Tempted

can only have it with a vampyre.” I said thewords apologetically, and I was sorry—sorry that I kept hurting this guy whom I’d loved since grade school.
    “Yeah, I heard about that. Anyway, what I was sayin’ is that I’m trying to deal with the Stark thing, but it makes it doubly hard for me when you push me away.”
    I couldn’t say anything because I knew exactly what he was really talking about. It was why Stark had sent him in here. Heath wanted me to drink from him. Just thinking about it made my mouth water and my breath come faster.
    “I know you want to,” he whispered.
    Unable to meet his eyes, I stared down at our joined hands. In the dim light of the deserted cafeteria the tattoos on my palms were almost invisible and our hands looked so ordinary—so much like they’d looked for so many years that it made my stomach hurt.
    “You know I want you to.”
    I met his gaze then. “I know you do. I just can’t, Heath.”
    I expected him to explode and get all pissed, but instead he deflated. His shoulders sagged and he shook his head. “Why won’t you let me help you in the one real way I can?”
    I drew a deep breath and told him the complete truth. “Because I can’t deal with the sex part of it right now.”
    He blinked in surprise at me. “Is that the only reason?”
    “Sex is a kinda big reason,” I said.
    “Well, yeah, not that I’d know from experience, but still I get what you’re saying.”
    I felt my cheeks get warm. Heath was still a virgin? I’d thought for sure that after I was Marked and left my human life for the House of Night, my ex-BFF had totally gone after him. Actually, I
knew
skanky Kayla had gone after him.
    “What about Kayla? I thought you two hooked up after I left .”
    He gave a humorless little laugh. “She wishes. Not no, but hell, no. I wasn’t with Kayla. There’s only one girl for me.” The humorlessness left his expression and he grinned at me. “And even though you’re a big-time High Priestess and so not technically just a ‘girl’ anymore, to me you’re still my girl.”
    Again, I didn’t know what to say. I’d always thought when I hadsex for the first time it would be with Heath, but then I’d messed up majorly and lost my virginity to Loren Blake, which was literally the biggest mistake of my life. It still made me feel sick and more than a little guilty.
    “Hey, stop thinking about Blake. You can’t change what happened with him, so let’s forget it.”
    “Are you a mind reader now?”
    “I’ve always been able to get inside your head, Zo.” His grin faded. “Well, I guess I haven’t been able to do that so good recently.”
    “I’m sorry about all of this, Heath. I hate that it hurts you.”
    “I’m not a kid anymore. I knew what I was getting into when I got in my truck and drove to Tulsa to see you. It doesn’t have to be easy between us, but it does have to be honest.”
    “Okay. I want to be honest, too. So I’m telling you the truth when I tell you that I can’t let myself drink from you. I can’t deal with what will happen between us because of it. I’m not ready to have sex, even if the whole world wasn’t going to hell in a handbasket all around us.”
    “Hell in a handbasket—you sound like your grandma when you say that.”
    “Heath, changing the subject won’t change my mind. I’m not having sex, so I’m not drinking from you.”
    “Jeesh, Zo, I’m not a moron; I get that,” he said. “So we don’t have sex. We’ve spent a whole lot of years not having sex. We’re experienced at it.”
    “There’s more to it than just wanting each other. You know what the Imprint does to both of us. It was intense enough before when I was hurt so bad I was almost dead. It would be that times ten if I drank from you now.”
    Heath swallowed hard and ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay, I know that. But here’s what I’m saying about it—the Imprint goes both ways, right? While you’re drinking my blood you feel stuff I feel, and I feel stuff you feel.”
    “Yeah, and the ‘stuff’ is all about pleasure and sex,” I said.
    “Okay, so, instead of us focusing on the sex part, we’ll focus on the pleasure part.”
    I raised my brows at him. “You’re a guy, Heath. Since when do you
not
focus on the sex part?”
    Instead of the kidding response I expected, his expression was absolutely serious. “When have I ever pressured you about sex?”
    “There was that time in the tree