Yeah, there are plenty of reasons to stay, but I know the real reason has his lips against mine.

“I’m staying,” I say, mouth parting to breathe in his heat.

“Then kiss me.”

All I can hear is my drumming heartbeat. I want his mouth so badly, but I can’t blame this on the Flame. My body is all out of the stuff. The realization has me frozen. This is me. This pull to press my lips to his is all mine.

“Michael.”

I tilt my chin closer, and when he brushes me with his lips, a floodgate opens. The day’s tension, the fear, the want rip through me, and I grip his neck to bury my tongue in his mouth. If this fierce need means I’m gay or bi or whatever, I don’t fucking care. Flanagan is mine.

He fastens me with a hand behind my head, another around my waist, and lays into my mouth with an urgent kiss. He pushes past my enthusiasm to fill me with his tongue, his fingers clenching my hair so tight it hurts. I know he’s staking his claim. I’m so hard for it it’s painful.

When neither of us can breathe, we break away, and he presses his forehead to mine. “Thank you,” he says softly. “I have to leave you for a while. Please rest. For me.”

“I’ll try.”

Flanagan kisses my lips again. Then his gaze briefly roams my face, one last check that I’m definitely here before he leaves. The door shuts behind him, and I hear him speak to Quinton before his sharply given orders diminish as he exits the infirmary.

The murmur and clatter of the hospital filters back to my ears, and I’m left to my own thoughts. My heart still pounds. The ache from his kiss lingers on my lips. And my groin.

Holy moly. I just willingly kissed a guy. And I want more.

I’m into men! What a head spin.

Finding out you’re part vampire has nothing on falling for two hundred and seventy pounds of raw male. But my life is now a daily dose of crazy town. Unexpected desire is only one of its streets.

My stomach roils with nerves. Flanagan’s soldiers will be here soon, and I’ll have to walk through a room full of people I’ve injured. My hands fist with tension, so I stuff them into my front pockets.

And my right middle finger meets something cold and smooth.

When I tug it out, my stomach drops to my feet, chest clenching.

A vial of red liquid.

I hold it up between my fingers to examine the corked glass. The ruby color glints garnet in a shaft of morning light. I don’t need anyone to tell me what it is. An energy pulses from the vial, and the desire to drink the contents nearly overwhelms me.