Blood Secret. Sharon Page

moment when she’d realized she could have married such a man. She could have blindly gone to her wedding night without any idea she had wed a vicious brute.

      It had scared her. It had made her vow never to marry. And here, now, she felt the old fears surging up. She was going to be intimate with this man, this stranger, and she was ... terrified to know what it would be like.

      “Look up for a moment, my dear.” The duke’s baritone voice was gentle in the quiet room.

      She jerked her gaze up, her cheeks burning as hot as dragon fire, but her blood felt ice-cold.

      He smiled, and lines bracketed his full, firm lips. He was a handsome man. Mr. Ferrars had been terribly good-looking too. That was what she had learned. Beautiful men believed they could get away with anything.

      “I know you are nervous, my dear,” he said softly. “I promise I will be very gentle. I will make this good for you.”

      How could it be, when she’d been forced to do this by the actions of the brother she had always adored, by his debts? And by the arrogance of the duke? She stalked to the head of the bed and pulled back the covers. “I just want to get on with it.”

      “All right, then, we shall.”

      She didn’t look at him. She clambered onto the bed and slid beneath the sheets still wearing the robe. Her toes touched something hot—a bed warmer—and she squeaked.

      A low, seductive laugh made her scowl. Her fiancé had possessed the same sort of deep, sensual laugh. It used to make her heart beat fast. It had made her blood hot and her skin feel too tight. Now, hearing it on the duke, it screamed a warning in her head.

      How had she thought she could do this?

      She must do it. Lucy nudged the warming pan aside with her toe and slid further under the covers in this strange, unfamiliar bed.

      But she had changed. She used to tremble with girlish desire at a deep, masculine laugh. She used to look at a handsome man and feel desire. She had dreamed of kisses. Of more ... of pleasure and sex and intimacy.

      Allan Ferrars had changed her. He had ruined everything for her. She didn’t feel those things anymore. She was only two and twenty, but after his attack upon her, she’d felt so much older. So wary. So cynical. She had been afraid of love after that, afraid of any stirring of desire. Certainly, her heart would never be touched—unless by a man she knew she could trust completely.

      Sinking her teeth firmly into her lower lip, Lucy looked up at the duke, who stood at the foot of the bed. She could not trust this man at all—he had carelessly, cruelly ruined her brother, and by extension that meant he had ruined her family. Her heart hammered like the thunder of dragons running. “Stop laughing and come and ravish me. I cannot stay out all night. I simply cannot.”

      The duke sighed. So loudly she could hear it. “My dear Lady Lucy, I do not approach sex as you seem to think I do. I’m not just going to get on top of you and plow you while you grit your teeth and shut your eyes. You will enjoy this or I will not consider it payment for your brother’s debts.”

      Sinjin folded his arms over his chest. Lady Lucy Drake, who lay beneath his sheets, grimaced as though she was about to take foul-tasting medicine.

      He scratched his jaw, his fingertips grazing over his smooth skin. After he had become a vampire, unlike others, he had never grown stubble again.

      Lady Lucy had come to him. She had offered her body. Why did he feel as though he was the villain, about to ravish a terrified and unwilling victim?

      Worse, his mind was urging him to do it. He drank blood, but while he was the type of vampire that fed on blood, consuming the fluid didn’t satisfy him unless he could also drink in the powerful emotions of his prey. It was his victim’s desire, or fear, anger, horror—along with coppery-tasting blood—that satisfied his undead body.

      Emotions rolled off Lady Lucy like fog pouring down London’s twining streets. She would be a feast for a vampire like him. And she was a dragon. He should feel no pity for her. Had dragons felt anything for him when they had murdered his family? Had those dragons showed a scrap of pity when they had killed his younger brother and sisters?

      Anger. In him, it drove his sexual desire instead of quelling it. It washed away pity and sympathy. It hardened his heart. It brought ice flooding through him. Ice gave him the hardness to slay dragons.

      He was going to pleasure Lady Lucy Drake. He was going to use her to find his nephew. Then he was going to do to her what he did to every dragon. He would summon the ice to toughen his heart, he would take out his sword, and he would rid the world of one more deadly beast.

      But he said gently to her, “You’re afraid.” Which was obvious—she had her robe wrapped around her up to the base of her throat, the covers pulled up to her chin. He sat on the edge of the bed.

      She tipped up her chin. “I don’t understand why you don’t just get in here with me. Why are you drawing this out?”

      Sinjin cupped her cheek. The feel of her dewy skin against his palm—it made his jaw ache with hunger, with desire, with need. She went tense beneath his touch.

      “Drawing it out is supposed to be part of the fun,” he informed her, watching the way her eyes widened in obvious dismay. Softly, he let his thumb brush her lips. Velvet and plump, just as he liked them. “It is called foreplay, my dear. Most women enjoy it.”

      “We made ... a bargain. I will do what you want. I promise you that.”

      He could terrify her and feed off that emotion. He could do what she so obviously wanted—fuck her without conversation or care, thus evoking her anger and hatred. The power of her hatred would sustain him for a week.

      But there was another way he could satisfy himself, he realized. Make Lady Lucy enjoy her seduction. He imagined she would feel so many emotions, he would feel like a drunkard unleashed in a brewery.

      She was lovely. Her skin was alabaster and the scarlet robe was an erotic splash of color against it. Her lips were a deep wine red. Her hair, still pinned in place, was ebony, and promised to feel like silk. She had fetching dark nipples, the kind whose bounce could hypnotize a man. And she had the covers drawn almost up to her throat.

      “As for going home ...” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I think not, my dear. Not tonight.”

      He whisked the bedcovers down and had the belt of her robe undone before her hands could move. One of the advantages of vampiric speed was how quickly he could disrobe a maiden.

      Ironically she would be the first maiden in his bed—he normally seduced experienced women. Ironic because the dragon slayer was supposed to save the maiden. And he was bound—bound by duty and by the vow he had made on the day his family had died—to slay Lady Lucy.

      He left her robe on but open, then drew the covers over her again. Stretching out beside her on the bed, he propped his head with his hand. He lay on top of the covers, while she was securely ensconced beneath.

      Pink flooded her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell swiftly beneath the blanket. But her dark brows had knitted together in a deep frown, and fire snapped in her eyes. “That was ... unconscionable. You did that without even asking! And how did you do it so—so quickly?” She scuttled away a few inches beneath the covers and looked as indignant as a fishwife.

      “You did encourage me to get on with it quickly. Now, would you prefer me to take my time, my dear?”

      “I would prefer—” She closed her eyes and her teeth ripped at her lip. “I don’t know what would be best. In my head, I know it would be best to just do it now. But then my courage fails me... .”

      “Shhh.” Sinjin bent over and lifted her fingers to his lips to kiss them. It was the first touch of his mouth to her skin. It was just a light caress of his lower lip across her knuckles, but it hit him with surprising force. It was like tasting fire. His head swam with lust and desire. The taste of her skin, the scent of her blood—it was remarkable.