Page 69 of Vampire's Choice
Without warning, he flipped their positions, setting her against the trunk as he stood. His wings spread and he launched himself, rocking the branch. She grabbed at the trunk with a yelp, and gasped as he returned, almost as quickly. When he restored their original position, her perched on his lap between his braced thighs, she shot him a cranky look. “An ‘excuse me, I’ll be right back’ is more polite than leaving me flailing like a fledgling about to fall out of nest.”
Ignoring her complaint, he extended his hand, revealing a tiny square of white cake. “Charlie made these for Maddock. He’s coming to visit her tonight, after the show.”
“Did you steal one?”
“She’s made him plenty. He enjoys them, but it will be her body he wants to sample and devour when he gets here.”
“That isn’t a no.” Ruth gave Merc a severe look, though the cake’s aroma was heavenly.
He shrugged. “I want to see you taste something from my hand. Open your mouth.”
When he got that tone, that look, her scruples wavered. It was just a bite of cake, after all. She’d apologize to Charlie.
She parted her lips, and he put the cake to them. “Slowly,” he said, the look in his eyes intensifying. When she took it on her tongue, she closed her mouth and began to chew, gradually breaking into all the flavors the cake had. A shudder rose from her core because he shifted his hand back to her throat, closing fully around it.
When she swallowed, it was because he allowed it.
After she was done, he didn’t ease his hold. He moved his other hand to her hair, taking the clip out of it so her hair fell to her shoulders, straight long strands fluttering around her face and over his forearm. His thumb moved to her lips, then his grip on her neck constricted.
“Vampires don’t need to breathe, do they?”
She shook her head. The feeling of not being able to breathe could panic a younger vampire, but she knew how to work through it. Breath was mainly needed to speak, and to add strength to physical effort, but right now he wanted silent submission and held her still.
“Lower your gaze, Ruth.”
When she obeyed, the grip tightened further. He had the strength to crush everything he held, but she didn’t think he would damage her throat. She let her hands, resting on his abdomen, relax and curl into the waistband of his jeans through the loose T-shirt he wore. This one bore a print of Michael Parkes’ famous Gargoyle painting, a child blowing a bubble over the side of a building as the stone gargoyle on its corner burst loose to chase the floating sphere.
“Who gave you this?”
“Clara, some years ago. She was returning from a visit with her friend Alexis, and brought gifts back for everyone. Including me.”
The shirt was faded and soft. He wore it often.
He could be such a frustrating mystery; despite that, sometimes she felt she could see inside his soul as easily as her own. She held that thought, her attention moving to his feathers, gleaming black and traces of silver white against a broken pattern of brown bark.
He drew her closer, so her mouth almost touched his. Almost, not quite. “It disappointed you, that I don’t kiss women. I’ll have to think about that.”
His glance moved down, a brow arching. She’d drawn her blade from its hidden scabbard and pushed the point against his abdomen. His lips curved, eyes glinting. “You don’t want me to speak of ‘women’ in your presence, as if you are one of many.”
Quicker than she could follow, he’d grasped her hand with the knife and pressed it under her ear. She drew in a breath as the tip cut several inches above her pounding artery. He leaned in, inhaling her blood with flared nostrils, and sampled it with his clever, teasing tongue. She moaned, a futile oath on her lips as he took her blood into him.
What if she had given him the first mark the other night, when she’d bitten him? She had no idea if that would even take on Merc’s incubus and angel blood, though Catriona had accepted all three marks from Adan. She had some human blood, though.
The bond meant a lot of deeper things than what it seemed on the surface. But it was an absurd, crazy thought. One she should put away. Merc was definitely not servant material.
Merc eased back. “I get what you mean, about the more you take, the more you want.”
He slid the knife into the scabbard, his touch intimate. Firm. “If you draw that against me again, I’ll put it inside you. You’ll have to hold still so it doesn’t cut you more deeply than the shallow cuts I’ll make upon the first thrust, so I can taste your blood and your cunt at the same time.”
She managed to link a bland look to her hard quiver, a look that promised nothing. But she did settle her feet anew against his thigh and clasp her hands around her knees.
“Gideon said you were found in the Russian wilderness.”
She wasn’t sure how sensitive he’d be about it. Fortunately Merc seemed unconcerned, but he was also disinterested in the topic. He twitched the cord of her earbuds. “Let me listen to more music you like.”
Ruth knew he’d once participated in Circus performances, before moving more fully into the security end of the Circus. He and Medusa had even had a flight sequence together, when Medusa and JP had first arrived. Merc had helped choose more instrumental pieces as a score for it. But had he never dipped his toe into pop culture, modern music, TV? The Trads viewed it with contempt, feeling vampires should be wholly savage. She wondered if it was like that for Merc. Had it been easier to be savage and objectify the world that didn’t want him?
He’d said his incubus nature fought his angel side. Was it a choice, him purposefully avoiding exploring that side of himself, for whatever reason?