Blood Kiss Read online

  “I didn’t when you bit my mark either,” I denied hotly, even though it was a total lie.

  “Come on, Kate…I’m a vampire now, remember?” He looked into my eyes until I had to look away.

  “As if I could forget—that’s why we’re in this mess in the first place,” I muttered. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “I have heightened senses. I could hear your pulse racing and your rapid breathing, I could gage your physiological response.”

  “My what?”

  “You got wet,” he said bluntly. “Not just a little either. And your whole body went rigid.”

  “It was the shock of having your fangs in me—that was why I stiffened up.” I didn’t talk about the wetness I could still feel between my thighs. That was none of his business, damn it!

  “It wasn’t just what I sensed, it was what I experienced,” Michael insisted. Just like last time, I felt what you felt, Kate. I felt your pleasure.”

  “Okay, that’s enough. Put me down.” I struggled against his broad chest, trying to get out of his arms.

  “No,” he said again, implacably.

  I made my Glock, which I had shoved carelessly into the pocket of the leather jacket I was wearing, appear in my hand.

  “Let me down, please,” I said, pressing it against his heart. “Now.”

  He stopped walking—we were off the side of the mountain by then and into the regular rolling hills that surrounded it—but he didn’t put me down.

  “You know, Kate,” he said in a low voice. “Someday you’re going to find someone who won’t back down when you threaten them. What will you do then?”

  “I’ll worry about it when it happens,” I snapped. “Now put…me…down.”

  He did and took a step back.

  “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you, you know,” he said. “I think the reaction you had to me biting you on your mark was something we need to think about. It has some kind of significance and Welissandra knew it.”

  “Who?” I demanded, frowning. Now that I had my feet on solid ground again, my thigh was aching more fiercely than ever. Damn, I really needed to go back to the safe house and get this taken care of!

  “The snake-lady. She said her name was Welissandra,” he said patiently.

  “Oh. Right.” I shrugged and turned to start hobbling in the direction of the safe house.

  “Kate, I’m serious—we need to talk about this,” Michael insisted, catching up with me.

  “Nothing to talk about,” I gritted out, hobbling grimly forward. “So just drop it, okay?”

  “For now,” he said but there was a new note in his voice that hadn’t been there before. It made me think I was going to have trouble with him in the very near future.

  Somehow I managed to make it back to the safe house and hobble my way inside. Once there, I went directly to the tiny, postage-stamp-sized bathroom, determined to get the bite cleaned out directly. I propped my foot up on the lid of the toilet and reached for the half-bottle of holy water I had left in my pocket. I was about to pour it when Michael spoke right behind me.

  “Let me.”

  “What?” I twisted around and was irritated to see that he had crowded into the small bathroom with me. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Let me clean your wound.” He held out his hand for the bottle of holy water.

  “I can manage,” I said.

  “I know you can. I don’t care about that—I bit you so I should be the one to tend your wound.”

  There was steel in his gold-flecked green eyes and I saw that he wasn’t going to back down from this. Apparently he wanted to finish what he had started. Great. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard the snake-lady’s voice, That which wounds can also heal. Was this what she had meant? Maybe…

  “Fine.” I handed him the bottle of holy water. “But make it quick.”

  “I will.” He took the holy water and then reached for my hand. “Come into the bedroom.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’re still unsteady on your feet. I don’t want you to slip on the bathroom tiles and hurt yourself.” He tugged at me, gently but firmly. “Come on—I’ve got everything ready for you.”

  I didn’t know what he meant until I reluctantly followed him into the bedroom and saw that he had several towels open on the edge of the bed. Presumably he’d been raiding the linen closet while I was hobbling my way into the bathroom. Wait, we had a linen closet? Uncle Harry must have been more domestic than I’d given him credit for. Anyway, Michael had the towels all laid out and he indicated that I should lay down on them.

  I did as he wanted, although I wasn’t exactly sure why I was doing so. After all, I’d cleaned hundreds if not thousands of vamp bites out myself. Why should this one be any different?

  It was different though, and I knew it the moment I got situated, sitting on the towels with my calves hanging over the end of the bed. I knew it when Michael knelt between my legs for the second time that night and raised my skirt and shirt.

  “Hey,” I said uneasily as he bared me for him.

  “It’s okay.” He looked up at me and in the dim light of the bedroom lamp, his eyes glowed like two gorgeous green moons. “Not gonna hurt you, Kate. Or, not very much, I hope.” He uncapped the bottle of holy water. “Just hold still.”

  I did as he said, gritting my teeth while he poured the liquid over the two small fang marks he’d made in my inner thigh. Was it my imagination or was the liquid not bubbling as much as it had with other wounds in the past? What did that mean? Was my holy water out of date? Did holy water go out of date? I hadn’t thought so but now I wasn’t so sure.

  When the fizzing stopped, Michael blotted my thigh with a towel and studied the tiny wounds in my Slayer mark. They were so small you could barely see them—more like pinpricks than anything else.

  “So soft and sweet,” he murmured, stroking over my thigh and making me tremble again for some reason I didn’t want to name, even to myself. “I wish I could kiss you here again but I guess that would contaminate the bite marks all over again.”

  “Actually…” I cleared my throat. “It’s the essence that gets secreted by your fangs that makes the, uh, infection. Not your saliva. So it’s pretty safe to kiss…as long as you don’t bite.”

  Then I wondered what in the hell had gotten into me. Why would I tell him such a thing? It was almost as though I was inviting him to kiss me.

  It was an invitation he took me up on.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Holding my eyes with this, he bent his head and placed a long, open-mouthed kiss against my thigh. He dragged his tongue gently over the healing bite marks…and then higher.

  “Michael…” I whispered breathlessly as his mouth found the damp white cotton panel of my panties. “I don’t know…don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

  “It’s an excellent idea,” he assured me and I couldn’t help noticing his voice had deepened to a hungry growl. “Let me taste you, Kate. Without these.”

  He ran one long finger over my cleft, tracing the white cotton in a way that made me moan and bite my lip.

  “I…I…we shouldn’t,” I said, feeling a mixture of nervous fear and desire flooding through me. “I don’t…don’t let guys, uh, do that. I had a bad experience once and ever since…”

  “You were probably with someone who didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Michael interrupted me smoothly. “Whereas I do.”

  “What—because you’re a doctor, you mean? You know all the, uh, anatomy?” I tried to make my words sarcastic but they came out sounding breathy instead.

  “That’s part of it,” he said mildly, his green eyes glowing from between my thighs.

  “And the other part?” I could hardly believe we were discussing this—that I was actually thinking about letting him…

  “The other part is I really, really like eating pussy.” The growl was back in his voice. “In fact, I fucking love it, Kate.”