Dark Seduction (Vampire Royals of New York #2) - Sarah Piper Page 0,50
for a single fucking instant—Dorian half-ran, half-blurred his way back to the manor.
It was still early, and the main floor was blissfully silent, neither vampire nor human in sight.
Certain he was alone, he stripped off his sweaty T-shirt and raided the refrigerator for something cold to drink. He hesitated at the ice dispenser, not wanting to wake Charlotte or his brothers, but then he remembered it was his damn manor; he could do whatever he damn well pleased. If they didn’t like being startled awake by the grind and clink of the machine, well… His brothers could fuck off back to their homes out of state, and Charlotte could save her own beautiful ass from the monsters at her door.
Feeling superior and bloody proud of it, he’d just pressed his glass to the lever when a heart-stopping clatter ripped through the silence.
It hadn’t come from the ice maker. It’d come from the media room in the basement.
Charlotte.
She was in trouble.
“No!” she screamed. A crash followed, and she shouted again. “Get off! Die, asshole!”
Dorian dropped his glass and grabbed the closest weapon—a broom someone had left beside the refrigerator. He cracked it in half and blurred down the stairs and into the media room, adrenaline giving his tired, over-caffeinated muscles new life as he brandished his makeshift stakes, ready to impale the bastard who dared lay a hand on her…
But there she was.
Alone and unharmed.
Perched on a gaming platform in nothing but her long T-shirt, kneepads, and gaming gloves, her skin slick from exertion. She was panting hard, the shirt damp with sweat, the thin fabric clinging to her curves. On the screen behind her, a vampire avatar lay crumpled on the pavement, a female elf standing triumphantly behind him, one foot braced on his chest.
Midnight Marauder. That’s what she’d been screaming about.
“For fuck’s sake,” Dorian said.
“You.” Charlotte spun on her heel to face him, her eyes flashing as she stabbed his chest with an accusatory finger. “You deleted me! I had to set up a whole new profile!”
He tossed the broken broom handles to the floor. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I can’t believe you.” She popped her hands on her hips. On the screen behind her, the larger-than-life she-elf mimicked her every move, shoulders squared for a fight.
Dorian felt like he was getting scolded by both of them.
“Me?” he said. “Who gave you permission to be here?”
“Aiden. And before you get all bent out of shape—yes, I signed the stupid NDA.”
“You just couldn’t wait, could you.” Dorian shook his head. The adrenaline was fading from his blood, but the anger was fresh—anger that she’d made him so worried, anger that his ridiculous mind still allowed him to care.
But as his eyes drifted down from her face to her breasts, his resolve faded. It was hard to stay mad; those two perfect globes stretched the fabric of the shirt teasingly, their dark centers raised beneath the thin cotton like a forbidden invitation to touch. To tease. To taste.
The kneepads urged his fantasies in another dangerous direction, flooding his mind with memories that made his balls ache.
“My stats,” she said, counting down his apparent violations. “My high score. My outfits. My badges. Everything. You just…” She made a starburst motion with her fingers. “Poof! And I’m gone, just like that.”
Dorian dipped his head, trying to hide his smile.
“This isn’t funny, Dorian Redthorne! You erased me!”
“Yet here you are, love. In the flesh. And feeling much better than you were last night, I see. I take it the ice helped?”
When he met her eyes again, she was smiling too.
They faced off in silence for a moment, each trying not to laugh, the tension quickly evaporating.
“Good morning, Ms. D'Amico,” he finally said.
“And good morning to you too, Mr. Redthorne.” Her gaze slid down to his torso, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. “Why are you half-naked and sweaty?”
“I was on a trail run. I’d just returned home when I heard the—well, what I assumed was a struggle.”
Charlotte grinned and pressed a hand to her chest, the T-shirt riding up her thighs to reveal the satin, rose-colored triangle of her panties.
Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to press his mouth to that silky scrap of fabric…
“And you charged in to save me,” she said. “Brandishing a broken broom. My knight in shining… half-nakedness.”
Dorian raked his eyes over her scantily clad body. “I see we’re well matched in that department.”
“Twinning, as my sister would say.”
She’d been teasing him, but now she didn’t hide her