“And you would have let him live?” He followed me into the living room, clearly irked that I didn ’t appreciate what was probably considered a romantic gesture in the vampire world. “You would have let him go unpunished for what he did? Let him hurt other innocent people?”

“I will not pretend that I’m sad to see Bud McElray dead,” I admitted. “A part of me hates him for what he did to me. I’m glad that he will never be able to hurt anyone else. But I wouldn’t have had any human die that way. It’s cruel and vicious, and it’s beneath you, Gabriel, with all your noble-creature-of-the-night bullshit. Don’t you dare think you did this for me. Plus, I’m already suspected of setting other vampires on fire. I don’t need a human murder charge on my head. Did you even think about that?”

“No one will connect it to you, because no one knows McElray was responsible for shooting you, ” he said. “There was never any report, any evidence.”

Damned if he didn’t have a point there. So, instead of following logic, I demanded, “Why wait until now?”

“I gave him time to forget what had happened, if he even remembered it in the first place. I watched him. I let him settle back into his drunken useless wasted life and when he least expected anything, I extinguished it.”

His voice, the absence of passion or any sort of feeling about the fact that he had snuffed out a human life, chilled me to my marrow. My hands began to shake. I bunched them into fists, flexing the fingers to try to pump warmth into the joints. “What about me makes you think I would be OK with that? What makes you think I would find that acceptable? What happened to not taking the things humans do personally, taking the good with the bad?”

“This is different.”

“How is it different?” I demanded.

“He hurt you!” Gabriel shouted, stepping closer to me. I backed away, but he pursued me, backing me up against the edge of my writing desk. “He left you to die. What about me makes you think I would find that acceptable?”

“Back off.” I shoved him away. Well, I tried. He was pretty much unmovable. “He didn’t know he’d shot me, Gabriel. He wasn’t an evil man, just a stupid drunk who didn’t know any better. No matter what kind of person he was, he was still human.

And you’ve made me responsible for his death. You said you didn’t want to give me experiences to regret, but this is a big fricking regret.”

“I know you’re upset. But I hope that someday you will understand why I did this. You will understand what you mean to me. I will do anything to keep you safe, anything.”

He reached for me. For the first time since I ’d known him, he looked unsure, unsteady—probably because I slapped his hands away. “Don’t touch me. Just get away from me.”

He seemed vaguely amused by this. “You haven’t minded me touching you in the past. In fact—”

Even as I punched him in the mouth, I couldn’t believe I’d done it. For one, the deep scrape of Gabriel’s fangs against my knuckles was excruciating. And two, I’d never really hit anyone before and meant it, besides the usual sibling brawls and the unfortunate Walter encounter.

Gabriel sprawled across the floor, sliding across the polished wood until he hit a wall. I was this close to helping him up and apologizing profusely when he snarled up at me. Which just made me hit him again. I think I had some anger issues I needed to work out.

My fangs extended, nicking my lip. The taste of my own blood only stoked my temper, tingeing the edges of my vision a hot, glossy crimson.

The shock of his spastic childe being coordinated enough to land a blow had plainly disoriented Gabriel. As he stumbled to his feet, I flew at him and knocked him back down. I kicked him again, but he swept an arm out and knocked my legs from under me. From my position on the floor, I kicked at him as he rose, pushing him against the wall. But as I tried to gain advantage, he used my momentum to slam me against the wall instead.

“Good. Good.” He hissed, pinning my wrists. “This is what we are, Jane. This isn’t some fairy story. It’s not one of your books. You could pretend you didn’t know this was in your nature, but you’d be lying to yourself and to me. You’ve known ever since the night you rose. You’ve sensed it under the surface. We’re predators, Jane. We hunt, and we feed, and we kill.”

I strained against his grip, but he was too strong, slapping my useless hands against the plaster. He smirked as he drew in for a kiss, then seemed to think better of it, unsure whether I would chew on him—in the bad way.

“You talk too much,” I grumbled, seizing his mouth.

There was a pleased purring sound in his chest as his fingers slipped up my wrists and intertwined with mine. He let me shove away from the wall, and we stumbled backward, tripping over my leaded-glass coffee table and sending shards of glass exploding over the floor as we fell.

Gabriel rolled, trapping me between the solid weight of his body and the unyielding floor. His stare pinned me as much as the knees pressed against my thighs. I wanted him without thinking. I didn ’t care that I had crazy wet hair or that I was wearing underwear featuring cartoon ladybugs. I didn’t care if I was kissing him the right way. I didn ’t care if the sex might be bad. I just wanted.

Still wrapped around him, I used all of the strength in my legs to roll over him, pin him to the floor. His eyes flashed as I strained to keep him held there. He was enjoying this, watching me struggle. My hair curled in wild, damp ropes over my face as I crouched over him, scraping my fingers along the edges of his bared torso.

His palm curled around my chin, forcing me to look him in the eyes. He grinned. He wanted me. He wanted me to touch him, finally to take control. He took my hand in his and pressed it against his chest. He was so smooth. Pale, hairless, and cool as marble, sculpted from years of whatever manual labor a nineteenth-century planter’s son performed. I ran my fingertips along the lines of his chest to his sides, giving in to the urge to kiss the skin just below his belly button. The muscles of his abdomen bunched.

He was ticklish. That had possibilities.

I chuckled as my hand snaked down his body and wrapped tight around the length of him. His hips bucked, and his eyes widened as he looked down at me. Sensing his shock, I grinned back at him.

Gabriel moaned and pulled me into another kiss that had me reeling. In the tussle, my robe had come completely off, though somehow the belt was still tied in a tight, damp knot that refused to give. I pulled at it frantically. Gabriel laughed and ripped the material away easily.

He dragged my bra down to my waist, making me shriek when he gently bit the curve of my breast, drawing blood into his mouth the way human men might worship a nipple. He threw me back to the floor, and I cried out as shards of glass sliced into my back. Then Gabriel’s good, strong hands found the round weight of my cotton-clad rear and rocked me against him, showing me just how much he wanted me.

Gabriel’s lips skimmed my hip bones (my personal Achilles heel), and I let loose a very girlie squeal. I could feel the bow of his smile against my skin as he peeled away my panties. His hands explored lower, and I moaned gibberish as he slipped testing fingers into my warmth.

Gabriel slid between my knees, holding them firmly apart while he played me, stroking and coaxing while I chased his movements with my hips. It had been so long since I’d been touched, and I was shamefully ready. Within moments, I was throwing my head back and screaming his name as I shattered from the inside out. Later, I would take the time to be embarrassed at my hair-trigger response and the fact that I actually whined when he moved his hand away from me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, terrified of losing the sensations he was giving me.

Gabriel chuckled, and, kissing me with a gentleness that seemed impossible given our foreplay activities, he moved into me, testing how much I could take. I grabbed at his hips, needing more. He reared back and sank his fangs into my throat, thrusting up until he was completely inside me.

He drank from my throat as he moved slowly, timing each thrust to draw out the pleasant ache I felt every time he came back to me. I brought his wrist to my lips and sank my teeth into the spot just under his palm, all the while staring him down. It was a dark starburst on the tongue, singing to my senses in a way bottled blood never could. It was the sensation of his blood flooding my system that pushed me over the edge. My fingernails bit into his shoulders as I convulsed around him.

“Mine,” he whispered to my skin. “Mine. Mine.”

I lay there, boneless and sated, while he began moving in earnest, reaching for his own climax. Each stroke was more forceful, driving me into the floor. Using what strength I had, I pushed back, forcing him to work harder, fight for control. Eyes lit with some awful pride, he finally shook under me. He leaned his forehead against mine as his body stilled.

For a minute, it was almost normal. We lay there, wound around each other, my face resting on his chin. My head was empty, drained of all worries. I didn’t care what came next, as long as I was able to feel this way every once in a while. Then I wondered how much it would scare a man to tell him he ’d given you your first-ever orgasm achieved with the help of another person. Then I realized we were lying on the broken shards of what used to be my coffee table.

I was stunned by what I’d done. I was a big undead skank. My feelings for Gabriel were a dirty gray miasma of lust, resentment, and the psychotic devotion of a teenage crush. Add to that the fact that I was still angry with him about his ironic vigilante routine. I couldn’t stand what he’d done. He’d killed a man in cold blood. And I’d responded by having sex with him.

What sort of degenerate did that make me?

I lay there, the broken glass slicing into my skin, wondering what to do. Did we cuddle? Was I supposed to offer him breakfast? I wasn’t exactly well versed in the postcoital ritual of the living, much less that of the undead. I tried to reach out to his mind, pick up any emotion Gabriel might be feeling. Nothing. Stupid inconsistent powers. So I stared at the ceiling and prayed to the good Lord that Gabriel would say something, anything, to keep me from having to bridge the uncomfortable silence.