Part 28 (1/2)

I gathered up the next book in my stack, my eyes scanning the Dewey Decimal numbers on the shelves to locate its home.

In other words, I was trying very, very hard not to think about the sound of footsteps behind me, or the fact that they were moving closer.

Interesting that I hadn't yet moved out of his path.

”My point, Sentinel, is that you are more than a woman who hides in a library.”

”Hmm,” I nonchalantly said, sliding the final book into its home. I knew what was coming. I could hear it in his voice-the low, thick hum of it. I didn't know why he was trying, given his apparently conflicted feelings about me, but this was the prelude to seduction.

Footsteps, and then he was next to me, his body behind mine, his lips at the spot of skin just below my ear. I could feel the warmth of his breath against my neck. The smell of him-clean, soapy, almost discomfortingly familiar. As much as the want of it disturbed me, I wanted to sink back against him, let him envelop me.

Part of that, I knew, was vampire genetics, the fact that he'd changed me, some kind of evolutionary connection between Master and vampire.

But part of it was much, much simpler.

”Merit.”

Part of it was boy and girl.

I shook my head. ”No, thank you.”

”Don't deny it. I want this. You want this.”

He said the words, but the cant of them was wrong. Irritated. Not words of desire, but an accusation. As if we'd fought the attraction and hadn't been strong enough to resist it, and we were worse off for it.

But if Ethan fought it, he didn't resist. He leaned in, a hand at my waist, his body behind mine, and grazed his teeth along the sensitive skin of my neck. The breath shuddered out of me, my eyes rolling back, the vampire inside me thrilled by the innate dominance of the act. I tried to fight my way to the surface of therising l.u.s.t, and made the mistake of turning around, facing him. I'd been intent on giving him what-for, on sending him away, but he took full advantage of my s.h.i.+ft in position.

Ethan pressed closer, one hand on each side of me, fingers gripping the shelves, framing my body with his, and stared down at me, eyes as green as cut emeralds. He raised a hand to my face, stroked my lip with his thumb. His eyes became quicksilver, a sure sign of his hunger. Of his arousal.

”Ethan,” I said, a hesitation, but he shook his head, gaze dropping to my lips, then drifting shut. He leaned closer, his lips just touching mine. Teasing, hinting, but not quite kissing. My lids fell, and his hands were at my cheeks, fingers at my jaw, his breath staccato and rushed as his lips traced a trail, pressed kisses, against my closed eyes, my cheeks, everywhere but my lips.

”You are so much more than that.”

It was the words that did me in, that sealed my fate. My core went liquid, body humming, limbs languid as he worked to arouse me, to incite me.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him as he pulled back, his eyes wide and intense and insanely green.

He was so beautiful, his eyes on me, the desire clear, golden hair around his face, ridiculous cheekbones, mouth that would tempt a saint.

”Merit,” he roughly said, then leaned his forehead against mine, asking for my consent, my permission.

I wasn't a saint.

My eyes wide, decision made and the repercussions be d.a.m.ned, I nodded.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

CRYING WOLF.

His first move was the deadliest, a smile of boyish pleasure that transformed into the s.e.xiest, most congratulatory grin I'd ever seen. It was a look of sheer predatory satisfaction, the look of a hunter who'd planned, schemed, and won his prize, who had the prey in his grasp.

How apropos, I thought.

”Be still,” he whispered, then leaned in again, lids falling as he angled his head. I thought he'd kiss me, but this was just to tease, a prelude to whatever slate of activity he had in mind. He pressed a kiss to my jawline, then my chin, then nipped at my bottom lip, tugging it with his teeth.

When he released me, he stared at me again, rubbed his thumb across my cheekbone. He studied me, looked at me. This time, when his lashes fell, he kissed me fully, dipping his tongue into the cavern of my mouth.

He fisted his hands in the hair at the nape of my neck, teasing my tongue with his, willing me to engage, to fight back, to do anything but simply acquiesce.

I fisted my hands in the lapels of his coat, pulling him toward me, bringing the warmth of him, the smell of him, the taste of him, closer.

There was a moment of consideration before I decided I wasn't appalled enough by my actions to let him go.

Ethan.

It wasn't even a whisper, just the mental calling of his name, but he groaned triumphantly, sucked my tongue into his mouth, and tortured it with friction and the heat of his mouth.

I kissed him, let him kiss me, let him clutch my hips, curl his fingers into the fabric of my s.h.i.+rt, slide his hands around my waist and splay them against my back, pull me infinitesimally closer. He made a sound, a growl or purr, some predatory noise that rumbled in his throat, then said my name. And this time, it wasn't a question but a sound of victory, a claim on his prize.

He pressed in closer, fingers splayed and moving slowly upward. As he pressed against me, I felt the rise of his erection, the solidity of it against my stomach.

I cupped his face in my hands as we kissed in long, sensuous pulls and teasing bites, the thick golden silk of his hair falling around my fingers.Until the knock at the library door.

Ethan shot away, one hand on his hip, one at his mouth, wiping away the evidence.

”Yes?” His voice was loud, a cannon shot in the otherwise empty room.

I brushed the back of my hand across my mouth.

The door opened, a body silhouetted in the doorway, and then Malik stepped inside. ”They're here,” he said, eyes on me, some shred of unspoken compa.s.sion there, then looked at Ethan. ”Front parlor.”

Ethan nodded. ”Put them in my office. We'll be there in a moment.” Without even so much as a second glance, Malik nodded and walked out again, the door closing with a heavy, slowthush .

I moved back to the table and kept my gaze on the notebooks and texts I began to gather up. My heart raced, the guilt I'd thrown back at Morgan now flooding my chest.

What had I done? What had I,we , been about to do?

”Merit.”

”Don't.” I finished stacking the notebooks, picked them up, grabbed my scabbarded katana, and held them to my chest like a s.h.i.+eld. ”Don't. That shouldn't have happened.”

Ethan didn't respond until I began to move toward the door. He stopped me with a firm hand at my elbow. Even then, a single arched eyebrow was the only question I got.

”You gave me to him.”

His eyes widened, instantaneously. He was surprised, then, that it mattered, that it mattered that Ethan had wanted me, for whatever his reasons, in spite of his doubts, and had still given me away. To Morgan.