Free Honoria Ravena by The Devil's Trap [In Darkness We Dwell Book 2] Page B

and you really can’t deal with that right now.” He sat me up and black spots danced across my vision.
    “Whoa.”
    “Yeah. Take a deep breath.” He piled the pillows behind me so I could lean against them.
    I grumbled. My hands were still tied together. I struggled to get my little nightgown to cover me again.
    He grinned and brushed my hair out of my eyes. “So sorry, but I don’t trust you yet.” He unwrapped the cookies and handed me one. “Now eat something before you get sick.”
    “You make me feel like I just donated blood. They’re big on cookies and sports drinks when you do that.”
    “Well, you did donate blood and this way, no poor innocent will have to give to me.”
    I glared at him and ate my cookie in silence while he opened the Gatorade.
    He handed it to me while he watched me.
    “Why are you staring?”
    He scrutinized me like he was trying to read my mind. I wondered if he could. “Well, you could explain why you had that panic attack earlier.”
    I blinked, trying to remember what had come before the fantastic sex. God, that was sad. Where was my head? “What?”
    “When I was on top of you, about to feed, you flipped out, but you were fine when I sat you up. What was that about?”
    I glanced away from him. “Nothing,” I muttered. I wasn’t about to explain my weaknesses to an enemy. He didn’t need to know about my childhood and how Alaric had come to raise my brother and me.
    “Bullshit. Which of your jobs went bad, Regan?”
    I glared back at him. “None of my jobs have gone bad. Once I learned to fight, I never had a problem.”
    “Hmm…I seem to remember Alaric saving some children from vampires a few years back. Were you one of those children?”
    “It’s really none of your damned business.”
    His eyes turned calculating. “So that’s a yes. What did that vampire do to the two of you?”
    I looked away from him again. I wasn’t explaining jack shit to him. I blinked hard. My God, I’d just had sex with a vampire. An enemy my body still yearned to have contact with.
    “I can’t believe I just slept with you.” Even I could hear the shock in my voice.
    He scrubbed his face with his palms. “Man, I knew this was going to come up. What did I tell you? I told you that you weren’t completely in control of yourself. Blood-bonding causes attraction and physical affection. But no, you said you didn’t care.”
    “You had your fingers in pleasurable places. It’s a little hard to say no when you have me on the verge of a screaming orgasm.” The blood drained out of my head, leaving me dizzy. “You also said it would bond us closer together. How?”
    He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’ll have more of a compulsion to touch me. Maybe you’ll even be easier to control, which I kind of like the thought of, actually.”
    I glowered at him and tried to get off the bed. He grabbed my upper arm and pulled me back, taking hold of my wrists and lifting them to the headboard. I fought him, but it just made me dizzy and didn’t do any good.
    When he’d tethered me to the bed, he stood and walked to the chair at his desk. He had clothes folded in it, and he drew on his pants.
    “Now, we’ve got some things to discuss, Regan. How much did your brother get to tell you before Laedan whacked you on the head?”
    “Some bullshit about how you found him near death in my house because someone is trying to kill us.”
    “It’s not bullshit, Regan. Your brother would have died if I hadn’t turned him. Do you think I would have wanted him to rest yesterday if I didn’t care what happened to him? He’s my fledgling. He has my loyalty now. Yes, I was going to kidnap him to get to you, but I wouldn’t have hurt him .”
    I nibbled my bottom lip and stared at him as I pondered that. It seemed to be completely sincere. Vampires are liars. Part of me believed him already. He had seemed genuinely concerned about Jason. More than that, he’d shown compassion. What kind of