Read Online Mark of the Rose: The Tudor Vampire Chronicles by Kate Pearce - Free Book Online Page B

stilled beneath her fingers.
    “My lady, if you do succeed in stabbing a Vampire, might I suggest you don’t shriek and drop your dagger?”
    Verity felt herself blushing. “I promise I will remember that in future.” She kneaded his tight muscles. “But I doubt my glancing blow caused all this. Have you been fighting today?”
    Rhys smiled faintly. “Now you sound like my mother.”
    Verity ignored that. Touching him made her feel distinctly unmotherly and far too female.
    “It’s an old wound.”
    “Which you made worse by fighting me.”
    His low chuckle made her innards clench and her fingers tighten on his shoulder. “I didn’t expect you to actually hit me, cariad .”
    “And I doubt I was the first person to attack you.”
    He leaned his head back against the stone wall. “I trained today.”
    “So I see.” She lightly touched his bruised cheek and he winced. “Are you usually bested so easily?”
    “Not usually.” His expression hardened. “Not unless others interfere and stop me from completing my kill.”
    “You tried to kill someone when you were training with them?”
    He turned his head until his mouth brushed her fingers. “Only because I was deliberately provoked.”
    She tried to sound practical as his mouth drifted over her thumb. “Then perhaps he deserved it.” His tongue flicked out and licked the pad of her thumb and she tried not to moan.
    He lifted his head and she saw his intention to kiss her in his narrowed hazel gaze. She pressed her fingers to his mouth.
    “You must not touch me like this.”
    He took her hand away. “Why not?”
    “Because it is not fitting.”
    “I think we would fit very well together.”
    Verity’s knees buckled at the images his provocative comment aroused in her. “We are supposed to be partners, not lovers.”
    “Why can’t we be both?”
    “Because it would be a distraction.”
    He studied her for a long moment. “You are probably right, but I still want to kiss you.”
    He raised his head and she didn’t stop him, let him kiss her in a leisurely fashion that frustrated the heat building inside her. She slid her fingers into his thick auburn hair to hold him close as he locked his right arm around her hips.
    By the gods, she wanted him, wanted to melt into his embrace and let him take her down to the floor and make her his. Unfortunately her past experiences reared up with their objections. She tugged on his hair until he released her mouth and looked up at her, a hint of impatience in his narrowed eyes.
    “What’s wrong, cariad ?”
    “I can’t do this.”
    “Up until a moment ago you were doing it very nicely.”
    “I know!”
    He regarded her quizzically for a long moment and then let her go and sat back against the wall with a resigned expression. She couldn’t help but notice that he was aroused, the thick ridge of his cock visible through the supple leather of his hose.
    “You must think me a tease.” Verity started to pace in front of him, her arms folded around her waist. “But I cannot allow my passions to dictate my actions.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because it would be a disaster.”
    He blinked at her. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
    “I know that, but . . .” She gazed at him helplessly for a long moment. “You don’t understand.”
    “Then explain it to me.” He shifted his large form into a more comfortable position against the wall and wrapped his arms around his raised knee. “I doubt we will progress much further with anything else tonight if you don’t.”
    Verity walked away from him, presenting him with her narrow back and the long silken skein of her braided hair. It was ridiculous, but he wasn’t quite sure why he needed to touch her either and hoped that maybe her explanation might help him understand himself.
    But even that wasn’t the truth. He’d scared himself today, had seen himself through the crowd’s eyes: a cold-blooded killer no different from the Vampires he hunted. Without love, was he