It was Elizabeth's turn to pounce on me this time.
I instinctively changed my posture and caught her, steadying her with both of my hands on her waist, her knees were pressed over my folded legs, and I tilted my neck again, giving her permission to do anything she wanted to. Wondering what it would feel like to be bitten by her for real.
The thought stirred me to no end.
But she did something that took me by surprise, covering my neck with the palm of her hand, and when one was not enough to cover all of it, she placed her other hand over my neck too and swallowed hard while she breathed heavily.
When she finally looked up to see my face, her eyes were panicking still. It made me wonder whether or not her trademark cold attitude was authentic or one she kept on using for the sake of appearances.
"What's wrong?" My voice was very gentle, enjoying the current that was running thick between us, my neck was burning hot where her hands were pressing and I wished we could stay like this forever.
"Never, and I mean never bare your neck to any creature out there. Remember that you're the rising king of the tabooed world, a gesture like that could've had irreversible consequences if someone else had been here instead of me." She pressed over my neck with her small hands as if there was a bleeding wound over there.
I found her adorable.
'I could swallow you whole if you'd let me.'
She gave me an exasperated look, surely disagreeing with the line of my thoughts again, I decided to comment on what she said just to put her mind at ease. These things were important to her.
"I wouldn't do this..." I applied some pressure over her slim waist to make myself clear, "...If it were someone else altogether, and if tasting my blood meant getting closer to you, then baring my neck for you is something that I will repeat again and again until you take me up on my offer one of these days." I spoke softly with a natural smile on my face that I didn't have to fake for once, trying to get her to understand that I was serious about her.
The hands that were on her waist moved on their own, I placed one of them on the small of her back and the other one covered her shoulder and her neck, I pressed her into my embrace, feeling her pleasant warmth seeping into me, my heart was racing fast, to the degree that it was embarrassing now that she was in my arms, close enough for her to hear or feel it. her arms hung limply on either of her sides, but I felt her relaxing despite the fact that she did not hug me back.
It was progress that I was proud of.
I brought my nose closer to her hair and inhaled deeply " You smell like a garden full of jasmine," I confessed.
She stiffened.
"That's...I don't know what to say to that." She said huskily.
I felt her face twist, and she placed her nose in my hair too, but she sighed instead of breathing in, never failing to surprise me.
She not once gave me a predictable reaction ever since the day I first laid my eyes on her.
When her breath reached my neck, I felt a shiver of pure pleasure erupting within my chest, she stopped breathing altogether. One moment later, she moved her hands and put them on my chest again, electrifying me, I was dying to taste her at this point, but she pushed herself away, enough to be able to look deeply into my eyes. We stayed like that for a long moment, I had no intention of letting her go and she had no intention of giving me a green light to carry on.
Her kissable lips parted, and I swallowed nothing hard, anticipating a change in her heart at any second now, mine was about to fly out of my ribcage.
"You're not mine, Theo." She said with an unfathomable look on her face.
I smiled at the ridiculous statement, "I recall giving you an open invitation to change that." I said evasively, about to give her access to my neck again.
She jumped out of my embrace abruptly, her head turned in the direction we came from, right where her truck was parked, it was almost nighttime and this was probably her way of freaking out because of how late it had gotten.
I was mistaken about her reactions, yet again.
"He's here." She said in a low voice.
I stood up and walked where she was then pushed her slightly behind me, it looked like it was time for the backlashing that she spoke about when we first came here — and I wasn't going to allow it. Whoever the newcomer was, he was going to have to answer to me first.
I somehow felt Elizabeth... she radiated anxiety two steps away from me.
That was when I first saw him.
The figure whose face I couldn't see wore a black cloak covering him from head to toe. His body was massive and his moves were eerie, the figure that was approaching didn't have an ounce of humanity to him. Not until he removed the cloak from over his head, revealing long black hair and a set of eyes that resembled mine.
He looked a lot like me. But his eyes were all over Elizabeth.
"What were you thinking, child?"
The man that scolded Elizabeth looked like he was in his early thirties, so his use of the word 'child' didn't fit the entire situation.
Elizabeth was as motionless as a statue.
"Disobeying a direct order is something that we will not be taking lightly," His dry tone was threatening enough without the need for the actual threat that left his lips.
"I will be the one responsible for that," I said coldly as the man kept on ignoring me, his reddish brown eyes let me know what he was.
A vampire. A pureblood one at that.
He finally looked at me, his eyes hard. "You attract too much attention to yourself; it was irresponsible of you to follow her whims. The car was there to protect you." He said in a deep voice, one that resembled mine.
"Stay out of our business," I demanded.
"Is this a proper way to speak to your father?" He stated the obvious. But it was still a jolt in my heart.
Images of my real father invaded me, and I remembered my conviction that this man had forced himself on my mother, I launched myself at him and held him by his cloak.
"Theo!" Elizabeth shouted behind me.