Bewitch (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 5) by Felicity Heaton Read Free Book Online

impossible to discern.
    He leaned back and lowered his arm, towering over her. “What?”
    Elissa held her nerve. “What thrills you the most... blood or sex?”
    He turned back to the window. “Blood.”
    Elissa didn’t believe that. He seemed to though. He must have worked hard to convince himself. Why? Why not embrace the wicked side of his dual nature?
    She opened her mouth to speak but he beat her to it.
    In a low, dead voice, he said, “If you don’t shut up, then I will make you shut up.”
    He flexed his fingers and she got the message. She motioned with her right hand, zipping her mouth closed, and then smiled and unzipped it again.
    She stared up at him and his eyes shifted to hers, and she was struck again by his masculine beauty and darkness. He radiated danger and even though she knew that she should keep her distance, she couldn’t resist her attraction to him. She had to know more about him.
    “I swear I will be quiet if you answer one question.”
    He frowned, eyes narrowing and lips compressing, turning his handsome face as black as his aura. “What?”
    “Why do you call yourself Payne?”
    He stared down into her eyes and a brief flicker crossed them, a glimmer of darkness, hurt and intense vulnerability. What on earth had happened to this man to make him so wary and make him hate his incubus side? Elissa wanted to ask him that too but it looked as though he wouldn’t answer one question, let alone two.
    He sighed. “Pain is all I know and all I bring to this world.”
    Elissa shivered. An overwhelming desire to lay her palm on his sculpted cheek and tell him that couldn’t possibly be true raced through her and she barely resisted. The look in his eyes said that he believed it.
    He turned away and stared out of the window again, his forehead resting on his arm above it.
    She ignored her need to speak and break her promise to be quiet and went to the desk. She sat in the wooden chair and leafed through more of the new books. Payne remained still. The longer he stood there watching the world go by, the less she could concentrate. The words on the pages swam before her eyes and she pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. What was she doing? She had the method of saving Luca in the room with her. She had to convince him to help her.
    Elissa stood, her calves forcing the chair backwards. It scraped across the stone flags, shattering the heavy silence. Payne looked over his shoulder at her, a trace of melancholy in his expression that quickly disappeared. Had he been thinking about what he had told her and the reason he felt that way? She wanted to ask him to explain it so she understood why he felt as though he brought only pain to this world but he didn’t look as though he would tell her. It was his secret to keep and she had no right to push him to tell her, not when she was keeping secrets from him too.
    “I need a walk. Will you walk with me?” She wasn’t sure why she asked him to accompany her. Because she feared he would leave if she left him alone here or because she feared the Rozengard males would come after her again?
    He nodded but seemed tense. “Where? I don’t think it’s wise for you to be walking the streets right now... especially with me.”
    Elissa stifled her smile. He was worried about her. She found that sweet and endearing, a side of Payne she hadn’t thought possible.
    “Topside,” she said. “I like to walk in the woods.”
    Payne closed his eyes and frowned, and she knew he was focusing through the layers of rock over their heads, trying to sense whether it was daylight or not up there.
    “It’s dark, gone midnight.” Elissa waited for his response. Now that she had thought about the males and he had mentioned them too, the idea of walking alone in the woods unsettled her. She needed air but if those damn Rozengard jerks came at her again, she wouldn’t stand a chance against them. Not without Payne at her side. He was strong, powerful. She had