re safe with me.”
He took my hand but didn’t shake it. “Tell me your name. You want me to trust you? Give me that much, at least.”
I moistened my lips. “I can’t.”
He raised my hand. I tensed, expecting him to kiss it, but he turned it over instead and examined the faint marks he’d left behind when he’d fed from me.
His gaze came back to mine. Dark, insistent. “Yes, you can.”
Longing twisted through me, a sharp, sudden craving. I couldn’t recall the last time anyone had called me by my real name. Suddenly, I needed to hear it spoken—and not by just anyone.
By him. Zaquiel.
My mouth opened again. “Ridley.” I kept my voice low, but it felt like I’d shouted it.
He relaxed a little. “Ridley,” he repeated. His voice had a hint of gravel. My plain, boyish name sounded sexy, like we were in bed together, not standing in a graveyard. “No last name?”
I wordlessly shook my head.
“Someday.” The word held a promise, like there would be a future for us, a future where I would tell him not just my full name, but all my secrets.
At that moment, I almost believed it.
“Ridley. I like it.” Zaq touched his lips to the marks on my wrist. His lips were soft and warm.
Shocks and tingles went up my arm like Fourth-of-July sparklers. My head swam with his scent. My heart knocked against my ribcage. He kissed a line up my forearm, touching his lips to the sensitive skin of my inner elbow.
“Zaquiel…”
He raised his head from my arm, smiling—an intimate, just-for-me smile that set off more shocks and tingles, this time in my lower belly.
“Call me Zaq. No one calls me Zaquiel except my father—or my mom when she’s really pissed off.”
He’s playing you, Ridley. Trying to get you on his side.
But I found myself nodding. Hell, I’d already been calling him Zaq in my head.
“Zaq,” I agreed.
He released my hand and ran the backs of his fingers over my cheek. He’d moved closer, or maybe I had. We were nearly touching now. I felt his heat up and down the front of my body. My nipples prickled and hardened.
He cupped my chin, ran his thumb over my lower lip. “I wish…” He halted and shook his head.
It was maddening. I needed him to finish that sentence. I’d forgotten we were in the cemetery. I’d forgotten he was supposed to be my prisoner. I’d forgotten that he was probably playing me.
We were in a Zaq-and-Ridley bubble, warm and beautiful and ripe with possibilities.
I let my glamour fade. We were alone, and I could always call on it again if I had to.
“What?” I caught his wrist. “What do you wish?”
His mouth tugged to the side like he was laughing at us both. “That I’d met you some other way. So we could get to know each other like two people do. People who like each other. Because I think I could like you, Ridley No-Name.”
