They remained still, frozen in a twisted game of cat and mouse. He needed to feed, and she needed to kill him, but neither had the willpower.
He squeezed her hand, putting pressure on the stake, driving it deeper into his flesh. She strained against him, her hand shaking as she tried to keep him from jamming the stake all the way to his heart. She wasn't ready to do this. Wasn't ready to lose the person who had filled her life with more than revenge.
Before Kaden, she'd been nothing but a machine. She'd done what was required to stay alive -- eat, sleep, drink. But there'd been no joy beyond killing demons, vampires, and weres. Kaden had saved her life -- more than once.
"No!" In one smooth move, she flung the stake away and grasped his head, pulling him firmly against her.
Kaden's teeth penetrated her throat in a white-hot stab of pain that veered sharply to pleasure. His moan vibrated through her, and she was lost to him.
Chapter Four
She should have killed him.
Now it was too late, and Kaden didn't think he'd ever be the same. He'd crossed a line -- vaulted over it -- and there was no going back. Sensation stabbed at him, shooting like mini-orgasms through his fangs, all the way to his groin. He should tear himself away from Andrea. Man-up and do the right thing.
But he was so cold and she was so warm. She smelled like leather and cherries -- a strange combination, but one that had always excited both the lover and the warrior in him. And best of all -- worst of all -- she tasted like sweet, sweet sin. Silky, warm blood filled his mouth and cascaded down his throat, filling that empty hole inside him that hurt.
No, not filling...because his chest cavity was truly empty now, his ribs caging in a useless heart and lungs that still breathed even though they didn't need air. Some sort of cell memory kept him breathing, he supposed, and he wondered when that would end, when his lungs would collapse and shrivel.
Andrea's pulse tapped against his teeth, and he moaned at the ecstasy of it. He'd been guided by instinct when he'd bitten her, and even though guilt knotted his stomach, he couldn't fight the drive to suck harder.
He also couldn't fight the desire to ease her onto her back and settle himself between her legs. Only the knowledge that there was a camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling kept him from tearing off her clothes, ripping open his fly, and plunging into her body. But still, some instincts were too powerful to deny, and he rocked his erection against her core, drawing a low, heady groan from her.
Beneath him, she writhed, arching up to plaster their bodies more solidly against each other. An erotic surge crashed through him in a hot tide, swelling his cock and making his balls throb. Andrea tightened her legs around his hips so his cock rubbed right where she needed it, and with each thrusting motion, she gasped, her panting breaths coming faster and faster.
Damn, he loved the sounds she made when she was making love. Granted, they weren't exactly making love, not while they were fully clothed, but the motions were the same, the feelings were the same, and oh, yeah, the way she drove him wild with her fingers digging into his back was the same.
"Kaden," she whispered, "yes, yes."
She was close, something he knew not from experience, but from his new senses. He could smell the delicious scent of her lust, could taste the zing of desire in her blood. It was like a drug he knew he couldn't kick. As a human, sex had been great. As a vampire, it was out of this world, and he hadn't even gotten inside her.
Delicious agony.
He shuddered, sucked, rocked against her until the friction became nearly too hot to handle and a vibration sang through his veins. This was crazy, but his body had hijacked his thoughts, and nothing mattered but getting inside her. Impatient, he slid his palm down her body, but before he reached her zipper, she cried out, her orgasm hitting so hard and fast he could only hang on for the ride as she bucked beneath him.
She called out his name, over and over, her smoky, pleasure-soaked voice nearly sending him over the edge with her.
"I love you," she whispered. "God, I love you."
The words stopped him in his tracks like nothing else, not even his own will, had been able to do. She'd never said that to him, not in the entire year they'd been together. He'd suspected, but then, he'd suspected that he was in love with her, too. But it was something he'd never planned to admit, not when a Guardian's lifespan was as likely to be measured in months as in years.
Five years ago, he'd lost Gabrielle to this violent life just days after their engagement, when she'd been bitten by a werewolf, had slaughtered several other Guardians, and Kaden had been forced to kill her.