But what about that weird image you saw when he touched you the first time? The one with him getting ready to bite your neck?
I pushed it away. That was crazy—nothing. Just like the weird surge of sexual energy that had passed between us like a lightning bolt zapping both of us at once. It was like Vik’tor had said—probably just some weird reaction because we came from different planets or peoples or something. I wasn’t going to let him bite my neckormy thigh. It was strictly the wrist or nothing.
But what if he just takes what he wants? He’s certainly big enough to do that if he feels like it,whispered the little voice of anxiety in my head.
The thought of him pinning me down, of his muscular bulk hovering over mine…pressing me down as his mouth explored my vulnerable throat and then dipped lower to find my inner thighs was uppermost in my mind as I stared at the door he had left by.
I wondered what was going to become of me.
NINE
VIK’TOR
Ihad to leave the small room—had to leave Natalie behind for a moment—so I could clear my head. So many strong emotions were coursing through me it was making me feel fucking crazy.
First of all, there was the pure, unfiltered lust I’d felt when we touched. What in the afterlife hadthatbeen about? It felt like someone had fucking electrified my cock!
One minute I was at half-mast—she had, after all, flashed me by accident when she’d turned to see me with the robe still open and I had caught a tantalizing glimpse of her lovely curves. But the minute I touched her hand, I went from half-mast to rock-hard and ready to shoot in the space of a bare second.
And the thing was, I couldtellthat she had been subject to the same sensation. As a half Braxian, my senses are extremely sharp—especially my sense of smell. So in addition to seeing how her breathing quickened and her nipples hardened under the robe, I could also scent her feminine desire. Her lust perfumed the air—a rare, delicate fragrance that was intensely erotic and incredibly attractive.
However, it wasn’t just the strange lust that we had both experienced that affected me. Right before I had touched her, I had seen something that disturbed me greatly. Which was why I had demanded to examine her wrists and forearms.
When I had touched her a second time, the odd surge of lust hadn’t repeated itself—thank the Goddess because if it had, I might have had a fucking hard time controlling myself! But what I saw when I pushed up the sleeve of my robe to look at Natalie’s arm nearly drove it out of my mind.
The smooth, light brown skin of her inner forearms and wrists was covered in old bruises and bite marks—signs of the savagery that had no doubt been inflicted on her every day from the moment she’d been dumped on O’nagga Nine. That fucking pimp had been selling her out to twenty males a day—letting them fucking gnaw on her and bruise her and hurt her and all to make himself rich while she barely scraped by.
It probably looked extra bad since she didn’t allow anyone to bite any other part of her body to draw blood. So her wrists and arms got a lot more abuse than they would have if she’d been allowing males to drink from her throat or her inner thighs.
I understood her reasoning—Naggian males can get brutal when they bite. Also, a bite on the throat or the inner thighs is much more…shall we sayintimate.I only bit the Blood Brides I used on the wrist or the inner crook of the elbow for that reason—they didn’t want a half-bloodhsh’fruxbetween their thighs or at their throat.
When Natalie had first offered me her blood, I had been intrigued. The thought of sinking my fangs into willing flesh for once made my shaft harden in my trousers. But I soon realized she was only offering what she thought was my due since I had paid for her contract.
I still wanted to taste her blood, but there was no way I was going to bite her in a place where she was already so wounded. And just the thought ofhowshe had been wounded—of all those careless males sinking their fangs into her flesh for a taste of her warm blood and that worthless R’xs, her pimp, forcing her to keep offering herself even when she was so hurt and bruised made the Braxian half of me boil with anger.
I took some deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. I didn’t want to be around the little Earth female when my temper and my lust were both up. She was too damn tempting for her own good—especially smelling of feminine desire and the warm, sweet scent of the bathing products as she did.
I wanted to taste her blood but I couldn’t do that just yet. There were other matters I had to attend to first…
TEN
NATALIE
When the door to the room opened again, I sat up straight, my entire body feeling tight as a wire. I had been sitting there for fifteen or twenty minutes, wondering what the Baron was going to do to me—if he was going to kick me out of his fancy penthouse or demand that I give him free access to my body so he could bite me wherever he wanted.
Neither option seemed very appealing, although the idea of letting him touch me all over with those big hands wasn’t completely unattractive. As long as he would be gentle, instead of brutal like so many of my customers who shoved their fangs into my flesh, heedless of my muffled cries of pain, I thought I might be able to stand being with him like that. Although, to be honest, I was never going tolikebeing bitten—I’m just not into pain and bitinghurts.
Still, being bitten by the huge Baron might be better than being shoved out into the cold again. Even though I had only been there a few hours, I had almost gotten used to being warm. I didn’t want to feel like I was right on the edge of freezing again.
It’s one of the most miserable sensations in the world, never being able to get all the way warm. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t lived through a really rough winter without adequate heating can understand that. I knowIcertainly didn’t get it until I was kidnapped from hot, humid Florida and dumped onto the frozen ball of ice that was O’nagga Nine.
So I was a bundle of nerves as the door opened, wondering what was going to happen to me.
To my surprise, Vik’tor didn’t order me to get my things and get out or to bare my throat for him. He came back into the room holding a large bowl carefully between his hands. He brought the bowl over to where I was sitting in the wingback chair and knelt before me—he was surprisingly graceful for such a big man.
“Um…what—?” I began to ask but he cut me off.
“Let me see your arms again. Right one first,” he ordered, holding out his hand.