Demon Night

confused. And, in turn, keeping Jane confused so it’s harder for her to decide.”
    “So you’re giving me time to think it all over.”
    “Yes. She has to come of her free will, Charlie. I can’t force her. And getting her to come will mostly depend on you.”
    “All right.” She drew a long breath. “What will he think frightens me?”
    “Considering what he said about Jane doing anything to keep you from being forced into intimacy, it’ll be the feeding. He’s going to ask you who you’ll be taking blood from, remind you of—” Ethan’s jaw clenched and his lips paled around the edges. “Of how Henderson touched you.”
    Her legs wobbled. Charlie sank down on the bed, shoving her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. Her feet dangled over the side; her polished toenails looked like cheery squares of blood against her skin. “Was the thing about having to feed from a living source true?” she wondered dully. “I have to find someone to drink from?”
    And depend on them to provide it to her.
    “It’s true, Charlie, but you won’t have to look far.” He lowered to his heels in front of her, tilted his head to look up into her eyes. “I’ll be feeding you.”
    For how long? She stared at his throat, remembered the cold lips, the humiliating arousal, the painful bite. “Why would you?”
    “You’ll need me,” he replied easily, and anxiety pinched her lungs, kicked at her stomach. His brows drew together, and he shook his head as if he was confused by her reaction. “If this is about what I said before, about not wanting a vampire sucking at my neck, I was speaking of something that’s past—and I’ll share it with you in a moment—but I’m determined it won’t matter here.” He lifted his hands to the mattress beside her legs, smoothed his palms along the coverlet. “I’m willing, Charlie, and we were already headed in this direction.”
    She closed her eyes, swallowed hard. She’d be an idiot to reject his offer; it wasn’t as if she had many options.
    And before her transformation, there was no doubt they’d have ended up in bed. But it had been equal then: she’d wanted him, he’d wanted her. She wouldn’t have starved and wouldn’t have been forced to turn to someone else if he hadn’t wanted her.
    But Ethan didn’t need anything to survive.
    “We don’t have to tumble into the bed quick, Charlie. I reckon you’ve got more adjustments to make, need time to become accustomed to the bloodlust. I can give you that time.”
    She looked down at him in surprise, met his earnest gaze. “How?”
    “You can’t physically force me. So when Sammael starts talking about how you’ll be bedded against your will, you know you’ll have a choice.”
    Bedded. How could he make such an old-fashioned term sound like a sexy, heated promise? It’d be good between them…but would the feeding change it? Change her ?
    “I do think I need a few days to get used to…” She waved her fingers at her mouth, then slid her fist back into her sweatshirt pouch. Maybe more than a few days.
    He nodded slowly. “There’s a couple of other things, Charlie, but I’d like to get something settled first.” He rocked forward, coming up off his heels and onto his knees, his chest pressing into her shins.
    She automatically moved her legs apart to make room for her feet. Her breath was shallow. “Settle what?”
    His fingers encircled her wrists and he tugged her hands from their pockets. “Why it is, now that you’re a vampire, that I don’t want you touching me…unless you can’t help it.”
    “Ethan—” Her throat closed, and she tried to pull away.
    “Drifter,” he said softly. “Unless you’re touching me, and we’re in a private moment like this.” He slid his palms over hers, locked their fingers together. His skin was hot.
    No, his was a normal, human temperature. Hers was cold.
    “It wasn’t just that you didn’t want Henderson to touch you—your instinctive reaction was to draw away from him, your skin tightening up with gooseflesh. Isn’t that so?”
    “Yes.” Her hoarse whisper barely carried the response.
    He rested their linked hands on the mattress beside her knees. “I ain’t human, Charlie. Cold and hot don’t feel uncomfortable or disgusting—they’re just another sensation that I have to block out. But I can’t block you out so easily. Not when you were human, and certainly not when there’s a twenty-degree difference between us.”
    He was