“You will.”
He said the words with such certainty, she found herself curious. “You say that as if you speak from experience.”
His lips lifted, but the smile didn’t touch his eyes where sadness danced in the shadows. “I’ll get you that drink.”
“No!” she said, knowing full well her tongue was already waggling way too much from the fuzzy stuff in her head. Most likely her feet would be tripping all over themselves. “I think I better stop. Escape sounded great until my head started buzzing.”
He leaned forward, his hands sliding onto the bar on either side of her. “I’ll make sure you get home safely, Marissa.”
She swallowed hard. There was something about the way he said "Marissa," and the heated way he was staring at her, that set her heart thundering in her chest. Did he mean … he’d take her home or he’d get her a taxi?
Marissa didn’t do one-night stands, or first-night sex, or drinking alone in bars. Not normally. But tonight, nothing in her world made sense. She reached in her purse and slid her keys onto the bar.
Tomorrow, she’d make sense out of the nonsense. She’d be responsible, she’d figure things out. But tonight, she needed an escape. Maybe that escape was a slushy cold drink. Maybe it was Evan. She didn’t know. She didn’t care.
***
Three hours later, the bar was closed, but Evan had ensured that Marissa lingered in her seat, a drink in front of her. He wasn’t about to allow her to leave without him, and not just because of the wolf he was certain would have her in his sight. No—there was more to his desire to keep Marissa nearby. Plain and simple, he wanted her, and not just physically, though there was no question, she got him hot and hard. He was, after all, a male, a vampire male, with primal, sexual instincts that had him imagining all kinds of wicked ways to make her scream his name. But what really had him by the balls was not the desire she created in him, but the way she’d made him laugh when he’d have sworn it wasn’t possible. The way she’d made him smile when he was certain he had no reason. The way she’d made him realize how empty a century of hunting had made him and he wanted to know why, and how, a woman he barely knew could do such things. The time for discovery, both in and out of bed, was not now though.
He wiped down the counter, working toward closing up the bar, focused on getting Marissa out of here safely. To ensure the wolf didn’t target her, as he normally did the friends and acquaintances of his victims.
All but done with the façade of this night’s bartender duties, he cast a quick, seductive glance at Marissa, making no attempt to tame the primal heat in his stare. She wasn’t for him, he told himself silently. She was a forever kind of girl, and not the kind of forever he could give her. Nevertheless, when she smiled shyly at him, his groin tightened, cock thickening against his zipper, and he knew he wasn’t walking away without fucking her every which way she’d have him.
He tossed the rag down, and rounded the bar, eliminating the counter that had separated them all night, to stand beside her, his hand on the back of her stool. She turned to face him, the scent of her teasing his nostrils, his arm creating an intimate enclosure, trapping her between the counter and his body. She was his in that moment and the idea appealed to him far more than it should. One tilt of his head and his teeth could touch that delicate, pale neck. His lips her lips. His body her body.
She glanced up at him, her long, dark lashes fluttering with a combination of uncertainty and desire, her pupils dilated with the effects of the alcohol she’d consumed.
“You really are…tall,” she whispered.
“And you,” he said, brushing a finger over her chin, “really are beautiful.” And innocent. Too innocent and perfect for the likes of him.
She shivered. “Tall and a smooth talker, I think I should be afraid.” Her palm slid down the bar. “Ouch!” She drew her hand forward, red pooling on her index finger, a splinter of wood sticking out from the red center.
Instant lust fired through Evan as he took the opportunity presented and snatched the splinter away before he drew her finger to his lips. The sweet taste of her blood exploded on his taste buds, filling him with lust, desire—fueling the sexual side of his vampire nature, when he already wanted this woman to the point of white-hot demand. His gums tingled, his recessed cuspids threatening to extend.
His eyes met hers, the scent of her arousal, the taste of her blood, seeping through him with a demand that he claim her, claim satisfaction. Somewhere in the back of the bar a door slammed shut. The sound was a jolt of reality that shook Evan just enough to calm the beast inside him threatening to take control of him, of her.
Slowly his tongue swirled around her finger, and then he released it, inspecting the area where the splinter had been.
“All better,” he said.
A stunned look etched her features. “I was right,” she whispered.
His brows dipped, “Right?”
“When I said I should be afraid of you,” she explained. “Because there is no way that what you just did should not bother me but it…”
He leaned close, sliding his face against hers, his lips near her ear, his mouth far too close to the vein he hungered to puncture—for his own good—most certainly for her own good. And yet, he found himself asking, “Aroused you?”
She drew a breath. “Yes.”
“As it did me,” he assured her, and silently wondered if perhaps it was him that should be afraid of her, for the way she stole his reserve, his caution. His control.
He leaned back, offering her his hand to help her stand. “I won’t bite,” he promised. “Not unless you ask me to.” And damn how he wished she would, how he wanted to convince her she should.
She laughed, nervously. “I’ve never asked a man to bite me in my life,” she said, pressing her palm against his.
He brought her fingers to his lips. “Then I could be the first.”
Her eyes went wide, “To bite me?”
“In the most pleasurable of ways,” he assured her.
She blushed. “I must be drunk,” she said, “because I so believe you. Probably a sign I need to go home.”
“I’ll drive you and take a cab home,” he offered. “Then you’ll have your car tomorrow.”
She considered him a moment. “I should say no.”
“But you’re going to say yes.”
“Yes,” she agreed, and smiled. “And I’m going to blame the alcohol in the morning.”
His hands slid to her waist. “Blame means regret,” he said. “And I don’t plan to let you have any regrets.
“Pretty confident there now, aren’t you?”
He took her hand. “Very.” Confident tonight would be hell. Confident that no matter how much the thrum of desire urging him to find a bed, rip her clothes off and bury himself inside her, he wouldn’t act on those desires. Not when she’d been drinking.
“You can still find your car, right?” he asked teasingly, as he turned the key in the front door and motioned to the closing manager to lock up behind him.