“Hurt me, Rachel,” she whispered, stirring my hair. “Show me you aren’t afraid to hurt me. If you aren’t brought up that it’s the norm, it’s harder than you think.”

She wasn’t masochistic. She was a realist, trying to get me to understand. Frightened, I struggled, pain ripping through my shoulder. Her grip was confining without being painful. It was my trying to get away that hurt. I went still, eyes wide and focused on the wall. I felt her warm against my back, and tension pulled my muscles tight one by one as the tingling started high in my neck and trickled lower.

“We can share blood without love if you hurt me,” Ivy breathed, her breath brushing my ear. “We can share blood without hurt if you love me. There is no middle ground.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, knowing that my magic was like a ball bat. I had no finesse. It would hurt her, and hurt her bad. “Let go,” I demanded, shifting. She tightened her grip, and a thread of heat coiled in my center as my motion ended with more of our bodies touching. This had started as an object lesson to get me to leave her alone, but now…Oh, God. What if she bites me again. Right now?

“You’re the one stopping us from finding a blood balance,” she said. “Love is pain, Rachel. Figure it out. Get over it.”

It wasn’t. At least it didn’t have to be. I wiggled again. “Ow, ow!” I said, feet scuffling. I was starting to sweat. Her scent poured over me, soothing, enticing, bringing the memory of her teeth sliding into me to the forefront of my thoughts as evolution had intended. And when my eyes closed at a surge of adrenaline pooling in me to set my blood rushing, I realized just what kind of trouble we were in. I didn’t want her to let go. “Uh, Ivy?”

“Damn it,” she whispered, and the heat in her voice hit me hard.

We were six kinds of stupid. I had only wanted to talk, and she had only wanted to prove how dangerous finding a blood balance would be. And now it was too late for thinking.

Her grip tightened, and I relaxed into it. “God, you smell good,” she said, and my pulse thrummed. “I shouldn’t have touched you….”

Feeling unreal, I tried to move, finding she’d let me turn to face her. My heart jumped into my throat, and I swallowed as I gazed into her perfect face, flushed with the danger of where we were. Her eyes were black as absolute night, reflecting my image: lips parted, eyes wild. The darkness was colored by the blood lust shimmering in her eyes. And below that, deeper under it all, was her fragile vulnerability.

“I can’t hurt you,” I said, fear a faint whisper in me.