He tightened his grip there, using it to arch her neck and angle her exactly as he wanted. She barely registered the way he walked her backward until her shoulders hit the door. Francesca gasped. Her hands flew to the powerful cords of his neck and down, past the gaping lapels of his barely buttoned shirt. Blazing hot skin met her palms.
A deep, thrumming growl vibrated his chest. His kisses intensified, his tongue delving deeper and his fangs scraping her lips, bringing a sharp bite of pain to her pleasure. He gently kicked her right foot aside, making room for one muscled thigh. He wedged it between her legs and arched his foot, rocking the rigid muscle there against the rapidly dampening gusset of her work pants.
Not entirely sure if she was trying to get away from the shock of friction or get more, she threw herself forward, arms twining behind his neck. He tasted like something she couldn’t put her finger on. It was sweet but complex, almost like caramel — her favorite flavor.
She wanted to lap it up at the source, but she also wanted to see if the rest of him tasted just as good.
A warning bell, faint at first, began to sound when he untied the apron from around her neck. It fell around her waist first, but he managed to take care of that just as quickly despite his preoccupation with sucking on her lip. It pooled at her feet in a cleaner-scented heap.
Stop,her good sense, suddenly returned, demanded.Stop, Frankie!
She wanted to think she would’ve listened, but the truth was she really wasn’t sure she would’ve if not for the disruption of his phone going off.
Casanova hissed into her lips. He didn’t let her go right away. Instead, he hung there, holding her cheeks and nibbling at her swollen mouth, until the call nearly went to voice mail.
“Don’t move a muscle,” he commanded, his voice almost unrecognizably hoarse.
He stumbled back half a step and reached into his pocket. She took a moment to stand there, compelled to follow his order, and admire the flush in his cheeks and the shiny gloss of his lips as he raised the phone to his ear.
She wished she could stay right there, doing as he told her to, so she could get more of those drugging kisses and those fingers in her hair and hopefully that tongueeverywhere.But she couldn’t.
Francesca’s hand slid across the door. Finding the knob, she gave it a sharp turn just as he opened his mouth to greet whoever was on the line.
“No,” she told him, firm despite everything. “I won’t go out with you. And this is goodbye.”
A voice came through the line, but he didn’t seem to register what they said. Casanova stared at her, uncomprehending, for the split second she needed to flee.
Deciding that she probably wouldn’t need her cleaning supplies anymore, anyway, and definitely not thinking about how running away made her a bit of a coward, she bolted through the open door.
Running was a bit melodramatic. It wasn’t like he’dchaseher. A man like him didn’t do that sort of thing. But she did it anyway.
Francesca jogged down the hall and down the emergency exit stairs, his shout echoing behind her, and promised herself she’d never, ever see him again.
She didn’t think she’d survive it.
THREE
Luis wascertain he was being punished for being too charming. Perhaps for being too handsome. It was entirely possible it was even because he was Dahlia’s new favorite cousin.
Either way, he’d been put on collections duty.
Debt collection was normally reserved for ambitious, mid-tier Amauris — those high enough in the hierarchy to be trusted but still low enough to happily take the annoying jobs others passed off. It fell far below Luis’s normal purview, which typically entailed oversight of their various and quite successful gambling operations.
But Luis pissed off Felix, the head of their family, bybrieflyabsconding with his bride for a night of Appalachian vampire fun, which had put him on the shit list.
He was lucky, he supposed. If Dahlia hadn’t had a grand time — both at the carnival and pissing off her man — Felix probably would’ve shot him. Seeing as she’d come home one over-sized dragon plushy richer and smiling from ear to ear, Felix had let him off easy.
Theoretically.
What should’ve been a slightly irritating errand had turned into a pain in his ass almost immediately.
Easton Wright had proven to be a slippery little bastard, which might’ve been fine if Luis hadn’t been in the worst mood of his life.
And this is goodbye? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
He hadn’t been able to get anything about Francesca out of his mind since the day he first happened upon her frowning at a synth stain on his carpet. Now everything was much, much worse.
Everything in him, every bit of what made a man a vampire, strained to hunt her down. It was utterly intolerable and completely impossible that she thought she could get away with kissing him and then running away.