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She cuts me off with a finger pressed to my lips and a small shake of her head. “I don’t want you to leave. And I don’t want to put on clothes.” She shifts closer, her breath catching as her bare breasts brush against my chest. “I’m pretty sure this is the best I’ve felt in…ever.”
“Annie…” Her name is rough, raw, a warning not to do this, not to put herself in danger. Even thirty minutes ago, I would have insisted I would never lose control with a woman. I’ve been celibate for over two hundred years, easily abstaining through both the roaring twenties and the summer of love. I’ve walked away from every woman who’s shown an interest without a second thought or a backward glance.
But Annie’s different. I have no idea why my defenses crumble when she’s close, but I know that if she doesn’t let me out from under these covers, I may very well break my vow. The one I made to Catherine and to my children and to all the people I hurt with my selfishness.
“I can’t,” I murmur, my voice breaking in the middle of the words. “I can’t do this.”
“You can’t not do this,” she says, the love and acceptance in her eyes chipping away at my resolve in a way I’m not prepared to fight. “You need this as badly as I do, and it’s going to be all right. I promise. Everything is going to be all right.”
She leans forward, gently brushing her lips across mine with a softness that threatens to burst the bubble swelling in my chest. Her lips barely touch mine, but I feel her everywhere, all at once. I feel her breath on my skin and her blood rushing in time with mine and all I want is to give in to the longing rising inside of me like a sea monster bursting from the waves after years of dwelling in darkness.
But I can’t. I can’t break this promise, or I’ll hate myself even more than I do already.
I squeeze my eyes shut, images of my past colliding with my present behind my closed lids. Annie’s face merges with my wife’s until it’s her freckled cheeks I see streaked with tears and spotted with blood on that last night, that horrific night when I lost everything that had ever mattered.
Everything that would ever matter.
Emotion rising in my throat like gorge, I untangle my legs and half tumble off the couch, but I’m back on my feet in seconds, crossing to brace a shaking hand on the fireplace mantle.
I lean my head against the warm wood and suck air, willing this madness away, but it remains, pumping through my veins, ensuring my cock remains as hard as the cast iron poker near the flames.
It’s like I’ve been bewitched.
Bewitched…
Annie is a witch. Not a powerful one by all accounts, but I would be a fool to discount magic entirely.
I turn, pinning her with a hard look. “What were you doing out there? And why did you start taking off your clothes back there on the road?” I’ve heard of witches removing their clothing before casting. Allegedly, it helps focus their energy on the astral plane on nights when the moon and stars aren’t in the mood to cooperate with their plans.
Annie blinks and sits up, the quilt clutched to her chest. “I don’t know, but I’m guessing hypothermia. Doesn’t that make people take off their clothes sometimes?”
Biting back a growl, I realize she’s right. And that I would have realized that myself if I hadn’t been so distracted by how good it felt to be skin-to-skin with her.
“And then there’s death burrowing,” she continues, her face going pale. “When people try to crawl into the snow or under the ground like animals searching for shelter. But they’re naked and human and freezing to death so it doesn’t work and…” She gulps, tears filling her eyes as she adds in a stunned whisper, “Oh wow. I almost died, didn’t I?”
“Indeed, you did,” I snap.
Her brow furrows. “Why are you yelling at me?”
“I’m not yelling,” I yell as I begin to pace in front of the fire, too agitated to bother tucking my cock into the waistband of my boxers. Let her see me like this—aroused and irate—and realize I’m the last thing a sweet little witch needs in her life or her bed. “You should have stayed at home. Where you belong.”
“I needed vampire blood for Blaire’s rash,” she says. “She’s in pain.”
“And there are dozens of vampires at the Blackmore estate, just a short tram ride away from your residence, who could have helped you ease it.”
“I didn’t want to go to the Blackmore estate. I wanted to see you because I…” Her hands tighten their grip on the blanket. “Because I thought you were interesting.”
“Interesting,” I echo with a muttered curse. “Well, I hope I’ve disabused you of that notion.”
She sits up straighter. “No, you haven’t. I still think you’re interesting, and far kinder than you let on. You saved my life, Baron Blackmore. And you liked kissing me as much as I liked kissing you. You loved it, in fact. And it’s taking all the strength you have not to kiss me again.” She gulps, and pushes on, “I may not know much about the real world, but I know that. I’d bet my life on it, in fact.”
In a heartbeat, I’m across the room, bending to cup her flushed cheek in my hand as I whisper, “Would you really? You’d bet your life on a man you barely know?”
“I know you,” she says, her eyes locked on mine, as bold and fearless as a general on a battlefield. “I don’t know how, but…I do. I know that you need me and that you would never hurt me. You’d give your own life first.”
I want to deny it. I want to warn her again that I’m a monster who destroys everything I touch, but I hate lies even more than I hate this weakness stealing into the marrow of my bones.
“Just kiss me,” she says, the longing in her voice drawing me closer no matter how I fight to pull away. “Let’s just…feel good. Together. For a little while.”
