Biting Cold: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (CHICAGOLAND VAMPIRES SERIES)

“I’d decided you deserved the truth.”
    “You were going to tell me what he did?”
    “We knew you were enrolled at U of C, and we’d learned you were at school that night. We’d just gotten out of the car to find you when you were attacked.”
    Of all the nights for him to attempt to speak to me.
    And I’d hated him—loathed him—when I’d first been changed. I’d been so angry to have been denied the choice to become a vampire, and I’d taken that out on him. Of course, he’d been terrifically arrogant about it, and he hadn’t exactly handled my withdrawal from school very well. But still—he’d saved my life. And not just because he’d randomly happened upon me that night on campus, but because he’d made a decision to enter my life that night, and for the right reasons.
    My father had offered him thirty pieces of silver, and Ethan had declined, and he’d tried to rectify what my father had sought to do.
    My eyes filled with tears, and I said a silent thank-you to the universe for sending him to me. “I told you that you saved my life.”
    He gave me no warning before his mouth sought mine, and he kissed me greedily, hungrily, and with obvious intention. His fingers pulled at my hair, drawing me closer, his arousal leaving an indelible mark on my body.
    His free hand found my breast, and I moaned against his kiss, passion igniting and leaving my body on fire.
    After only a moment, when my chest was heaving and my body pliant and ready, he pulled back.
    “If you use the word ‘halt,’ I will hit you.”
    “Not halt,” he breathlessly said. “Upstairs. Now.”
    I thanked whatever strength he’d found to utter those words. And I was not going to argue with him.

C HAPTER N INETEEN

    UNCHANGING
    W e barely made it back upstairs without ripping each other’s clothes off. As it was, we probably left a trail of telltale energy through the House that made our mutual agenda clear to everyone.
    When we made it to his apartments, he slammed and locked the door, then found my mouth again. His hands were possessive, insistent, knotting into my hair and drawing me closer, challenging me to believe in who he was and what he’d promised.
    “I missed you,” I confessed, as he pressed me down into the bed.
    “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he murmured. For a moment, he hovered over me, his body scant centimeters away from mine . . . but still far away.
    “What is it?”
    “It seems forever since we’ve done this.”
    “It’s been at least two months,” I said with a small smile, then placed my hand over the scar above his heart.
    His expression went serious, his eyes changing to the green of ancient Celt forests. “You are mine, Merit.”
    I smiled and put a hand on his face, running my thumb along the soft bow of his lips. “I am yours until you ban bacon, or otherwise as long as I can put up with you.”
    He grinned wickedly, but his eyes were on my body as he did it. “Let’s see just how long you can put up with me.”
    I should have taken that for the warning it was.
    His eyes were molten silver, and there was no mistaking his intent in his gaze. The desire in his gaze. I shivered from the ferocity of it.
    “I thought you weren’t afraid, Sentinel.” His eyes and his body were an invitation . . . and I wasn’t about to refuse.
    “Never afraid,” I promised, even as I squeezed my hands into fists in nervous anticipation. I’d watched him die, but here he was, lust in his eyes and wickedness in his smile.
    He wasted no time stripping me of clothing, but each bit of fabric was slipped off and away with such slow and careful consideration my skin was on fire by the end of it.
    And soon enough, as promised, I was wearing only my Cadogan medal and a smile.
    Clad only in his pants, revealing those lines of muscle at his hips and the flat of his abdomen, his golden blond hair falling across his face, he stretched beside me and caressed the tips of his fingers across my stomach until my entire body was awash in goose bumps. His long fingers roamed my abdomen, barely touching, trickling across my skin, a promising hint of things to come, until my entire body was tinder, waiting for a spark.
    With steady hands and deft fingers, he stripped me of my final barriers; I lay naked before him, a halo of dark hair around my head, my body adorned with the fading scars of battle.
    “You are a universe,” he reverentially whispered, and then his game began. A game of pushing me to the