want me, too. I can see it.” He approached her with the fluid grace of a panther and Eden was mesmerized by the unconscious play of muscles across his torso as he neared.
It took effort to lift her eyes, but she somehow managed, and when she met his gaze, she caught her breath. The intensity of his stare stole the air around her.
“How badly do you want to forget?”
“Very,” she whispered.
He touched her face, the softest of caresses. “Will you permit me to help?”
“How?”
“Like this.”
Up until that moment, everything had been happening as if in slow motion. But the minute the dark man said like this, time sped up. His hand whipped out to circle her neck, pulling her closer. His other hand lifted her chin, tilting her face toward him.
One second he was looking down at her, the next his lips were on hers. No, not on hers—they were a part of her.
If what he was doing was kissing her, it was like no kiss Eden had ever experienced. His kiss was hungry and desperate and controlling and possessive. She responded in kind, needing his mouth and his tongue and all of him. As if her life depended on it.
Her tongue laved across those fangs, and it sent another pang of lust between her thighs.
No amount of scotch could compare to the effect one kiss from this man had on her. She was drunk from him.
“More,” she whispered against his lips. “I need more.”
She could feel him smile against her lips.
He picked her up and carried her the few feet to the bed and ever so gently set her down on the cool silk before joining her.
“You are so beautiful.” He stroked her cheek, the edge of her jaw, down her neck to the base of her collarbone. “You have no idea how much I want you.” With a hand behind her neck, he pulled up as he lowered his head to kiss her.
It had been too long. That was the only explanation for the effect this man was having on her. His touch, his lips, his words—all of him made her forget everything else.
Was this what he’d meant when he’d said he’d help her forget?
“Tell me how. Tell me how to forget,” she said breathlessly.
He stopped kissing her neck and raised his head so that he could meet her gaze. “You need only give yourself to me.”
This time, when she saw the fire leap into his dark pupils, she didn’t care. She’d give anything to forget.
“I want to, but...”
“Lie down.”
He gave her a little nudge and Eden fell on her back. She didn’t even bother to wonder what had happened to her jeans, her shirt, her bra...her gun. The only thing she had on was her panties and that was it.
Lying there, with her hands above her head, she had never felt more desirable than she did at that moment—not even when she’d been with Charlie—as the dark man’s gaze devoured her from head to toe and back up again.
“Do you give yourself to me?”
Eden didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
His smile was as dark as his bottomless pupils, and he leaned across her and kissed her. First her lips, then her throat, then lower.
“Please,” she sighed, arching toward him. “Please.”
He moved lower until his mouth found her breasts.
“Yes!”
The second his tongue grazed her nipple, Eden jolted with the fiercest arousal she’d ever experienced. Holy hell, if that was what he could do with a mere touch of his tongue, what would it feel like if he touched her between her thighs? Kissed her there? Made love to her?
Eden wanted to find out.
She needed to find out.
With fingers threaded through his dark hair, she pushed him lower. He didn’t need coaxing to leave her breasts as his tongue sampled and tasted all of her—her rib cage, her navel—until finally he hovered between her spread legs, his breath cool and sweet against her thighs.
“Eden?”
“Yes.” She lifted her hips. “Please. Yes.”
One side of his mouth turned up in a smile, one lovely curved fang flashing at her, before her perfect, dark stranger hitched his thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties and tugged.
The silky material slid over her hips and down her legs.
“Open yourself. Give yourself to me.”
Never had Eden been so brazen. Never had she been so uninhibited. She let her thighs fall open and reveled in the hungry expression of the man with the fierce black eyes.
With a long finger, he touched her exposed flesh. “This is how you will forget.” Then he lowered his head and engulfed the most sensitive part of her with his mouth.
It was like being caught between pleasure and pain, ecstasy and torture. Heaven and hell.
Eden’s hips shot skyward. “More,” she screamed. “I need more!”
Then there was another voice in her dream, a deeper one....
“Get away from her!”
Gasping, Eden jolted from her sleep and sat up in bed. What the hell had just happened?
Cold sweat slicked her face and body.
A dream. A fucking dream, that’s all it was. But it had felt so real.
She rubbed her face. Then again, lately all of her dreams had felt real. She shivered in the cool morning air. Her bedroom window was open and the breeze floated in, ruffling her gauzy blue curtains.
Staring at the window, Eden frowned. She couldn’t remember opening it before she’d passed out on the bed. But her mind was so muddled lately that it was possible she had done it.
Rubbing a hand over her sweaty face and into her tangled nest of hair, Eden tried to push the dream out of her mind. It was the same one she’d been having for the past year, except for the dark man. He was an unsettling new addition.
Swinging her feet over the bed, Eden stood on quivering legs and stumbled down the hall to her bathroom. After filling the sink with icy water, she submerged her face until the bite of the cold liquid stung her cheeks and her lungs burst with the need for oxygen. Behind her closed eyes, the comely face of the man in black flashed before her. He was smiling. And blood dripped from his wide, inviting mouth.
Gasping, she flipped her head up. Water ran down her neck and soaked her sweat-stained tank top that she always wore to bed. Shivers racked her body
