“Why not?”
“Why not?Come on.” She gestured to herself in general, but his eyes drew right to her breasts, spectacularly perky… he grinned with pure postcoital, no-longer-a-virgin euphoria. Gliding the tip of her tongue over one of her razor-sharp canines, she bit down until a drop of blood clung to her tooth before she licked it away.
He sat up and embedded his hand in her beachy waves, cradling the back of her neck, and pressed his lips to hers. Without force, without plea. The blazing hot fire the simple connection stirred was off the charts. Didn’t matter that he had nothing for comparison, human or not. He knew. They shared something extraordinary.
“Bennett, you’re a sweet guy, but…” she trailed off, looking at the glow of sunrise threatening in the distant sky.
Thumb tracing his hand along the curve of her jaw, he shook his head. “I am a sweet guy. And I’m not an idiot. I’m not expecting white picket fences.” An ache in his chest, his breath grew heavy as he accepted the inevitable.
“This was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
The last trace of hope exhaling from his empty lungs, he shook his head. “It wasn’t, but I know where you stand.” Regrettably.
She slipped her feet into her panties. “Please say you won’t go after them alone. Call in your mother’s team or something.”
Teeth gritted tight, he grabbed his jeans and shoved his feet into the pant legs, lying back on the rough surface of the roof to pull them over his hips, the sharp pebbles digging into his skin. He kept his hand over the goods and tugged up the zipper, not giving a fuck where his underwear had gone. “Hell no. First, demon hunters don’t join forces with any hunter outside their own team once their parent has trained them and deemed them ready. Second, they won’t understand that you’re not like other vampires and will go after you too.”
“You don’t have a team. Come on, you told me yourself, Quinn hasn’t accepted the demon blood yet, and Lana is away at college.”
“I’m not calling for my mommy and running from the first decent fight of my life.”
“There are too many of them.”
“Fight with me. I know you’ve got the skills.”
“We won’t survive it.”
“What about your brother, isn’t he getting back into town soon? Quinn will accept the gift when she turns eighteen in a few days, and Lana can be here at a moment’s notice. We’ve been training together since we were in diapers, and I know they’ll be game to dive right in. With your brother too, we can take them.” He was floored that her brother, her actual biological brother, was part of her life. Bennett didn’t even have a sibling, but his parents were in their reproductive prime, so maybe someday. But it was different now that he was old enough to have his own.
His jaw dropped, and whatever she’d been saying melted right out of his ears. She pulled her top over her head, closing her eyes and running her fingers through her hair. Before tonight, she had gifted him with a few third-base make-outs, but something about tonight had been special. Maybe she’d agree to a few years of more nights like this–
“Bennett?” She raised an eyebrow and cleared her throat when he didn’t look away.
“Huh? Sorry,” he muttered, sporting a sheepish grin as he raised his gaze to meet hers.
Adair wasn’t merely alluring because of her natural predator appeal. Something in her azure eyes and freckled cheeks gave her an air of naivete, but her wicked grin and sinful body promised so much more. And, well, damn, he knew that was absolutely true thanks to tonight. “He’s up in the highlands, and there’s no service at the castle, but he promised he’d be back by the twentieth.”
“Where you were born?”
“I wish. Our home crumbled long ago. This one was much more solidly built by the descendants of our cousins. We invested a lot to restore and modernize it.” She held her breath. He knew there was more to it, but she shook her head. “I can’t let three young demon hunters get killed by some old friends of mine.”
“Old friends?”
“Very old. They’re experienced, they’re smart, and they’re vicious. Even with three, you don’t stand a chance. So Logan and I will lend a hand–”
“Great. You and me, your brother, Quinn, and Lana. We’ve got this.”
She glanced to the sky and clenched her jaw before letting out a controlled exhale. “We finish this, then I’m out.”
“You have better things to do with your eternity?”
A wicked shine flashed in her gaze. “Deflowering a newbie demon hunter is one thing.” She rose to her feet and extended her hand. “But keeping him on the hook? Not my style.”
As he met her grip, the shock of the connection sent heat radiating up his arm, surging through the rest of him. She’d surely had plenty of lovers, didn’t she realize this sort of thing wasn’t your run-of-the-mill affair?
Maybe she did. As he stood, she took a long, heavy breath, her eyes drifting over his shoulders, trailing down his abdomen where her tongue had been an hour ago.
“Adair?” he teased, biting his tongue as he watched her blush. So vampires could blush. Good to know.
