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the one he had given me. Of course. I bit my lip and went on to mine, opening it and stepping inside.
    Dorian followed and shut the door.
    Only then did it hit me that I was alone in a bedroom with a devastatingly handsome vampire who quit e definitely wanted me naked. Just as much I wanted him.
    Damn, Cora. Not much for good decision-making today, huh?
    I forced myself to tear my attention from him and focused on the room instead. All I had to do was grab my jacket and get out. I’d get in the car, go home to my apartment, and I’d never have to see him again.
    I knew that wasn’t true even as I thought it, but I didn’t care. I needed a goal. Otherwise, I was very much afraid that I’d never leave.
    So. The closet.
    I walked past the bed, which was already remade with all trace of medical equipment gone—doubtlessly the work of Worth or some other unseen member of the household staff. The door to the dressing room was standing open, as I’d left it. I went inside to find my jacket still folded neatly on the bench. I grabbed it hooked it over my arm.
    Done, then. All I needed to do now was get out of the room, go downstairs, and get in the car. How hard could that be?
    But my footsteps dragged even as I passed the section of clothes that Worth had selected for me . Looking couldn’t hurt, could it? After all, I wasn’t ever coming back….
    You’re not even good at lying to yourself, I thought, but I stopped anyway, just for a moment, to take a peek.
    There was, I discovered, a little bit of everything, from blue jeans to ball gowns. Surreptitiously, I checked a label—and blanched. One pair of pants was probably worth the sum total of my own wardrobe.
    “ They are all yours.”
    I turned to see Dorian lounging in his effortlessly graceful way in t he doorframe. My heart hitched ever so slightly. Damn him.
    “ I’m not for sale,” I said.
    “ They’re a gift, not a bribe, Cora,” he said, amusement twitching at the corner of his lips.
    I dropped the sleeve of the sweater that I had been admiring as if it had stung me. “I still don’t want them.”
    “ Are you going to tell me that you’re above worldly riches?” His tone was gently mocking.
    “ Puh-lease.” I went up to him with the intention of pushing past into the bedroom. But when I got close, I lost my nerve and stopped. His body still hummed with that alien energy, and I didn’t trust myself this far from him. God only knew what I’d do if I actually touched him. “Who doesn’t want to be rich? This—all this, it doesn’t even seem real to me. But if it did...it still wouldn’t be mine. Not really.”
    “ It is now.”
    His eyes burned into mine, and my breath quickened. Go now, part of me urged, but I couldn’t listen to it anymore.
    I shook my head to clear it, clinging to what I knew from my old life. “You don’t even know me. And I don’t know you. All I know is how you make me feel. That’s not a good enough reason for any of this.”
    He caught my wrist in his hand, and I gasped as my senses came alive to his touch, heat spiraling out of my center. He raised my hand, turned so that the teardrop was visible against my pale skin.
    “ That is reason for anything. Your human ceremonies in all their pomp and circumstance are not as real as this.”
    I swayed in his grip, wanting him, believing him even as I rebelled against it.
    “ I can’t,” I said. It came out as a plea. “I can’t give up my life.”
    “ I will never ask you to.”
    “ You won’t have to,” I whispered.
    He lifted the mark to his lips and kissed it, softly. And I knew I would not leave that room as I had gone in.

     

Chapter Seven
    T he touch of his lips sent a hot surge through my brain, my skin prickling with acute sensitivity. A soft sound escaped me, and he lifted his head.
    Dorian’ s hands slid around me, one catching the small of my back, the other tangling in my hair and tilting my head back as he pulled me hard against his body, crushing