but wallow in this lovely intimacy.
“You’re quite beautiful,” he finally said. He almost seemed shocked. Surprised. By his admission? I wasn’t sure.
“I was thinking sort of the same thing about you,” I said softly.
He grinned, staring at my mouth for a few seconds before meeting my eyes again. “I could get addicted to the expression on your face when you come.”
Wow.
I slid my eyes away from his, suddenly feeling shy. The men I’d been with had never said anything like that to me before. Rather than torture me further, he gave me a brief closed-mouth kiss and lifted off of me. I sucked in a breath when he withdrew from my body.
Okay, so I was definitely wrong about small man syndrome. I was wrong about a lot of things. That he was just a selfish, conceited movie star vampire. Completely, wholly mistaken.
As if to prove the point, he draped a plush throw over my body to keep me warm and comfortable. “Stay put. I’m going to feed you.”
He’d put on his black briefs, which didn’t lessen the phenomenal view of him walking away. Not one bit. Jeesh. Even his hamstrings were delicious looking.
I listened to him turn on the sink, obviously washing his hands, before sounds of plates clinking and drawers opening and closing poked me with another reminder.
I should go. This was like what real couples did. You know, having sex on the living room floor, then eating snacks after they’d worked up an appetite. I should really go.
But that would be rude. Right?
No. Best to stay and be polite. I wrapped the throw tighter around me, not ready to trek into the kitchen half naked to retrieve my dress laid out on the kitchen island like a picnic blanket. Heat flared into my cheeks, thinking about that picnic.
So I curled up in front of the fire, basking in the afterglow of dizzying, drugging sex with a Stygorn vampire, and waited for whatever he was cooking up for me. All the while, telling my silly, soft heart not to get attached.
Easier said than done.
Chapter 15
~DEVRAJ~
What the fuck was that?
I filled the pavs with the dabeli stuffing while trying to pick up the pieces of my flayed emotions.
I loved sex. I’d had numerous partners over the centuries. Numerous. So why had sex with Isadora undone me so completely? Why had this coupling with her shredded all my previous sexual experiences into what amounted to a waste of time?
I felt adrift. Unmoored. Lost to any other purpose but the one that mattered. Her.
A stirring of what I could only describe as panic—though I’d little experience with the emotion—filled my body. Why? Because she’d said this was a one-time hook-up, and my entire being was one-hundred percent against that ridiculous, asinine notion.
This needed to be repeated. Often. Every day.
I heated the dabelis on my griddle, placed them onto two plates, and then brought them into the living room.
Isadora was curled up with the blanket over her, her delicate collarbone visible through the gap. I wanted to grin like a fiend. I’d been trying so hard to get this woman to open up to me, and she finally had. But what she’d been hiding was the tigress in the sheets. In the throes of sex, Isadora was a powerful goddess. And I’d gotten to witness that. To experience it firsthand. I felt privileged in some way, having gotten a glimpse of her completely uninhibited.
“Here you go.” I set hers in front of her where she sat sideways by the fire then took a seat on the chaise lounge behind her. “I hope you like it.”
She picked up one dabeli and took a bite, the blanket sliding down to her waist.
I couldn’t even swallow with so much of her exposed, but I managed to somehow paste on a pleasant smile while watching her.
She closed her eyes with pleasure and smiled while chewing. “Delicious,” she finally said and took another bite, some of the stuffing dribbling to the plate.
Her eyes flicked up to mine while she ate then roamed my body before she focused on her plate. Again, I tried not to smile too triumphantly. She wasn’t as unaffected as she always pretended to be. Or maybe it was knowing what our bodies could do together that made that blush crawl up her neck. Either way, it wasn’t even eight o’clock, and I planned to keep her until my time was up. If she’d let me.
Before she was finished, I ate the rest of mine