Dark Possession - Aja James Page 0,48
own assumptions and observations rather than substantial proof.
Perhaps he saw the pugnacious look in her eyes, because he continued.
“You know nothing, Keeper. I know. I had a Mate once. And if I had allowed it, she would have exploited the…gifts…at my disposal with far greater frequency and fervor than I have ever done.”
Eveline raised her chin in a stubborn tilt.
“Then she wasn’t your Destined Mate. This only proves my point.”
He chuffed a short breath, laden with sarcasm and disbelief.
“Spoken like a naïve, innocent little sprite. Don’t you know that vampires revel in blood and sex? If you charged in here, curses blazing, to save my unspoiled self, you’re several millennia too late.”
“I wasn’t trying to save you…” she murmured, floundering, trying desperately to organize her thoughts to express just what exactly she was trying to do.
“Could have fooled m—”
“I was jealous!” she blurted finally.
He merely stared at her as if she’d sprouted two heads.
Eveline began to pace a small circle a few feet away from him, thinking out loud.
“If you truly don’t mind…using yourself in negotiations, I’ll certainly not talk you out of it. I just think there are other ways to get what you want that are just as expedient.”
“Such as?” he prompted, “War? Murder? Dismemberment?”
“Well, no—”
“Curses? Witchery? I am not a sorceress like you.”
Eveline paused in her pacing to glare at him.
“Stop interrupting me. If you’re set in your ways, I’ll leave you to it. I’m just asking for a little time.”
He frowned too.
“What do you mean?”
She licked her lips and went back to pacing, head down, trying to unravel her thoughts.
“Maybe it’s because we have the Blood Contract. I feel…attached to you. And while there is no ownership between us, there is nevertheless a connection. I didn’t realize before that I can be a jealous, possessive person, but all evidence points to the fact that I am. At least, in this instance. Perhaps this is the side effect of a Blood Contract. I honestly wouldn’t know since I’ve never entered into one before.”
“Have you?” She asked and looked up to see if he’d share any words of wisdom on the subject of Blood Contracts. Like perhaps these side effects were normal. That they happened all the time.
But he simply stared at her, staying silent this time.
She didn’t know what to make of it.
“In any case, this is how I feel. I don’t like other females looking at you, touching you, and certainly not anything else more…invasive than that.”
He continued to regard her in that unfathomable way.
“I think we need to append some clauses to our Contract.”
“Clauses,” he echoed softly.
She nodded, getting into the spirit of it.
“For the duration of the Contract, we should be exclusive, so to speak.”
“Be specific,” he ordered, his eyes glinting rather dangerously.
Eveline frowned again. She thought she’d been pretty clear and open about what she wanted.
But okay, she’d spell it out for both of them so that there were no misunderstandings or misinterpretations.
“You take blood only from me. I’ll give blood only to you. You don’t share your body with any other person over the course of the Contract, and if you need help with negotiations, I will do everything I can to support.”
He arched a brow.
“With the threat of curses?”
She shrugged.
“And actual curses, as the case may require.”
“You are asking me to refrain from sex.”
He made it sound like she was asking him to starve himself for a hundred years. It was just sex, for heaven’s sake! It was not a necessary component of life!
“Just with other people,” she clarified helpfully and smiled encouragingly at him.
He stared at her for an uncomfortable length of time.
Before he growled in that husky deep voice:
“So I’m supposed to fuck my own hand for ninety fucking days because my temporary fucking librarian feels jealous and possessive after I took her blood, have I got that right?”
“I think you might have missed a ‘fucking’ in there somewhere.”
Was it just her imagination or did his eyes get even blacker?
Eveline couldn’t be entirely sure, but it seemed that this conversation wasn’t going as well as planned. Perhaps because she hadn’t really planned it.
When he stayed ominously tight lipped, she pressed on.
“Um…It’s really just eighty-five days or less, as seven days have passed since the start of our Contract. You’ll barely notice it.”
“No.”
She rightly interpreted his “no” to mean “no” to her proposal, not “no,” he wouldn’t notice three months of abstinence.
“But I’ll help you with all of your negotiations,” Eveline offered. “I’ll make sure you get what you want.