She was also a consummate game player.
And a tease.
And both made him want her all the more.
“Perhaps we should cease talking,” he suggested to the house.
“Okeydoke,” she replied agreeably but did it not acquiescing to his suggestion. “Though, I’ll point out, when someone tells you you’re cute and hot, the done thing is to return the compliment.”
That was when he looked down at her, right in her eyes, and returned the compliment.
And he did it like the vampire he was.
“You know you’re beautiful. You can’t not know, you’re that beautiful. I want to taste you in a variety of ways. And I want very badly to fuck you, doing it slow and gentle to the point it drives you mad and you beg for more, which, of course, I’ll give to you, as much as you want. Then I’ll take from you, as much as I want. You know that too. You’re far from stupid, which is another reason why I want to fuck you. What you might not know is that it will happen. It’ll happen after taking down a coven and before finding Abel’s brother. So in the meantime, I’d appreciate if you’d stop playing your games. I’m all for a tease. But I also decide when the teasing ends. And I’m not sure you’re ready right now for how I’ll do that.”
“Uh, okay,” she breathed, staring up at him, and he was wrong even if he was right.
He wanted that light in her eyes while he was buried inside her after he’d made them both come.
But he wanted that light that was in her eyes right then while he was fucking her and she was begging him to make her come.
“I kinda want you to kiss me, like, right now,” she whispered.
“That would be foolish since I absolutely want to kiss you, like, right now, but I want it in a way that it won’t stop at kissing and I’m not keen on finding out what your mother will do if she walks out of that house and sees me fucking her daughter who I mounted on the hood of a car.”
“Okay, maybe kissing right now isn’t a great idea,” she replied, still whispering.
“Agreed.”
“Though, if you’d find the time, you know, sometime”—she made her eyes big—“soon, I’d appreciate it.”
“You’re being charming again,” he noted.
“I’m not sure how to stop that,” she returned.
“This is part of what makes you charming,” he murmured, again looking to the house.
“Yuri?” she called.
He sighed and turned his eyes back to her.
“I have a feeling I’m gonna be super glad you chased me into my house and started choking me,” she declared.
That was when it happened.
That was when Yuri stood outside a hoarder’s hovel, staring down at a beautiful witch in the middle of nowhere in Texas, threw back his head, and burst out laughing.
With fortunate but disastrous timing—because when he was almost done, instead of pulling Aurora in his arms and giving her the kiss they both wanted—Barb made her presence known by demanding, “What on earth in these circumstances could possibly be funny?”
Without hesitation, Yuri looked to her approaching and answered, “Your daughter.”
She shrugged a shoulder and muttered, “Right, I get that.” She stopped three feet away and declared, “I’m driving.”
“Barb, we had this discussion on the way here. You aren’t driving. If I’m in a car, I drive. And further, it’s my car,” Yuri said.
“I’m still driving,” she retorted.
“You absolutely are not,” he returned.
“You got to drive here,” she pointed out.
“Indeed, as it’s my car,” he replied.
“This car kicks butt,” she stated, swinging a hand out to the Jaguar he’d rented upon arrival in Dallas. “I wanna drive.”
Yuri looked to Aurora.
When he did, he saw that Aurora was having trouble not laughing. But even fighting her humor, she caught his hint.
“Mom, Yuri’s driving. It’s his car.”
“Aurora—” Barb began.
“But,” she said quickly, interrupting her mother, “maybe he’ll let you drive out to get us some Kentucky Fried Chicken when we get home.”
Suddenly, for the first time in nearly seven hundred years, he wanted someone to kill him.
“Kentucky Fried Chicken?” he asked, and Aurora turned bullshit, guileless, big blue eyes up to him.
“I’ve got a craving.”
Looking at her, he understood craving.
Also looking at her, he understood he was not only eating fast-food fried chicken that evening, he was letting her mother use his car to go and get it.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“You have a vampire wrapped around your little pixie-dusted finger, is what you have,” Barb muttered over him, then shouted, “Shotgun!”
Yuri looked to the sky.
“No way! You get to drive to KFC!” Aurora shouted back.
Perhaps he was demented, having run across a witch he did not detect had spelled him insane, which meant he’d found an adorable, petite, but lushly beautiful witch attractive enough to put up with her annoying mother and her own frustrating, but effective, games.
“Battle it out amongst yourselves, but when the car is in gear, it’s moving. So whoever isn’t in it gets to spend the night with Sula,” Yuri declared as he moved around the hood of the car.
He was about to open his door when he heard one shut and looked across the roof.
Barb was gone, presumably in the front seat.