by Callie Rose
The real question is, how far did they actually go? Did they find anything that matters? The only thing that matters?
Ignoring the clothes and bedding on the floor, I stalk to the wardrobe and pry open the drawer at the bottom. They knocked it off its runners, so it takes me a minute to get it open—a very loud, very long minute full of very unladylike words. But eventually, it gives way, sliding out.
The dress I wore to begin this charade is still sitting on top, exactly how I left it. That doesn’t mean anything though—if they have even one functional brain between them, they wouldn’t want to make it obvious that they saw the weapons. If they did, that is.
The dress gets stuck as I pull on it, and I’ve got several more choice words for that. I put my back into it and almost fall over when the drawer finally gives it up, but I catch myself and throw the dress to one side instead. The gleam of cool steel in the drawer doesn’t give me much relief, I’m too wound up, but I pull them out anyway. I need to feel the steel in my hands.
I pull my twin blades out and grip the handles so tightly that my knuckles turn white. I stand quickly, whirling around to look for another hiding place now that the drawer’s been compromised—and freeze when I realize I’m not alone.
Rome stands just inside the doorway to my room, the heavy wood closed behind him.
I didn’t even hear him coming. I didn’t hear him open it or close it.
Shit.
I freeze. He’s frozen too, his eyes wide with shock, his mouth slightly agape as our eyes lock. Cold focus channels my adrenaline, my fighting instincts overriding everything else.
He saw me. He knows too much. I can’t let him live.
The second he closes his mouth, I move. But so does he. I jump, crossing the blades in front of me, targeting his throat. His strong, muscular throat. The throat that spoke up for Nathan and Jessica, even though his only connection to them was me. The throat I’ve kissed. The neck I’ve clung to.
I slide the blades open a fraction of a second too soon, land clumsily—and get snagged.
His strong hands are vices around my wrists. He lifts me, pulling me in one smooth motion until my weight is only barely on my feet, until I struggle to breathe. With a sudden jerk and twist, he forces the blades out of my hands, letting them clang to the floor.
“I should kill you,” he growls, his voice low and harsh.
My heart slams in my chest at the sound of those words coming from his lips. There are plenty of vamps I expected might try to murder me in this place, but Rome has never been one of them.
Until now.
“It’s my duty to kill you,” he repeats. There’s more force behind the words now.
“Who are you trying to convince, Rome? Me, or yourself?” The words hiss out painfully. There’s not enough air in my chest to propel them properly.
His eyes narrow. In a single, smooth movement, almost faster than I can make sense of, he slams my wrists down to my sides, spins me around, and holds me tight against him with one arm. His other hand grabs my hair in a knot on the back of my head, forcing me to bend over and look at my blades. My ass is pressed hard against his hips, and the strange intimacy of our position only makes my pulse throb harder in my veins.
“Tell me where you got those.”
“Pawn shop,” I lie through clenched teeth.
His grip tightens painfully against me and he twists his wrist, pulling my hair until I have to bite back a yelp.
“Pawn shops don’t keep blessed slayer weapons in stock,” he growls. “Not around here. They know better.”
I laugh weakly. “You’re assuming a lot of brains for people who look at the world and decide that their life’s mission is to run an overpriced junkyard and loan.”
He spins me out of his arms hard enough to slam me against the wall. I tuck my head forward and my arms back—you only get knocked out like this once before you learn how to avoid it. But it almost doesn’t matter. I hit the wall hard enough to nearly crack my tailbone, and the shock of it freezes my legs for a second.
“You’re a spy,” Rome growls as he takes two long steps across the room. “Betrayer.”
I make the mistake of looking up into his eyes. If he was only furious, maybe I would be able to ignore the shadow of guilt lurking around the edges of my fear. But there’s something else in his eyes, something that forces the guilt out of hiding, solidifying it. He’s hurt. I hurt him, after he’s been kind to me, after he put himself in harm’s way to protect me and my fellow tributes.
I drop my head, forcing my gaze away from his eyes as I shove down the shame and regret that try to rise up inside me.
It doesn’t matter. The only good vampire is a dead vampire.
Maybe they can’t help what they are, but neither can I—and I’m not about to die at the hands of a vampire, no matter how kind he can be. Especially not with Nathan still in danger.
Rome reaches out for my head, and I drop my shoulders and charge. Thankfully, the dress I chose for dinner tonight has a flowy, loose-fitting skirt, so it doesn’t impede my movements. He’s top-heavy, his broad chest and shoulders outweighing his hips and legs, and he topples under the force of my tackle.
He knows how to fight though.
He rolls with the fall, flinging me over his head as he somersaults backwards, landing on his feet while I’m still skidding across the floor.
I scramble for a blade, and he kicks it out of reach, trying to stomp on my fingers with his other foot. I leap out of the way, then swing my legs around, catching his ankles hard.
He stumbles, and I don’t let the opening go to waste. I hit his chin as it comes down, knocking him back, but it barely fazes him. He catches my leg and yanks me off the ground so I’m dangling with my head level to his crotch, my skirt dangling down around my arms and face.
With a feral snarl, I jab at him—even vampire men are vulnerable to nut shots—but he twists, making my fist connect with his hip.
I kick with my free leg instead and catch him in the temple hard enough for him to reflexively drop me. I hit the ground on my hands and toes, ready to move, but he slams down on top of me like a wrestler.
He outweighs me by a lot, and I flatten beneath him, but he moves his arms—probably reaching to snap my neck—and that gives me enough space to flip onto my back beneath him and strike for his face.
Rome jerks up out of the way, avoiding my punch by less than an inch. His large frame settles between my hips, his weight bearing down on me and pressing me into the floor. I jab again, and he catches my hand, pinning it to the floor above my head. In the same move, he pins my other wrist. His eyes blaze mere inches from mine. His entire body is covering mine now, all the way from my wrists to my hips.
My breath rattles in my chest, my throat so tight I can barely suck in enough oxygen.
He has me, and we both know it. A headbutt and a quick twist of my neck, and I’ll be finished. That’s all it will take, and I can’t figure a way to avoid it.
But he doesn’t move.
I meet his eyes again, still breathing hard. He’s conflicted, I can see it. It’s the same conflict that made me hesitate to take his head off. My heart rate ratchets up a couple notches, but it’s not from fear, although I wish it was. I can feel heat building in his groin, which is pressed hard against me. My body—betrayer, indeed—is reacting. He inhales sharply and his eyes darken. He knows. He can probably smell it on me with his enhanced senses.
Silence deepens around us, heavy with meaning, vibrating with indecision. The longer I gaze into his eyes, the deeper the silence gets.
My breath steadies as I draw his scent into my nostrils. Maybe it is Stockholm syndrome. Maybe it’s just the way he’s looking at me right now, like he wishes he’d caught me doing literally anything else. Like he cares about me enough that I actually have the power to hurt him.
Whatever it is, I can’t break our gaze.
When he does move, it’s slow and uncertain. Rather than his forehead connect
ing with mine in the headbutt I was expecting, it’s his lips that press against my own, soft and warm… and angry. It’s a different kind of anger, a specific kind, like when I’m reaming Nathan for being stupid and putting his life in danger.
Arching beneath his large body, I kiss Rome back, throwing everything I have into it.
It’s not quite an apology, not quite an explanation—just an acceptance of his anger.
And of my own.
Chapter Twenty
Rome’s lips are bruising, and I can feel the scrape of his teeth against my tongue as our mouths open, gasps and grunts pouring back and forth between us as the kiss deepens. He tastes good, so fucking good, like warm mulled wine and the richest kind of chocolate—with just a hint of the coppery tang of blood.
As he devours me with his mouth and I do my best to consume him right back, I realize how badly some part of me has wanted to do this ever since that first time he drank from me. The way he prepared my neck and then finally bit into it was careful and almost tender, everything about it measured and controlled.
But this?
This is the opposite.
The other side of the coin.
This is Rome when he’s not holding himself back, when he’s letting both his sensual gentleness and his rage run free.
It’s addictive and terrifying all at once, and I lose myself in the weight of his lips and the heat of his breath until he suddenly pulls back, breaking the connection between us.
I let out a quiet, strangled cry of disappointment, my head lifting from the stone floor as I chase his mouth. But he wraps a hand around my throat and squeezes just hard enough to keep me pinned down, his dark blue eyes meeting mine. The look entirely black in this light, like staring up at a night sky when it’s so overcast you can’t see a single star.
My eyelids flutter as I gaze up at him, my chest rising and falling as I suck in a breath past the pressure of his hand. His fingers are long and calloused, and his palm is so broad that it covers my entire throat. I know he can feel my pulse fluttering wildly against his skin, and his nostrils flare as his jaw muscles ripple.
For a moment, I wonder if he’ll snap my neck. He wouldn’t even have to twist my head to kill me—he could crush my windpipe and the bones of my spine all in one vicious squeeze if he chose to do it.
Maybe he’s thinking about it.
Maybe that’s what’s going on behind those midnight-blue eyes of his.
I can’t tell what internal battle he’s fighting with himself. I only know when it ends.
With a low snarl, he releases my throat and drops his head again, kissing me even more savagely than the first time, as if he’s trying to punish me or himself or both of us. I barely have time to return the kiss before he’s ripping his lips away from mine again, but this time, he doesn’t draw back. He just drags them downward, over my jawline and chin and down the column of my throat.
His sharp fangs tease the throbbing pulse of my carotid artery, making bolts of sensation charge through my body, but he doesn’t bite down. He moves lower, his ravenous mouth laying waste to the lines of my collarbones, making my nipples peak in response. Then he’s moving lower still, his large hands grabbing fistfuls of my twisted, torn skirt and shoving it upward until he’s kneeling between my legs with nothing but my panties between him and my core.
My pussy clenches hard as his hot breath ghosts over my skin, and I jerk in shock as he shreds the delicate lace of my underwear with a quick slash of his teeth. One hand yanks the destroyed fabric away, tossing it to the side as he buries his face between my legs.
Just like the way he kissed me, there’s something brutal and unrestrained about it, not a single thing held back. I’m already wet as fuck from having his tongue in my mouth and his lips and teeth all over my neck, and instead of just licking me, he smells me, dragging his nose through my folds and nudging it against my clit in a way that makes me whimper.
“You smell just as good as I remember,” he murmurs roughly, and I blink up at the ceiling in confusion.
When…?
Oh. When he drank from me. I was so turned on then that even without his face buried between my legs, he could smell my arousal.
My breath comes faster, and I rock my hips against the cool, hard floor, seeking out more pressure and friction right where I need it.
Rome’s nose brushes my clit again, and his tongue delves inside me briefly, but then he pulls back. I’m whimpering, almost mindless with the need to feel him again, and when he puts his mouth on me again, I gasp.
Because it’s not where I expected it.
Instead of licking my pussy, his tongue drags up the inside of my thigh. I bite my lip at the agonizing tease, goosebumps spreading out over my skin. He laps at me again, but this time I feel the drag of teeth too, and that’s even better. Even closer to the thing I didn’t even know I needed until now.
“Rome,” I pant, clenching my hands into fists to keep myself from reaching down and shoving his face against my leg. Some part of me still can’t admit I like this so much, or that I need it so badly. “Fuck…”
He doesn’t give me what I want, and he doesn’t pay any attention to my words. He just keeps teasing me, warming me up with his tongue and his breath before pulling away enough to let the air cool my heated skin. He switches to my other leg, his teeth scraping against the tender flesh of my inner thigh, and my clit throbs wildly as I feel arousal seep from me in a gush that I can’t even control.
I keep squeezing my eyes shut and then opening them, trying to block everything else out before giving in to the fierce desire to watch him take me apart like this. He doesn’t look up at me, focused entirely on his task as he pushes me closer and closer to the inferno I know is waiting.
My whole body is tingling, a warm rush of pleasure spreading through me in what I know is a precursor to an orgasm, and I dig my heels into the floor as my mouth falls open.
And then, finally, Rome bites.
His teeth sink into my thigh just like his cock might sink into my pussy, solid and smooth and invasive but so, so welcome.
My breath stops as the pleasure inside me finally crests, and I tremble all over as Rome slides two thick fingers inside me. He can already tell I’m wet and slick for him, so he doesn’t go slow, doesn’t ease me into it. He just fucks me with them hard and fast as his lips clamp around my thigh and his throat moves, welcoming the blood that fills his mouth.
Ecstasy keeps crashing through me, the height of the orgasm seeming to last forever instead of cresting and fading like it normally does. Some insane part of me wonders if he’s drinking my pleasure, consuming it right along with my blood, tasting and devouring everything he’s making me feel.
When the waves of sensation finally stop slamming into me, my body goes lax against the stone. My eyelids are only half open, but I force my eyes to focus as I watch Rome slowly release my inner thigh from his mouth. Streaks of red stain his lips and teeth as he drags his tongue over my skin, cleaning up most of the blood and sealing the wounds. His fingers are still buried inside me, and for the first time, he looks up to meet my gaze as he draws them out and laps at them too.
Watching the red of my blood mix with the slick, clear fluid of my arousal sends a visceral reaction tearing through me. It’s too strong for me to even identify it.
Is it desire? Revulsion? Horror? Need?
Maybe it’s all of those mixed together, existing simultaneously and creating an emotion that wouldn’t even exist outside of this exact situation.
“Rome,” I say again. It’s not a command or a plea. I don’t know what it is, I just know that I still need something.
His tongue slides out to lick his lips, gathering the last bits of my cream and my blood. Then he moves, crawling up my body with the kind of speed only a vampire can manage. This time, he tears a hell of a lot more than my panties. His fingers grasp the bodice of my dress and rip, and the thing comes apart in his hands like it’s made of goddamn tissue paper. I’
m naked in seconds, and before I can register the chill of the air on my body, Rome drops his head, finding my breasts with his hungry, demanding mouth.
I clutch at his hair, biting my lip so hard I’m afraid I’ll draw more blood, and he growls against my skin. I try to pull his shirt off, or his pants, but he won’t let me. He refuses to draw back enough to let me get them off, and after I try for the third time, he grunts and sits back. Instead of reaching for his clothes, he grabs my hips and flips me over.
My heart lurches, my body instinctively tensing as I steady myself on my hands and knees. There’s a rustling sound behind me, and I look back to realize that Rome still hasn’t taken his damn clothes off—but he’s shoved his pants down far enough to free his cock.
Holy fuck.
It’s pierced all the way along the shaft, barbells that cut across the bottom of his length in a Jacob’s Ladder. He’s long and thick and hard, and the metal of his cock piercings catch the light just like the piercing in his nose does as he moves closer to me. He holds my gaze as he grabs my hips with both hands, finding my slick entrance with the head of his cock.
Then he slams inside me.
My whole body rocks forward, a guttural grunt falling from my lips as my pussy clenches around him. I can feel every one of his piercings dragging against my walls, and my head droops as he draws back and thrusts in again, using his hold on my hips to guide me back and forth on his cock.
He fucks me hard and fast, making me think that all that teasing he did to me earlier got to him too. He fucks me like he couldn’t hold back or slow down even if he wanted to, like he can’t help himself. Even when my pussy clamps down like a vise around him, he still doesn’t stop, shortening his strokes and digging his fingers into my hips as he keeps pounding into me.
With a whispered scream, I come in a blinding rush, and he buries himself inside me one more time as his cock pulses and jerks. I expect him to pull out or maybe collapse on top of me, but he draws out partway and then slides in again as a trail of our combined arousal slides down my leg. He keeps doing that, keeps moving in and out of me as if he really and truly can’t stop.
