Or how bad.
Still smarting from his verbal smackdown, she struck out, slapping him across the face. His head snapped back and his eyes went wide, as though he couldn't believe she'd just done that. In an instant, he recovered, red sparks turning his eyes to molten metal as he grasped her wrists and yanked her into him.
Just as she'd wanted him to do.
Still, her heart thundered in her chest. Angering a vampire, even one you loved -- one that had just given you an orgasm for the record books -- wasn't the brightest move in the world.
"There's a camera in the corner," she said, angling her face away from said camera in case whoever was watching could read lips. "We need to fight, and you need to pretend to kill me. It's the only way to fool that psycho vamp into thinking you've truly gone over to their side."
She struggled, feigning fury, though she did put some power behind her knee to his thigh. He totally deserved that, and she smiled a little at his grunt.
"Good girl," he said through gritted teeth. "Didn't know you saw the camera." She didn't have time to bask in his praise, because suddenly, he spun her, put her back against the wall and his forearm across her throat. "So we fight."
His teeth were bared and his eyes glinted and if she didn't know any better she'd think he really was planning violence.
Then again, she didn't know any better. He'd changed. She shivered, but not with fear. No, once more, she was utterly turned on by the life or death game they were playing. And this was definitely life -- heart-stopping, adrenaline-pumping life. Kaden had once said that you never felt more alive than when you were facing death, and if the way her skin tingled, her breasts tightened, and heat bloomed between her thighs was any indication, he was so right.
"Fight me, damn you."
"Gladly," she snapped.
Squaring her shoulders, she stomped on his foot and followed up with a swift kick to his shin and a hook of her boot to the back of his knee. His leg buckled, but before she could wrench free, he recovered.
"We've sparred for months," he said with an arrogant smile. "You think I don't know all your moves?"
She rocked her head forward and caught him in the mouth. "You didn't know that one."
He grinned, flashing teeth smeared with blood. "Nice."
God, he was hot when he smiled like that, and again, the pseudo-battle stirred up something wicked in her, something hot and naughty. The puncture wounds on her throat began to throb in time with the pulsing between her legs, as if her body was preparing to take him inside her in any way he wanted. He was a very male animal, and her feminine instincts were answering without her brain's consent.
As though he sensed the change in her, his eyes darkened and his gaze dropped to her mouth.
"Kaden--"
He took her to the ground, twisting at the last second to absorb the brunt of the impact. In a smooth, easy motion, he rolled on top of her, pinning her with his superior strength and considerable weight.
Beneath him, she writhed, partly in a show of struggle for the camera, and partly because he felt so damned good pressed against her. She schooled her expression into one of rage, using her anger at her situation, at Kaden's transformation, at a past that robbed her of a normal life, to make the emotion believable when all she wanted to do was roll around with him on a soft bed instead of the hard ground.
Kaden fisted her hair in one hand and wrenched her head to the side, exposing her throat the way he had before. A raw, purring rumble dredged up from deep in his chest. Her breath quickened as he lowered his mouth to her neck and struck like a snake, with no warning. Like before, pain pierced her, a sweet, erotic agony that drained her of any resistance. No wonder humans succumbed to vampires so easily. Pleasure streaked from where his teeth penetrated her to every pulse point in her body.
Moaning, she arched her pelvis into his, and he shuddered even as he shifted his weight to press her flat again. Right. She wasn't supposed to be getting off on this. This was a show for the camera, and she was ruining it by wanting to ride him like a horse.
Again.
It struck her that she might be a little stupid in trusting him not to kill her, but what choice did she have? Besides, despite what The Aegis had taught her, she knew Kaden. She knew it would take more than an exchange of vampire blood to turn him evil.
Too soon, he disengaged his teeth, but the motion was subtle, and he repositioned his mouth over the bite and stroked his tongue along the wounds to seal them.
But he never lifted his head, and she barely heard him whisper, "This is killing me. Later, we'll do this right, but for now, I need to pretend to be drinking from you until you're dead. In sixty seconds, go limp and play possum. With any luck, he'll have fed recently."