She raised her head aggressively - the only movement she could manage. "For everything you've done to me. For endangering me and for every time you've ignored my wishes." Her voice was different, throatier. She sounded like she should be on the cigarettes-and-curlers end of a sex line.
The list of reasons was endless, from ripping off the Band-Aid that had covered her traumatic memories, to making her go mindless with lust while drinking, to slicing through a thousand dollars' worth of hand-painted Jillian Sherry underwear his first night. She settled on, "For every time I've wanted to strike you and couldn't."
He studied her, clearly not knowing what to make of her. Then the hands that had been pinning her hard cupped over the top of her head. Wolflike. "Fair enough."
Her lips parted in surprise.
"Do you feel better for it?"
"Yes," she answered honestly. If only for a moment, she'd felt powerful for the first time in her life, surging with power. And the next time he forced her into a restaurant, or went rock star on their hotel room, or woke her by kissing down there, she'd smack him again.
As if he read her mind, he warned, "But doona hit me again."
"Then doona break your promises." At his frown, she said, "You vowed that you wouldn't touch me. But you...you touched my br**sts."
"I vowed that I would no' touch you unless you wanted me to." He leaned up to run the backs of his fingers down her side. She had to battle the urge to flex and stretch into his touch like a cat.
"Tell me right now that you dinna want me to."
She looked away, distressed by how attractive she found him, by how she had nearly keened when she'd lost the warmth of his hand covering her entire breast. The feel of his hot mouth sucking her nipple...Between them his erection was rigid, straining against her, coaxing her body to grow wet for it. "Make a note now that I will not in the future."
His lips curled wickedly, and her breath hitched at the sight. "Then all you have to do next time is remove your wee fangs from my arm for long enough to tell me no. Long enough for one single word."
She pulled her gown into place, yearning to hit him again. The bastard knew that tonight she could no more have taken her fangs from him than she could have stopped breathing. "You assume I'll drink from you again?"
With a sexy smirk and a rumbling voice, he said, "I'll have to insist."
She turned her face away as the full import of her actions hit her. She'd actually taken living blood. She was officially a leech. And drinking directly from him was like coming home, like something had shifted into place. She feared she could never go back to cold, plastic sleeves. Just what kind of schwag blood had she been drinking before him?
"Why had you no' ever before?"
Because it was forbidden. Yet she'd done just what her aunts had feared of her...
And his blood was a drug she could grow addicted to. She could become addicted to him. He could have that power over her.
No! If he tried to entice her to drink again, she wouldn't be starving and she would have more control to deny herself.
In theory?
"Get off me, you brute." When he didn't let her up, she raised her hand again, but he caught her wrist.
"Doona strike me again, Emmaline. Mates never hit each other."
"What do you mean by 'mate'?" she asked slowly, the fear she'd ignored returning, making her tone grow desperate. "Like...like Australian for 'buddy'?"
When he seemed to be deciding if he should tell her something, warning bells blasted. "You don't mean like a Lykae mate?" The idea had occurred to her briefly, but she'd easily pushed it away. Because it was ludicrous.
"And what would you know about that?" He was getting angry again.
She remembered Lucia warning her never to walk between a Lykae and his mate. And if another male accosted his female or tried to separate them - get the hell away. They were as bad as a vampire with his Bride, if not worse. "I know you have only one, and that you never separate." She knew if the other was hurt or was in danger, the beast rose up, and reason was lost. She'd seen him lose reason - and never wanted to see it again.
"What's so wrong with that?"
"You can't mean...You do want to separate from me? Right?"
"What if I dinna want to?"
"Oh, God." She scrambled from him until he let her go.
He crooked his arm behind his head and leaned back. "Would it be that terrible to be with me?"
She feared he was acting deceptively casual. "Of course it would! Besides the fact that you can't seem to make up your mind whether to be nice to me or to hate me, and besides the fact that we are...different, you're a bully, you're out of control, and you don't care about how I feel whatsoever, and you do break your promises and we're on the cusp of the Accession and - "
"Now, doona hold back how you feel, lass," he interrupted. When she glared at him, he smirked. "It pleases me that you've obviously given us a lot of thought. Working out all the angles."
She clenched her fists in frustration. "Tell me I'm not your mate, then."
"You're no'. You're a vampire, remember? Think about it. My clan would want to rip you to bits on sight."
She tilted her head, studying him, trying to determine the truth.
"Granted, with all your new curves" - he raked his gaze over her, then shook his head in that way men did, as if he was a goner - "I would no' mind keeping you around as my mistress, but nothing so serious as my one mate."