Casually he trailed a finger up the side of her neck and circled her earlobe. A shiver raced through her, winding tight around her nipples, spiraling down to her sex. He nipped at her ear, playful, but hard enough to make her gasp. ‘As for me, you know who I am, don’t you? Or at least, what I am.’
Lara knew what he was saying. She just couldn’t accept it.
‘Here.’ Still behind her, he grabbed her hand and placed her fingers on his throat. His skin was cooler than the air, cool and smooth as marble. ‘Do you feel any pulse?’
‘No – but – it’s just not possible. It’s just a myth. A fashion, a fad. Everyone these days pretends...’
He brought her wrist to his lips, flicking his tongue over the spot where the veins were closest to the surface. His mouth was hot, unlike the rest of him. A violent shudder of desire rocked her body. ‘Close your eyes,’ he murmured.
I should call off this farce now, Lara thought, but she obeyed anyway. Something pricked at her flesh where he held it against his mouth, the tiniest sting, hardly deserving the name pain. Then there was heat, and a pulling, not at her wrist but somehow at her heart, which leaped up in response and began to pump at twice its normal rate.
Red flooded the space behind her eyelids, scarlet, crimson, three-dimensional eddies of color like billowing clouds. A brief icicle of fear stabbed at her, then melted as warm, sweet pleasure flowed through her limbs. Her nipples, her pussy, everywhere there was this hot, wet current, aching and yet somehow not urgent.
‘Relax,’ he whispered. ‘Let go.’ She heard his voice, coming from a long way off. She saw his eyes, burning through the red haze. They had darkened from blue to empty black. She felt herself tumbling into their depths. Some last fragment of self-consciousness cried out for her to resist, but she ignored it. He was too strong, his will irresistible, the gifts he offered too precious to refuse. She let herself drift. He cradled then released her. She felt herself beginning to drown in the scarlet river of his blood lust.