Read Online Wicked Obsession by Cora Zane - Free Book Online

him sitting up on his elbow, watching her. “Where are you going?” he asked.
    “I…I was going to return to my room.”
    “No.” Julian threw back the sheets, and was out of bed in an instant.
    Her heart leapt when he prowled toward her. He grabbed the front of the robe by the lapels and stripped it back over her shoulders so that it slid easily from her body onto the floor. Julian snatched it up and balled it into a wad of fabric before tossing it into the corner of the room.
    Eleni opened her mouth to explain, but Julian cut her short when he swept her off her feet and carried her back to bed. “If it were my wish to dismiss you to your room, I would do so,” he said as he returned her to the mattress. “But this is our first daylight together. You will sleep here with me.”

Chapter Six

    Eleni woke feeling sluggish and hazy brained. Disoriented, she stared at the gentleman’s chair along the shadowy wall by the bed, and when she noticed the black sash tossed across the bentwood arm, she remembered Julian’s touch, his heated kisses. She propped herself up on her elbow and looked around, noting that a fire still burned in the gas fireplace. She shoved her hair back from her face, wondering what time it was.
    Julian slept beside her, pale and silent, the black satin sheets pooled around his waist. At the sight of his muscular chest, her heart did a somersault. One night with him, and already he had given her so much pleasure.
    Her gaze lingered on his ripped abs, and the dark trail of hair that disappeared beneath the covers. Reaching back, she laid a hand on his muscular chest. His skin felt cool, and his breathing was so shallow one might think he was not breathing at all. Not wanting to wake him, she withdrew her hand, and contented herself with staring at him.
    All her life she’d been around handsome men, but Julian’s dark good looks made her weak inside. In awe of him, she trailed her gaze along his chiseled jaw, dark with a day’s growth of beard stubble. His shiny black hair fanned out across the pillow, beckoning her touch.
    He slept with his hand behind his head and tucked beneath the pillows, the unguarded pose exposing the burn scars along his left side. Even if she hadn’t known about his scars before her arrival, it wouldn’t have mattered to her that they were there. They didn’t seem to pain him, and they didn’t detract at all from his raw male beauty.
    Of course, a vampire’s ideal beauty differed from a human’s perspective. Eleni had been taught that vampires prized perfection from the time she was old enough to understand what her role in life would be. For vampires, their bodies had to last them through hundreds, and in rare cases, thousands, of years. Preservation of their looks was important to them, and they prized in themselves the same kind of flawless beauty they looked for in a blood mate.
    To Julian, his scars must seem like unforgivable flaws. A needless shame, in her opinion, but at least now she could begin to understand why he sent away his entire harem.
    She was grateful he had made an exception for her, even if he had only accepted her because she was a blood gift from Dominic. However, that didn’t mean she was foolish enough to surrender her heart to Julian. There were two sides to people. She had learned that lesson the hard way. Eleni stared at her new Biter a moment longer, then pulled back the sheets and climbed out of bed.
    She wrapped herself in a satin sheet that had fallen off the bed during the day, and padded quietly across the room to the door.
    Out in the hallway, she walked toward the open balcony overlooking the grand entrance. A faint glow clung to the stained glass window of St. Vincent, the gemstone colors radiant in the dying light of day. She passed in front of it, looking down over the silent entryway as she crossed into the west wing of the house. Walking past the empty silence of so many uninhabited rooms disturbed her. A house of this size