Clare tilted up her chin.
Damn it, she was going to let herself sparkle for the annual police department dinner.
Let Oliver Hale look. No, damn him, let himstare. Let himwant.
Nothing was ever going to happen between them.
But she was going to revel in feeling wanted by the one person she wanted back.
Just for one night.
CHAPTER 4
He sensed her before he saw her.
Something changed in the crowded hotel bar—the energy shifted, the sound of voices lulled, and then he caught the scent of her skin, the essence of her blood, sweet and intoxicating.
He found himself breaking away from the conversation with a murmured apology. Moving to a darker corner of the bar, whiskey in hand, he watched and waited.
Damn, he felt like a predator.
He knew he should return to his colleagues, but he’d been waiting for her to arrive for what felt like gods damn hours, and all he wanted was to watch her. He heard a few voices raised in greeting, then someone gave a low whistle. “Gods, Clare, you scrub up well,” to which he heard her respond with her rare melodic laugh.
And suddenly, there she was.
And hell… he was well and truly fucked, wasn’t he?
He watched her greedily as she sashayed through the crowded room, her slender hips swaying in that fucking amazing red silk creation, ivory shoulders bared, the plunging neckline exposing the swell of her breasts. All eyes were on her,tongues practically lolling out of their fucking heads. Oliver’s fist clenched around his glass. How dare they look at her? How dare they think they had the right?
He felt his fangs lengthening, his cock hardening.
You. Are. Mine.
What. The. Fuck?
Those words had never entered his head before, not even when his lust for human blood was at its worst. Never had he wanted to possess someone like he wanted to possess Clare in this moment.
This was bad. Really bad.
He should leave. Now. While he still retained some semblance of sanity. But he was rooted to the spot, knowing that her eyes would be drawn to him.
And when finally her gaze pierced the corner where he was hiding, their gazes fused. And it felt to Oliver like lightning sizzled between them.
He ground his molars and willed his fangs to retract. They refused, so he kept his lips clamped into a hard line. Things were no better in his pants, his dick was painful against his fly.
Her lips parted, her breasts rising and falling sharply with her suddenly erratic breathing. A pulse beat at the base of her throat.
He leaned against the bar, trying desperately to appear nonchalant. Cocking one eyebrow, he raised his glass in greeting.
“Hello, Clare,” he heard himself drawl as she stepped up to him.
“Hello, sir.”
He forced his damn fangs to retract. “Please—call me Oliver tonight.”
“Very well, Oliver,” she breathed softly. And shame on him, an image flashed before his eyes of her chanting his name as he pounded into her, her body soft and quiescent beneath him.
“It feels strange, somehow, to call you that,” she mused lightly.
