Aside from that last outfit she donned in response to me jacking off in front of her, I have to say that her fashion choices border on obscene.
Her dark purple, high-necked crop top is sleeveless. Her long skirt—in the same color—becomes diaphanous past the hips, nothing but thigh-baring gauze. She’s sporting silver sandals this time instead of boots. It’s my second glimpse of her feet and it’s not even funny how attractive I find them.
I’ve never paid this much attention to any part of a woman’s anatomy.
“What are you glaring at?” she snaps.
“I guess you don’t care if any humans see that particular ability.”
She rolls her eyes and heads toward one of the many bars situated throughout the living room. “I need a drink. You can either follow or stand there and sulk. I don’t give a damn.”
Of course I’m going to follow her. She fucking knows that.
All the cushioned stools along the bar are occupied; a problem I fix with a simple solution. The humans are oblivious to us—in some kind of preternatural high, I assume—until we come in direct contact with them.
Therefore, it’s time for a little menacing.
I bump my shoulder into one of the guys sitting near the corner. Once he turns, I stare him down, make sure to aim the same dirty scowl at his friend, and just wait for the message to click.
“Alright man, take it easy. You and your lady can sit. Not a problem.” He slides off the stool and his friend mimics the move.
That’s right.
Once they’re gone, I slide one of the stools back so that the witch can sit. She doesn’t even thank me.
A few minutes later, we’re surrounded by animosity and silence.
As well as the haze of my throbbing lust.
Literally.
My dick gets any harder and I’m never going to get off this stool. On top of that, she decided to order us Absinthe, and I’m on my fourth drink after finishing the first three in a single swallow.
I’m not a novice when it comes to drinking now that I’m immortal. I spent the first two days of isolation in my home after the change guzzling everything in my liquor cabinet. Learned real quick that my body no longer processes alcohol the same way.
If I’m capable of getting drunk now, it’ll take a boatload of pure alcohol to achieve that goal.
Maybe it’s because I’m jacked up on frustration and lust, though, because this Absinthe is fueling the turmoil in my veins.
Not that I stop drinking it. As a matter of fact, one more swallow and I’ll need to order my fifth one. I place my nearly empty glass back on the bar. “I need your name,” I tell her in a low voice. “Before I die, or whatever you decide to do with me, just let me have it.”
She’s been nursing her glass for seconds, pensive, and I wish I could decipher the meaning behind that expression. “The old you could’ve had it. This you? No.”
I tense at that. “What does that mean?”
No answer.
“I know you’ve seen my entire life leading up to the point where you came to kill me. You pretty much confessed it yourself.” Meaning: she’s played witness to every moment of degradation. The abandonment. The poverty. The starvation.
My drug and alcohol binges by the time I was only seventeen.
And yet . . . despite how I personally feel about my past, it seems she doesn’t share the same sentiment. She pretty much stated I was worth more back then. “Why do you prefer that version of me?”
“He wasn’t an unconscionable dick with no morality. He was just trying to survive.”
I remember every one of my cases. How quickly I fell onto the path of “defend any client with money, regardless of innocence or lack thereof” and I have to admit she might have a point.
I lost my way because all that mattered is that I wouldn’t end up broke again.
Hungry.
Alone.
I never truly had companionship, the people in my life were disposable because in the back of my mind I knew the truth:
They were mostly vile.
Money hungry. Prestige obsessed. I’m not saying everyone of that class is the same, just the people I happened to find myself surrounded by.
Different variations of the same empty bullshit.
“What the fuck else was I going to do? Whether you believe me or not, I was high as hell when I made that deal. High. Hungry. Desperate. The daily trifecta back then. Maybe if I had been fully conscious of the choice I made—that it was real and not some drug-induced dream—I would’ve tried to live my life differently.” I run my thumb along the rim of my empty glass, feeling her stare on the side of my face. “Who knows. It all seems like a detached, blurry dream now. Just endless days trying to get by.”
She says nothing, and I sense that she’s engaged in her own internal struggle.
The collapse of belief systems tends to play out like that. It’s hard to realign the mind to a new reality. To let go of what we believed to be true.
It goes deeper than that for her, though.
She’s attracted to me. That’s a fact. My supernatural senses are locked onto her involuntary reactions like the motherfucking predator I’ve become.
The rapid breathing she tries to control.
The crazy beating of her heart.
Her legs crossed tightly together as she tries to ease the ache of her pulse pounding between her legs.
And her scent . . . holy fuck, that lucious scent.
I want a mouthful of her pussy right this instant. Don’t care who watches and what they think about it. I’d eat her out on top of this bar if she let me.
My throat goes dry. My balls get any tighter and I’m going to come in my jeans.
I push back from the bar. “Alright. That’s it. You’re coming with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re dancing, witch. Now.” I might end up busting for sure, yet it’s better than sitting there consumed by my thoughts of her. Been down that road one too many times. I know how badly it ends. “Let’s go.”
She opens her mouth to turn me down again, but I already have her off the stool and in my arms.
With every human eye on us, I muscle my way through the crowd, right as the beat changes and a new song starts.
CHAPTER 13
She gives into me, letting me lead her to the beat, but her body remains stiff.
Trapped in her struggle.
I don’t blame her. I’m having the hardest time not running my hands all over her body. Sliding my thigh between her own and forcing her to ride it until she comes.
Shit. My vision’s heightening. Growing sharper. I want this witch so bad that it’s about to trigger my change into a beast. Last thing we need in front of these humans. What might be a god is in their midst, somehow feeding off their revelry, yet I doubt they know anything of the other side.
Shortly, I won’t give a damn. She smells too good. Looks even better . . .
Her pupils dilate in a sea of baby blue, her golden cheeks flushed, and she won’t meet my gaze.
“Look at me, cher.”
Her eyes flash with her gorgeous fire. “Keep the endearments to yourself, werewolf. They get you nowhere,” she claims, as goosebumps break out along her arms.
I nudge her hair aside with my nose and run my lips lightly across her ear—a move that sends the scent of her skyrocketing and leaves me clenching my teeth, fighting the urge to fucking bite her. “Your name.”
I’m left waiting for it yet again, starving for that knowledge as much as I am for her body. Her hips glance my dick, smearing precum against my jeans, and she jerks her ear away from my mouth to smirk up at me. Lips parting slowly, temptingly, she leans close enough for our noses to brush and whispers, “
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