Ransom lay sprawled on the bed, eyes on the ceiling, and I couldn’t help myself from gazing at the length of that massive body. The way his cotton pants clung to his hips, how his shirt was hiked just an inch, exposing that carved abdomen of his.
Damn him, I wanted to know what that chest, what those abs felt like. Wanted to know how it felt to touch him without sparring.
“Are you tired?” I asked, and he nodded. I quickly turned off the lights and sank onto the other side of the bed.
I tucked the pillow beneath my head, laying almost with my back to the edge of the bed but still facing him. He adjusted his position to much the same, his eyes quiet, contemplative as he looked at me. A slight purplish hue dusted just beneath his eyes, and I remembered what had bothered me earlier at dinner.
“You’re hungry,” I said, and he blinked out of whatever silent thought he’d had.
He shrugged.
“You can’t stomach the canned blood?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate.
“I could,” he said, drawing up a smirk I knew all too well. “But I’ve grown used to human blood. It’s so much better than the processed stuff.”
I nodded, unable to argue with him. A balanced diet of human food and human blood had helped me with my strength. “I should’ve brought a human with us,” I said. “There are none in Kranitel. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said, his voice quiet and soft between us. “I am a grown male, Olivia,” he continued. “If I’d wanted to bring along a feeder, I would have.”
I furrowed my brow. “I could talk to the staff. I know there are some vampires who volunteer.”
“Is that what you did when you lived here?” he asked, his bicep bunching beneath the pillow he held.
“No,” I said, heat flooding my cheeks. “I was raised on the canned blood. My family had offered one of the volunteer vampires, but I never wanted to.”
“And after you left?” he asked, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “When you had the freedom to choose? Did you not…partake during certain activities?”
I nearly choked on a laugh. “Such a personal question.”
Ransom grinned, the sight curling my toes beneath the sheets draped over my body. “We’re mates, darling,” he teased. “And we’re in the same bed. Doesn’t get much more personal than this.”
Oh, I could think of at least a dozen ways we could get more personal.
“No,” I relented. I’d always been honest with Ransom, our friendship demanded it. Well, honest, expect for the one secret I could never let him know—how much I loved him. “I always found it too…” I tried to think of the right way to explain it. I knew so many vampires who felt that sharing blood during sex went hand in hand. With mates it was stronger but between two consenting vampires? I’d heard it could be…intense.
“Intimate?” he asked, and I blew out the breath I’d been holding.
“Yes,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip for a moment. “There is a level of trust there I’ve never been able to get past.” I shrugged. “I don’t judge anyone who does it, though,” I hurried to say. “I just haven’t been able to let go enough myself.”
“I understand that,” he said, and my heart warmed. Of course, he did. Ransom had been one of the sole vampires—save for Avianna—who had ever truly understood me to my core.
“So,” I hedged. “Do you want me to find a willing vampire for you? I know you can’t use your charms on a willing female like you normally would, given the circumstances—”
“Of being yours?” He cut me off, and a soft gasp flew past my lips at the words. He smiled, equal parts mischief and warmth. “No,” he said, shifting slightly to his back to gaze up at the ceiling. He tucked an arm behind his head, that damn shirt of his hiking up again to reveal his carved stomach.
“Don’t you do that all the time?” I asked, hating that I didn’t and did want to know the answer at the same time.
He glanced at me, scrunching his brow. “No.” He shook his head.
“But you’re always with females—”
“I am not,” he chided, laughing. “Not that you’ve been paying attention, but I haven’t taken a female companion—even for a night—since before Lyric arrived at the estate. And I never exchange blood.”
“Why not?”
He looked at the ceiling again. “Beyond your reasoning,” he said. “Females can read too much into it. Become too attached.”
And with every female already vying for his affections simply because he was an assassin, that would complicate things to a whole other degree.
Of course, I couldn’t blame the females who asked for his blood while he was in their bed.
I mean, look at him.