“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I threw up both hands and cried in exasperation, “True Blood!”
“Jesus, Lilah,” he muttered.
“No, seriously, Jessica is very sweet.”
“For fuck’s sake,” he growled, sounding like he was losing patience, which I didn’t figure was a good thing.
“Okay, back on track,” I began. “Tell me. Tell me one instance in your life where you actually behaved like a monster.”
“I wanna fuck you,” he snarled.
I stared.
“Yeah,” he ground out. “I wanna fuck you, Delilah. Consumed with the need and I have no idea why, but I can guess, seein’ as it’s like you’re a bitch in heat, I’m a dog that catches the scent and his mind is wiped…wiped of anything…but the need to mount you and”—he leaned forward—“rut.”
“Holy fuck,” I breathed.
“Yeah,” he said again. “That make you feel safe?”
“Abel—”
“I can smell your fear.”
I swallowed.
“It turns me on,” he kept going. “Makes me wanna tear into your throat and fuck you and feed from you. Now, does that make you feel safe?”
“No,” I whispered, because it really fucking didn’t.
“Right. No,” he bit off. “So I’m not a monster?”
“It’s…it’s…” I stammered.
“Yeah? What is it?” he asked when I couldn’t get it out.
“It’s you,” I said softly, because it was, even if it was scary as shit.
“You’re absolutely correct,” he clipped, then said with disgust, “It’s me.”
Then it hit me.
“You left yesterday because of that.”
“I did,” he confirmed. “I did, because if I spent another minute with you, I’d have you on your knees, takin’ my dick, you wanted it or not.”
“Abel,” I breathed, suddenly understanding, and my heart started bleeding.
Yes, he was protective of me, overprotective, wanting me to feel safe, struggling against his nature to keep me that way.
“Your heart’s beating so hard, it sounds like it’s about to tear out of your chest. I did that to you. And I’m not a monster?”
“My heart is beating hard because I’m feeling a lot right now, and not all of it is fear, Abel,” I told him.
“Then you aren’t very smart because, even as I sit here, all I can think of is burying my cock inside you.”
Oh shit.
Now I was getting turned on.
“Do you think other werewolves…do you think that they…?” I trailed off, but he got me.
“You’re not a werewolf. Maybe there are female ones who get the way it is, but you are not one of them.”
“But I’m yours,” I pointed out.
“You ever transform into a wolf?”
I shook my head, giving him the answer he already knew.
“No,” he said. “So how do I deal with this, Delilah? It’s my nature, the monster in me for the only time in my life since I was a kid controlling me. I don’t understand it and I don’t know how to fight it except to keep away from you. Or go to The Biltmore and talk to these fucks and hope they aren’t what I think they are and can give me some answers as to how I can deal and keep you safe.”
“What if they’re not nice vampires?”
“I got two choices…give into the urge and rape the woman destined for me or go to The Biltmore and find out.”
“Or you could just fuck me,” I blurted, and the room went wired.
Shit.
“Do not,” he said simply, but both words were harsh and grating, hurting my ears.
Man, oh man, he needed to fuck me.
“You go and you get hurt or dead and Jian-Li loses you, Xun, Chen, Wei.” Me, I thought but didn’t say. “That’s better than us having sex?”
“Rutting, Delilah.”
I felt a rush of wet saturate the area between my legs.
God, again, strange, but that also turned me on.
“Okay, rutting,” I whispered.
“I could hurt you,” he stated.
“Try not to do that,” I replied.
“What if I can’t control it?” he asked.
“I…I don’t know,” I answered.
“And you’re still willin’ to take that chance?”
I widened my eyes at him but said nothing.
“I can smell you,” he whispered.
Fuck.
“Abel.”
“You want it.”
“Um…” I started and stopped, finding that fact titillating, so much so, more wet hit between my legs.
“You cannot know, you’ll never know, but I don’t think you get what hanging on by a thread means, Delilah. I’m doin’ that right now. And right now, you say one word, ‘go,’ and you won’t see me again until I got it together. You don’t say that word right now, it happens.”
I should say “go.”
I should.
But something deep in my heart knew I actually shouldn’t.
So I didn’t.
I stared at him, heart slamming in my chest, and said nothing.
“Fuck,” he snarled, surging from his chair, and in a flash, he was on me.
In another flash, I was whipped around, knees in the bed, nightshirt torn over my head, palm in my back, shoving me to my hands in the bed.
Oh God.
Then my hips jerked violently as he tore my panties away.