“I’ll send for his blood,” he continued. “They’ll deliver it while we deal with that coven. Then you can help me find the brother.”

“You like me,” she whispered, and he focused more closely on her.

“You’re likeable.”

The light came back into her eyes before she shared, “I like you too, you know, though you’re altogether too smug and dry as a bone, but that last isn’t so bad when you’re being funny.”

“Your flowery compliments warm my heart, my sweet, in a way I’m sure never to forget.”

She laughed softly even as she said, “Like that. Dry as a bone but funny.”

“I do know what dry means, Aurora,” he informed her.

“You’re also cute,” she shared.

Fuck.

She called him cute.

He looked to the house not knowing whether to laugh or show her how not-cute he actually was.

“In a hot way,” she added.

It was at that boldness when it suddenly became clear she was not unconsciously appealing. She was extremely conscious of just how appealing she was.

She was also a consummate game player.

And a tease.

And both made him want her all the more.

“Perhaps we should cease talking,” he suggested to the house.

“Okeydoke,” she replied agreeably but did it not acquiescing to his suggestion. “Though, I’ll point out, when someone tells you you’re cute and hot, the done thing is to return the compliment.”

That was when he looked down at her, right in her eyes, and returned the compliment.

And he did it like the vampire he was.

“You know you’re beautiful. You can’t not know, you’re that beautiful. I want to taste you in a variety of ways. And I want very badly to fuck you, doing it slow and gentle to the point it drives you mad and you beg for more, which, of course, I’ll give to you, as much as you want. Then I’ll take from you, as much as I want. You know that too. You’re far from stupid, which is another reason why I want to fuck you. What you might not know is that it will happen. It’ll happen after taking down a coven and before finding Abel’s brother. So in the meantime, I’d appreciate if you’d stop playing your games. I’m all for a tease. But I also decide when the teasing ends. And I’m not sure you’re ready right now for how I’ll do that.”

“Uh, okay,” she breathed, staring up at him, and he was wrong even if he was right.

He wanted that light in her eyes while he was buried inside her after he’d made them both come.

But he wanted that light that was in her eyes right then while he was fucking her and she was begging him to make her come.