Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 72056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“Fucking bloodsuckers. You’re the bane of our existence. How the hell can this be?”
“Bloodsuckers? Really, Rogan?” I shake my head. I thought he’d be above using common slurs.
“If the thigh-high boot fits, princess.”
I narrow my eyes. How can I be so attracted to and so repulsed by someone at the same time?
He pulls a bandana out of his pocket and hands it to me. “Wipe my blood off your face. I can’t… I can’t think when you look like that. Fuck. I can’t think around you anyway.”
I take the red cotton bandana. “This is a little country boy for a suave businessman alpha like yourself.” I touch it to my lips, not wanting to erase any part of what just occurred between us, even though the bloodsucker comment still has me pissed.
“Country boy?”
“If the cowboy boot fits, Rogan.”
He smiles. Actually smiles. “I didn’t always live here,” he says.
“Oh?” I continue wiping my mouth and cheeks slowly. Methodically. “Where are you from originally?”
“Colorado.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what? The bandana?”
“Well, yeah, that…plus your blood.”
“I have Colorado blood?”
“Hell if I know. But the way it sounds in your veins when you’re turned on. It sounds like the rolling rapids of a Colorado river. My grandparents lived in Colorado, and my sister and I went rafting during one of our visits when we were teenagers. I’ll never forgot that sound. It’s…”
“It’s what?”
“Intoxicating.” The word comes out on a growl.
He takes the bandana from me and continues to wipe my face. “You missed some spots.”
“So?”
“So…if I have to look at you wearing my blood for one more minute, I’m going to fuck you right here in my office.”
A sizzling arrow lands between my legs. “And that’s a bad idea because…?”
“It’s a bad idea because this is my workplace, princess. I can’t bring anything personal here.”
“So you’re saying you want me? Is that it?”
“I think that’s clear.”
“Why the brush-off this morning, then? Why the ‘have a safe trip’ bullshit?”
He brings the bandana—now soiled with his own blood—to his nose and inhales.
I cock my head. “Rogan, what the hell are you doing?”
“I don’t smell anything. Maybe something slightly metallic.”
“Wolves don’t smell others?”
“Oh, we do. That’s how we recognize each other, but we don’t smell blood.”
I curve my lips upward slightly. “What do I smell like to you?”
“Like the missing piece of my body,” he says succinctly. Almost too succinctly.
His words warm me, make me want him all the more. “And what does that smell like, exactly?”
He scoffs. “I can’t explain it any more than you can explain why you want my blood.”
“But I can explain that,” I tell him. “Your blood tastes like strong coffee, tannic red wine, and the darkest chocolate. Who the hell wouldn’t want that?”
“You didn’t know that before you tasted it,” he says.
“True. But I knew I needed it. Craved it.”
“God.” He rakes his fingers through his long hair, making himself look like a wild man. “I can’t even believe this.”
“What?”
“I told you. You’re my mate.”
Right. He said those words, right before that kiss that turned into a feeding fest for me that I’m still reeling from. “What does that mean, Rogan?”
“Surely you know about wolves and mates.”
“A little. Fated shit and all that. I don’t really believe any of it. Vamps—or humans, for that matter—don’t react that way.”
“Not all wolves do, either. Not anymore, at least. We’ve pretty much evolved out of it, but about ten percent of us can still scent our mates and know when we find them.”
“And you think that’s happened here?”
He paces away from me, toward the closed door, and then back to me. “I don’t know what to think. No wolf has ever scented a non-wolf mate. It just doesn’t happen.”
He’ll jump through all kinds of hoops to get to you.
Is this what my father meant? That I’m Rogan’s mate, and somehow he knew?
“I can’t think,” he continues. “When you’re here, princess, this close to me, it’s like nothing else matters. It defies all logic. All I want is to fuck you. Bury myself in you. Make a baby with you. Hell, I never even wanted kids.”
“We can’t make a kid together, Rogan. That’s well-documented.”
“A vampire and a wolf can’t make a baby, but we can make babies with humans. You’re half-human, princess.”
“So you’re saying it’s my human half you’re attracted to? Is that it?”
“I’m not saying anything. None of it makes sense.”
“Let me put your mind at ease, Rogan. I’m on the pill. No baby-making will happen with me.” My knees weaken, and I grasp the edge of Rogan’s desk.
“Princess?”
“I’m fine. I’m just…” Sweat emerges at my hairline. Telltale sign. I’ve over-indulged. It is possible for a vampire to take too much blood.
Rogan walks to me swiftly and takes me in his arms.
Just as things go black.
12
By the way, I sent your clothes to cleaning.
Rogan’s voice.
Where am I?