Like right now.
Or when he called me sweetheart. Or when he laughed like I was the funniest person he’d ever met in his centuries upon centuries of life.
He went on, “You must know it will be good.”
Oh, I knew that.
I still didn’t answer.
He sighed again before he murmured, “You don’t understand.”
No.
I.
Did.
Not.
And I didn’t want to.
I still didn’t speak.
“My pet, it’ll be so much better when you submit to me. That, I can promise. Not just here, in bed, but all of it, everything that will be you and me. I promise you, Leah, I’m trying to give you something beautiful. I can’t explain it, you have to feel it. But to feel it, you must trust me.”
Fat chance of that.
I still didn’t speak.
For a while, he didn’t either.
Then, as if he wasn’t talking to me (which he wasn’t), he muttered, “I’m the one who wanted a challenge. I need to get my f**king head examined.”
I didn’t understand that either.
There was a lot that I didn’t understand.
But I didn’t ask.
And I was never going to. Never, never, never.
Gently he pulled away from me. The loss of his hard warmth meant the cold hit my sensitive nudity like a slap. He adjusted his jeans and had me beneath the sheet in a blur of motion, faster than he’d been before even when he was being Speedy Vamp.
Obviously, he’d been holding out on me.
He pulled my hair away from my shoulder and I shoved my face in the pillow to escape his action even though I allowed his touch.
“Stubborn,” he murmured but I could swear there was pride mixed with the frustration in his voice.
And I didn’t understand that either.
Then he was gone but within five minutes he was back, this time dressed in a suit.
He sat on the edge of the bed and I glared up at him as he gazed down at me.
“It’s been a long time that, on some level, I didn’t look forward to attending A Feast,” he informed me and my body grew rock solid.
He was going to A Feast.