grabbing hold of my arm so tightly he almost pulled me down on top of him. I closed my eyes and somehow regained my balance as yet another shudder of joy wracked through my body and my brainâpushing every thought out of my head other than how incredibly magnificent his lips felt against my skin, and I could hear the thundering beat of my heart.
I could feel pressure building inside of my balls.
I started bouncing up onto my toes.
I opened my eyes as my breath started coming in gasps.
I opened my mouth to say I love you, but I couldnât get the words out around my panting breaths.
I smiled hesitantly down at him, and our eyes met.
What I saw in his eyes in that moment sent a chill through me.
His eyes were different.
Jared had always had dark blue eyesâbut the eyes that were looking up at me, full of lust and desire, were brown with golden flecks.
I hadnât imagined it that first time.
What the hell?
Iâd seen eyes like that beforeâ
Sebastian.
But he was dead. . . .
Another wave of pleasure pushed everything out of my mind.
Heâd said Sebastian was still alive.
But that wasnât possible.
My mind flashed back to that horrible night.
I was tied to the bed, completely helpless and at the mercy of a crazy man, a man who was not just a man but was also a witch and was working a powerful spell on me, a spell with an evil purpose. He was a beautiful man, such a beautiful man . . . and then Sebastian began sucking my cockâremember? Remember how that felt? I remembered the feeling of another consciousness inside of my head, filling my thoughts, almost as though determined to take over my mind and my body while Sebastian worked his magic on me. I was helpless and at his mercy; there was nothing I could do. I was tied, spread-eagle, each wrist and ankle to a different post of the bed, and I called for help, and help finally came before it was too late, before Sebastian could drain my body of its blood entirely, the blood that was already starting to change from whatever it was that Jean-Paul had done to me the previous night. Sebastian was going to kill me and drink my blood. Jean-Paul had taken some of my blood, but heâd given me his vampire blood to drink in return, and that had started to change me. All day long the sun had bothered my skin and hurt my eyes, and a connection had been forged between our minds, and it was that connectionâthe connection of our commingled bloodâthat allowed us to communicate in our minds together. Sebastian wanted to combine the power of a witch with that of a vampire and it could not be allowed . . . so all of them, the entire fraternity of vampires headed by Jean-Paul, they came to my rescue and murdered Sebastian, burned the house down with his body and that of another inside, gave out the story that Iâd somehow died in the fireâI donât know how they worked the dental records and so forth; all I knew was there was another corpse in the house with Sebastianâs and it was positively identified as me and I was deadâfree to live my life as a vampire, free to escape from my old life and begin anew.
I opened my eyes with a start.
There was that feeling again, inside of my mind.
Someoneâsome thingâ was trying to get inside of me.
And it wasnât Jean-Paul this time. I knew how Jean-Paul felt, recognized the feeling when his mind entered mine. Weâd connected many times over the past few yearsâand it was a comforting feeling when his mind joined with mine, whether it was across a crowded dance floor while music blared from speakers or on an airplane as we traveled to yet another of the endless circuit parties we always seemed to be going to.
This was someone elseâand despite the pleasure still radiating from where his lips were locked onto my wrist, the heat was burning out and turning cold.
I looked down into Jaredâs eyesâthe eyes that werenât Jaredâs. The
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