He’d watched her lick those lips several times, and he knew. Even lost to slumber as she was, she scented something delicious and craved a taste.

Taste… Yes…

Her skin was snow-white yet constantly flushed a deep rose in all the right places. Not one flaw did she possess. Not a single line or wrinkle—even though she was over eighty years old.

Young, for her kind.

She wore a tattered black robe that draped from just under her arms to the tips of her toes. Or would have, if she hadn’t rucked the material up one of her legs. The slender limb was bent and angled outward. A feast for his gaze, perhaps even an I-want-you-to-drink-from-the-vein-in-my-thigh invitation.

He should resist.

He couldn’t resist.

She was the most beautiful female he’d ever seen. Fragile-looking, dainty. Like a priceless piece of art in the one and only museum he’d ever toured. The curator had slapped his hand for trying to touch something he shouldn’t.

No need to guard this one, he thought with a small smile. She could protect herself, snapping a man’s neck with a single twist of her wrist.

She was a vampire. His vampire. His sickness and his cure.

Aden placed one of his knees on the makeshift bed. The T-shirt that stretched underneath the girl, cushioning her ever so slightly, snagged underneath his weight and pulled tight, rolling her in his direction. She didn’t moan or utter a breathy sigh as a human might have done. She was quiet, eerily so. Her expression remained the same: serene, innocent…trusting.

You shouldn’t do this.

He was going to do this.

He wore a pair of ripped, bloodstained jeans. The same jeans he’d worn the night of their first date. The night his entire world changed. She wore the robe and nothing else. Sometimes their clothing was the only thing that kept them from doing more than drinking from each other.