His nostrils flared and he tipped my chin back, and his eyes searched my face. He needn’t look so concerned. I was just high on blood and lust.
My hand moved to his cheek and stroked the rough skin there, uncaring that with the touch I smeared my blood along his jawline. The siren hummed impatiently. Things weren’t progressing fast enough.
Andre sucked in a breath. “Why are there lipstick marks on your neck?”
The siren swelled within me, the memory of the woman’s dark nature further arousing my own. My chest heaved. I was losing control completely.
Unaware of what was going on with me, Andre leaned into my neck. “Smoke and flowers—”
Not smoke and flowers. Ash and roses.
My breath came faster and faster. The blood thrummed through my veins, headier than alcohol.
Andre stilled, and then he took a step back. Then another. “Gabrielle …” he said cautiously, his eyes moving over my glowing skin.
I ran my hands through my hair and rolled my shoulders back. I dragged my hands down my torso, down, down …
The entire room seemed to respond. I could feel them like a pulse that lingered outside of me, and with every beat of the strobe light, they crept closer to me. Just like the woman before me, I’d enraptured every single individual here, and I was high off of the power. I wanted them all—their blood, their bodies, their very essence.
I was gone, gone, gone.
“Gabrielle.” The voice cut through my lust. I turned and gazed at Andre. He wore a hungry look. Even he was under my spell.
But it was my turn to be enraptured. My soulmate. No one else stoked the fire in me like he did. I wanted to consume him; I wanted him to be a part of the inferno that was eating me up from the inside out.
“If you’re going to do something stupid, at least do it to me,” he grated out. His chest heaved as he spoke, like it took a terrible amount of effort to say even that.
Somewhere at the back of my mind, I knew my response to his words should’ve been different. Sarcastic. Instead my entire body throbbed for him, the press of my fangs against my gums almost painful. My humanity was a distant thing.
I closed the distance between the two of us and wrapped my arms around his neck. I rubbed my body against his, and I heard him make a guttural noise, somewhere between a growl and a groan. It made my skin shine even brighter than before.
He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, even as his arms closed around me.
“I’m not,” the siren sang. “Now open your eyes and do to me what you’ve wanted to do since we met.”
That was all the encouragement I needed to give him. His eyes went molten; a look of longing flared deep within them. I caught a brief flash of fang and then he leaned down and kissed me.
Our mouths moved against each other urgently. His tongue parted my lips and stroked the inside of my mouth. I moaned against him and clutched him tighter. More. I wanted this and so much more.
His hands moved against my skin, pulling me closer, caressing exposed skin. I ran my own fingers over the thin fabric of his shirt, feeling the hard muscle beneath. Distantly I realized that I was getting my blood all over us.
Andre nipped at the tender flesh of my lower lip. I felt a prick of pain and I moaned as he drew a small bit of blood from it.
The crowd pressed in on us still, so Andre lifted me into his arms and carried me to the back of the club and up a flight of stairs. Our lips stayed locked the entire time. I moved against him suggestively, my body demanding that this go further.
Andre kicked open a door and led me into another one of his VIP rooms before slamming the door shut again. He set me down on a couch and draped himself over me.
His movements were jerky as he caressed me. There was something about them that made me pause. My shimmering skin dimmed. It only seemed to make his movements more halting.
Finally I pulled back, my earlier rush starting to ebb.
“Thank God,” Andre gasped, leaning his forehead against mine.
“What?” I panted, the last of the glow leaving my skin.
His arms tightened around me. “I was worried that the first time we’d sleep together it was going to be under your compulsion.”
“Under my … ?” I felt my nausea rise, and I covered my mouth. “I was forcing you …” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The idea that I had just now tried—very aggressively—to get in Andre’s pants was embarrassing enough. Add to that, that I’d used glamour on him—I’d taken away his power of choice. Had we slept together, it wouldn’t have been consensual.
Andre’s brow furrowed. “No,” he said, shaking me gently. “I know what you’re thinking. And it’s just not true. You commanded me to do to you everything I’d wanted to do since we first met. You ordered me to have full control of the situation.” Andre’s nostrils flared and a tremor moved through his body. The crease between his brows deepened. “Do you know how incredibly stupid that was?”
I glanced away, my jaw working. He was adding insult to injury.
He gently cupped my chin and turned my face so that I had to look at him. “Don’t ever give me that kind of power, Gabrielle. There are so many, many things that I’d—” His voice cut off and he shook his head. When he looked at me again, his face was pained. “I don’t want your first time to be in some sleazy club while neither of us is fully in control of ourselves.”
I swallowed and rubbed the palms of my hands against my eyes. When I pulled them away, I realized that smeared, sticky blood still coated them. Suddenly, my personal problems were only one of several extremely screwed up things that had happened this evening.
Beyond the room I heard a distant door bang open and the music stop. Shouts bubbled up from downstairs and I groaned.
Just when the evening couldn’t get worse, help showed up like a late period.
Yippee.
I started to push myself off the couch when Andre placed a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back down.