Free Dark Embers by Tessa Adams Page A

ridiculous.
    Except she’d hit his vein—she knew she had—yet the blood wasn’t flowing. “Pump your fist again.”
    He did as she told him, shifting on the stool as he did. Suddenly, his thighs weren’t just resting outside hers; they were all but hugging hers, and she was standing much too close to his zipper for comfort.
    God, he was hot, the heat literally rolling off him in waves and swamping her. She could feel herself heating up from the inside, the cold that was so often a part of her dissolving under his onslaught of warmth. A trickle of sweat rolled down her back, then another, and still the blood didn’t flow.
    “Maybe I missed the vein.” Was that her voice? Had that breathy, wild whimper really come from her throat?
    “You didn’t miss it.” His voice was different, too—almost a growl—and it sent shivers down her spine that had absolutely nothing to do with her body temperature.
    His cock hardened, pressed against her, and Phoebe knew she should move back. With any other man, she would have already kicked his ass twice over. But the feel of him—so hard and hot and ready against her—turned her on like nothing had in a very long while. She squirmed against him, not trying to get closer, not trying to get away. Just wanting to feel the friction as she brushed against his erection.
    He groaned, a low, animalistic sound that made her nipples peak and her panties grow wet. This is ridiculous , the rational part of her brain told her. Absolutely absurd, not to mention dangerous .
    Yet it feels so good , the little voice in the back of her head answered. Why should she give it up?
    Her libido, which had been slumbering for the past several months, was waking up with a vengeance. She wasn’t sure what it was about him that pulled at her, but something definitely did. She’d been around good-looking men before, albeit not this good-looking, but still, they’d never so much as garnered her interest. She’d always been more attracted to the brainy type—someone who could keep up with her in conversations.
    Of course, Dylan was holding his own on that front, as well. Maybe that’s what she found so irresistibly attractive: not just the looks and brawn, but the obvious brains. Add in his cryptic statements, and she was suddenly afraid that the distance she normally maintained so effortlessly just might be a thing of the past.
    Still, she was a doctor, and she currently had a needle in the man’s arm. How the hell could she have forgotten that?
    Stepping back in an effort to get some kind of perspective, Phoebe glanced down at his arm. “I must have missed it—nothing’s coming.” She flicked the test tube with a shaky finger.
    “I told you—we’re different.”
    “You don’t bleed?”
    “Of course we do.” His grin was distinctly provocative. And just that easily, blood began to gush up the needle and into the vial.
    Silently, she filled the first tube and then the second, refusing to think about what had just happened. There’d be time enough to analyze his seeming ability to control his blood. Now, when she was still hot and wet for him, was not that time. By the time she’d slid the needle out and started to put gauze on the wound, the bleeding had stopped. His blood had fully clotted, sealing the wound and making it almost impossible to see.
    A million questions ran through her mind, but she shoved them away. Then took the vials to the back of the lab, where she kept the microscopes. Pulling out a slide and a dropper, she made quick work of readying a sample.
    She looked through the microscope, certain she would see exactly what she was expecting to see. Namely, round red blood cells floating in plasma, bouncing off each other, and the irregular white blood cells that should also make up the sample.
    She was so sure of what she was seeing that it took a few seconds before she saw what was actually there. Even then, she couldn’t believe it. Pulling out the slide, she checked to make