drew
him to her. He’d been angry with her when he’d taken her. Now he didn’t know
what he was.
Why had he put her in his bedroom? There were so many other
rooms in the house to keep her in. Her comfort should be nowhere near the front
of his mind. She didn’t deserve the best suite in the house, but he couldn’t
very well move her now. He’d made the mistake of taking her, and now he was
going to have to deal with it.
He shook his head as he walked down the hall toward one of
the spare bedrooms. He’d put her in his room because of one reason. The second
he saw her in person, in jeans and a tee shirt instead of artificial leather
and gallons of makeup, he knew he had to have her.
But he couldn’t.
After the way he’d abducted her, Amara would never agree to
anything. She would also never understand the desire that coursed through his
veins whenever he got within ten feet of her. She wouldn’t understand that, for
some reason, he fed off the fear he sensed in her as much as the desire he’d
seen in her eyes.
And it had been there. She would deny it, but he’d seen it.
She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and she wasn’t happy about it, either.
He wanted to possess her.
Shaking his head, he tried to get rid of this temporary
madness. He found women attractive, but certainly not necessary in the grand
scheme of things. They were temporary playthings, enjoyed briefly before he
threw them away in favor of a younger, fresher model. They were most certainly not something to keep.
Ever.
He couldn’t keep the human woman, no matter how much his
delusional mind thought it wanted to. She was not his to take, and she was not his to keep. She had her own life, one he knew nothing about, and she
wouldn’t take kindly to being made into the permanent pet of a four hundred
year old vampire.
He stopped outside his locked bedroom door, knowing the only
thing that separated him from the temptation on the other side was the flimsy
piece of wood and the even flimsier lock. It would keep her inside effectively,
yet it would never keep him out if he lost control of himself and went to her.
He pressed his palm to the door, feeling the beat of her heart
through the wood. Was it his imagination, or did her blood begin to beat a
little faster in her veins?
He shook his head, chalking it all up to spending entirely
too much time acting like a lunatic. She was probably sound asleep, giving no
thoughts to him other than those of most painful revenge.
He left before he could no longer reign in the urge to go to
her and ravish her like the animal he was. Right now, sleep was in order. He
would figure out what to do with Amara after he got a few hours’ rest. He’d
been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and it was time to recharge before
he faced her again.
* * * * *
Amara sat on the edge of the bed, absently changing the
channels on the small TV she’d found inside the armoire next to the bed. She
didn’t have a watch and there were no clocks in the room, but she could see the
light fading outside yet again. It had been an entire day, and her stomach was
loudly protesting the prolonged absence of food.
She got up from the bed and pounded at the door. “Hello! I
need food in here! Come on, Marco, even prisoners on death row get treated
better than this.”
She hit the door as hard as she could until her fists went
numb, but it was no use. She got the same response she’d been getting all day.
Nothing.
Here she was, getting ready to waste away, and Marco the
Vampire was probably in bed getting his beauty sleep.
She’d stayed awake most of the night thinking about it. As
much as she hated to admit it, she’d been kidnapped by what appeared to be a
living, breathing vampire. Or at least she thought he lived and
breathed, but she couldn’t be sure. Fictional ones didn’t, but when she’d been
flush against his chest he’d felt very alive to her. Especially the part
of him that responded to her