Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Then he pulls back and his hands go to the blindfold.
He undoes it and lifts it off.
I wince at the light, as dim as it is, until my eyes come into focus.
Valtu is staring at me, his face inches away. His gaze is light, almost adoring as he studies my face, his mouth quirked up in the corner, smiling softly.
My god, there’s never been anyone so handsome.
“There you are,” he says quietly, reaching forward to brush a strand of hair off my head.
I take a moment and look around the room. It’s dimly lit in here, the walls a charcoal grey, faint light coming in from the windows, but otherwise a very cozy space with old paintings on the walls, no doubt originals, in gilded frames, and antique lacquered dressers and armoires, candles stacked on top of them along with vases of black roses. I feel like I’m waking up in the house of a man from the 1800s and I guess that’s not too far off.
We’re also alone. Now that I can move, now that I can see, nothing seems so scary anymore.
“Thank you,” he says, picking up my hand and kissing the marks on my wrist.
“For what?”
“For trusting me,” he says gravely. “I know you didn’t want to but…it was really important to me.” He lowers my hand and licks his lips, his eyes growing darker as he stares at me. “You see, I have trust issues. I…I have gotten close to people before and when they’ve discovered who I really am, what I’m really made of, they run away. That darkness you have? I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t run away from mine. I wanted to know if you would freely submit yourself to me, through pleasure and through pain. I wanted to know if I could trust you as much as you could trust me.”
The funny thing is, I do trust him. I shouldn’t. He doesn’t know that I know he’s a vampire, that he’s killed people, that he could easily do the same to me, especially if he finds out who I truly am. But after all I just went through here in his bed, I do trust him.
There’s no one else I want to give my body over to like him.
I nod, my heart pounding in my chest. “I want you to,” I tell him softly. “I want you to trust me as much as I trust you.”
He smiles, leaning in and kissing me on the lips again. I taste our sex on the light swipe of his tongue.
“Good.” He pulls back and bites his lip for a moment before asking, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
His brow raises expectantly.
I punch his arm weakly. “Don’t you dare think I’m going to call you my lord outside of the bedroom.”
He laughs, briefly looking up to the ceiling. “Okay, well it was worth a shot.” Then his smile turns wistful. “But seriously. I know I have a class to teach today and you have classes to go to but…is there any chance you’ll play hooky with me?”
My eyes widen in surprise. “You’re skipping school? Professor Aminoff!” I cry out, admonishing him.
He leans in closer to me, cupping my chin between his fingers. “How can you blame me? Look at you, Dahlia. You beautiful, wicked creature. An angel in disguise. I have you naked in my bed. You just let me defile you in the most deviant ways. There’s no way in hell I can go to work today and not be thinking about the taste of your cunt.”
My cheeks immediately flush with heat at that. Such a dirty mouth on him, my god.
“Stay in bed with me,” he goes on persistently, running his thumb over my lower lip before pushing it inside so it rests on my lower teeth. “Let me play with you all day.”
Luckily the classes I have today aren’t with Valtu, so the both of us won’t be noticeably absent from the same class.
I’m not a real student anyway.
A smile slowly spreads across my face as I give in. “Okay.”
He grins, his eyes squinting with delight, and my god I think I’m falling for this man.
Enough so that I’m staying here with him because I want to. Not because I should, or that I’m on the right track with him, and this is what the guild would want me to do to reach our goals, but because I want to.
And I know this is going to be a huge fucking problem for me down the line.
Chapter 15
Valtu
There’s nothing I like more than Venice on the cusp of winter. That sweet spot near November, when the rains haven’t started yet in earnest, so there’s no worry about flooding or acqua alta, but the tourists are gone and the fog settles in with the early darkness. It makes me feel at peace, like everything in life is just a little bit easier.