Fury's Kiss by Karen Chance Read Free Book Online

maybe because she saw the same thing I felt—the swelling in my bruised mouth going down as a calloused thumb swept across it, the lip returning more or less to its correct shape, the heat pooling low and intense in my—
    Okay, maybe not that last part.
    But it wasn’t the excitement that worried me as our eyes met in the mirror. Hands came up to frame my face, big and warm and soothing, like the thumbs stroking along my cheekbones. It should have really ticked me off—the conceit of it, the more than a hint of possession, the presumption that he could just walk into my bathroom anytime he liked and—
    And I didn’t care. I wanted to turn in to the feel of those hands, wanted to sink into all that warmth, wanted to preen like a cat being stroked, wanted—
    Wanted.
    And it scared the hell out of me.

Chapter Four
     
    I didn’t notice when Claire left. I wasn’t even sure
if
she left. I was finding it hard to concentrate with those big hands cupping my face, smoothing out my bruises as easily as someone wiping away makeup.
    “Thought I took care of this last night,” he murmured, warm, rough fingers gentling away the pain. “But I am not so good at this.”
    I wanted to ask what he meant, wanted to ask about last night, but I didn’t. Because he was wrong. He was really, really good at this.
    A swipe of his thumbs and I looked like I was wearing war paint in reverse, with swaths of paler skin showing through the eggplant. Another pass and only a faint mauve blush remained along my cheekbones. One more and even that was gone, my cheeks blooming pink with health—or maybe with something else.
    The whole process should have been fascinating. I’d been healed a time or two in the past, but hadn’t been in a state to notice the fine details. And they weren’t getting my full attention now. I was too busy wanting to catch one of those talented fingers between my teeth, to bite down and feel the flesh give, to suck the sting away afterward, to—
    To do a lot of stupid stuff that would only make a bad matter worse
, I thought, catching sight of a spill of lustrous pink in the mirror.
    The sun was streaming through the sheers over my windows, lighting up dust motes in the air and gleamingon the extravagant satin confection on my bed. Framed against the faded blue cotton of my comforter, it might as well have been lit in neon.
Damn it.
    Why lingerie?
I thought resentfully. Of all the things he could have bought me, why did it have to be—
    But of course, I knew why. It was the sort of gift a guy got a girl when he hoped he’d get a chance to see it on her. And then maybe to rip it off her. And that would have been fine; that would have been just dandy. A racy little red number, or a long slinky black thing, something cheap so I wouldn’t care if it ended up in a couple pieces the next day? No problem-o.
    But this?
    This had expectations written all over it.
    Expectations that I was going to fuck up royally because I wasn’t the kind of gal who wore designer nightwear and knew what all the forks were for. I was the kind of gal who thought the nightgown drawer was where old T-shirts went to die and who had only started using forks in the last century. And who frankly still thought them kind of a waste when there were perfectly good knives handy.
    Shit.
    I swallowed and closed my eyes, but it didn’t help. Maybe because the calloused thumbs were keeping up the slow caress, smoothing over my cheeks and down to my jaw, then back up into the hairline, massaging my throbbing head until the pain gave up and melted away. And then migrating to areas where there was no pain, where there never had been any, as if mapping my features: the arch of my brows, the sweep of my lashes, the bridge of my nose, and back down to catch on my lips.
    Which was how I ended up sucking on a vampire’s fingers when it was the last thing I ought to be doing.
    How had I gotten myself into this?
    Of course, I knew how. He’d caught me in a weak