Ascension Read Free

black shirt revealed thick toned forearms that stated he could snap a man’s neck with ease if he felt like it. She had witnessed proof of that declaration more than once. His strength and his ability to dispatch demons without breaking a sweat was incredible and exactly what she needed right now.
    Numerous thin silvery streaks marked a haphazard path up the inside of his forearm, closely packed together at his wrist and growing more distant towards his elbow. A rich metallic scent filled her mouth when she remembered the taste of his flesh. She trembled inside, hunger stirring in the depths of her as her power cried out for blood. Her hands shook.
    Six dizzy months of passion with him collided into one pounding thought in her mind. She needed him still. It wasn’t just about the blood that he offered so freely but also the mindless desire that consumed her each time she saw him, each time they touched. She had craved that for six long years, an age in which her Counter-Balance had forced her to keep away from what she needed most. He never had understood her needs, and his ignorance of her hunger and denial of its existence had cost him dearly.
    “Charlie is dead.” No trace of emotion touched her voice. She had mourned the loss of her Counter-Balance for as long as her heart would allow. Now it demanded that she protect herself. “I thought they were after him. I was wrong.”
    “They want you.” Taig leaned further back into the seat and her gaze leapt to his body.
    Her pulse trebled over his limp, ready for anything pose. Memories of him naked and hard sprung to the front of her mind and her fingers itched to retrace the paths they had taken across the delicious muscles of his broad torso, to tease his pebbled nipples and rake down his back as he filled her body with his own. Her tongue wanted to taste his flesh again and lick every inch of him. A shudder of pleasure wracked her when her eyes found his arm and the marks there. Marks for her. Cuts made in the wildest throes of passion when she craved his blood the most—when she craved him like a drug and needed him more than air.
    Her heart fluttered in her throat, driven to a wild beat by her passionate thoughts.
    Lealandra swallowed it back down. She was here on business, not because she needed a fix of Taig. She was over him now. Those first few months without him had been Hell but she had made it through.
    It was over.
    She faltered when her eyes met his black ones, their endless depths entrancing her and warming her right down to the marrow of her bones. A hot but empty feeling filled her chest and she resisted the temptation to touch the spot over her heart and rub it in the hope that the feeling would go away. It was pointless. She had never realised it before tonight, before seeing him again, but she had missed him and she had been lonely without him. A part of her had been missing. Her heart. Taig held it in his grasp, clutching it so tightly that it hurt, nails poised to puncture it. One wrong move and her heart would break all over again. It was a fool’s game to come to him and risk so much pain but he was the only one who could protect her now, and as much as she would hate herself for it, she might even stoop to pay the price he was asking.
    “I don’t know why,” she confessed with a nonchalant shrug that drew a quirked eyebrow from him. It was redundant to try to cover the desire that crept through her whenever she looked at him but she had to keep a lid on her emotions so he wouldn’t see how vulnerable she was and take advantage. She had to at least try to get him to take her offer of payment and not insist on his.
    Taig reached across to the full shot glass beside the one he had emptied not minutes ago. His eyes closed when he tilted his head back and swallowed the golden liquid. The glide of his Adam’s apple made her swallow along with him. Her tongue pressed against her teeth, eager to trace patterns on his neck and to feel him biting