The Moon, the Madness, and the Magic Read Free

the last person on earth who should reproduce. She had a venomous cobra’s mouth with a boa constrictor’s ability to suck the life’s breath from her quarry. Ask anyone in Chicago law. Amelia looked like an angel and performed like a whore, in the courtroom or in the bedroom. She was his idea of the perfect attorney and the perfect bedmate. A serpent.
    But then who was he to judge? A bastard with a beast taking over his mind had no room to criticize anyone else.
    “Get off.” She flayed her arms and pounded him until he rolled to the side. “You damn freak! You bit me! Twice!” She slapped him.
    He slapped her back, a reflex that drew blood at the corner of her mouth. A small part of his sanity returned, but not enough.
    He couldn’t drag back enough of his humanity yet to regret slapping her. She looked surprised and a little pleased. Especially when he bent over her and gently licked her lip clean. The taste melted into his mouth like warm chocolate, and he savored the flavor. Part of him felt sickened by his action, part of him excited by it.
    He ran his tongue over his lips, rolled to his back, and noted the red blood smeared on her mouth, her neck, and her breast. He smiled all the way into his dark heart. The blood on his lips tasted rich, sweet, and he’d never forget that moment of satisfaction—the moment he’d given up the internal struggle and bitten down.
    Despite the power and the pleasure in that moment, had he somehow lost the battle against the beast?
    Amelia’s tongue licked her bloodied lip. “What the fuck?”
    He reached to touch her, but she shook him off. Her growing anger brought him slightly closer to reality.
    “I’m bleeding.” Amelia pulled away from him and stormed off, stomping to the bathroom and the mirror. “My face! Dammit, Rourke, this is going to leave a mark! I have to be at our board meeting in the morning.”
    “Get over it, Amelia. It’s your own damn fault. You didn’t use your safe word.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “No. I fucked you,” Rourke yelled after her. “Besides, you climaxed like a whore on crack. You said you wanted something edgy, a little different, tonight.”
    “Different, maybe.” She poked her head out of the bathroom to glare at him and disappeared behind the door again as she shouted, “I just didn’t expect to play Little Red Riding Hood to your Big Bad Wolf.”
    The water in the shower turned on right before she frowned around the doorjamb and asked, “What’s with your eyes, anyway? Did you get contacts?”
    “Contacts? Oh, yeah.”
    Shit, he’d forgotten. Yes, his eyes. He sat up and looked into the mirror over the bed. What the fuck was going on with his eyes?
    Eyes? Hell, what was going on with him in general?
    He scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head. “Hey, Amelia, sorry if I got carried away. Sorry about, you know, slapping you.”
    She stepped out of the bathroom, raised an eyebrow, and smiled. The red mark on her cheek, the visible blood on her lip, and the smear at her breast made his cock hard again.
    “Oh, yeah, and the bite, too.”
    “Well, a little biting is okay, but no more slapping the face. Too hard to explain.” She rubbed at the wound on her breast. “And no drawing blood next time.”
    Her words rang in his head. Next time? Hell, Rourke didn’t know what was going on with him, but he figured until he found out, there’d better not be a next time with anyone.
    She cocked her head in the direction of the bathroom. “Want to join me?”
    “I’ll pass.”
    She looked disappointed.
    He needed a reasonable explanation for wanting to get the hell away from her, but one that would help her save face. She was a good attorney, after all.
    “If I get in there with you, I’ll be tempted to fuck you again, and I think I’ve already climaxed most of my brains out my dick. I might need to salvage some for the morning.” He looked at his watch. “Actually, we’ll both need them at the board meeting in