Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Cassie was standing between them washing dishes when Severin reached around her to take the bowls from the narrow table and Ravik stepped close behind her to help stack the cups.
It should have been nothing—just two males helping clean up after supper. Two very large, very muscular Kindred males who both smelled entirely too good and who had apparently decided that domestic chores were a group activity.
Ravik was behind her, his massive body radiating heat like a furnace, and Severin was at her side, cool and elegant and controlled as he reached past her to collect the dishes she was trying very hard not to drop.
But when their scents mingled around her—Ravik’s dark leather-and-smoke spice and Severin’s clean, sharp ocean-wind scent—Cassie’s body reacted like someone had lit a match inside her.
Heat bloomed low in her belly, sudden and fierce. Her nipples tightened so sharply that she had to bite back a gasp, and the ache between her thighs turned from annoying to almost painful in the space of a single breath. She gripped the edge of the sink, her knuckles going white, and tried to pretend she had simply lost her balance.
Of course, neither of them was fooled.
“Cassandra?” Severin said at once, his blue eyes worried behind his glasses.
At the same time, Ravik leaned closer from behind her and inhaled deeply.
“Cassie needs,” he rumbled.
Cassie closed her eyes.
Just great. Wonderful. Fantastic. Apparently she couldn’t even have a private horny zombie crisis without both Kindred males detecting it like bloodhounds.
“Cassie does not need anything,” she said tightly. “I’m fine—I just slipped, that’s all.”
Ravik made a low, disbelieving sound.
“Cassie smells like need,” he rumbled. “Smells like she did when she was riding my cock.”
“That’s enough, Ravik,” she snapped, opening her eyes again. “We’re not talking about that—okay?”
Severin set the bowls down slowly.
“Cassandra, are you in pain?” he asked.
She lifted her chin.
“No.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“Not a bit.”
“Is your body temperature rising?”
“Probably, but that’s nothing new.” She tried to let go of the sink and discovered that her knees felt alarmingly unreliable. So she kept holding on. “Hot flashes are kind of my thing lately, in case you forgot.”
“This does not smell like a hot flash,” Ravik said.
Cassie looked over her shoulder at him.
“And you are not helping.”
The big Beast Kindred immediately looked contrite, which would have been sweet if she hadn’t been about two seconds away from either screaming or climbing him like a tree. God, she felt like she was going crazy inside!
But she couldn’t show it.
“Sorry,” the big Beast Kindred said, his broad shoulders slumping.
Cassie immediately felt bad—she hated hurting his feelings. He sounded so earnest and so careful and so much more like himself than he had earlier. His golden eyes were mostly clear now, though she could still see a faint haze at the edges.
Ravik was fighting his way back, piece by piece, and somehow that made her want him even more. Not just because he was huge and warm and protective— though he definitely was all those things—but because he was trying so hard to connect with her.
And because her body apparently wanted to reward him for that in a very sexual way. Her mind began to fill with fantasies and she immediately pushed them away.
No, nope—not going there. Don’t even think about it.
But she couldn’t help remembering the feeling of being impaled on his giant cock and the way he’d teased her clit until she came for him…or the night before when Severin had been sucking her nipples while Ravik fingered her…Or—
No, there she went again. She had to stop this, damn it! What was wrong with her?
The two Kindred were watching silently as she struggled with herself and Severin’s gaze had sharpened in that way she was beginning to recognize—that was his scientist look. The one that made her feel like he was reading every heart beat, every flushed inch of skin, and every embarrassing reaction she was trying and failing to hide.
“Cassandra, are you aroused?” he asked quietly.
Cassie glared at him.
“That is not a polite question,” she snapped.
“No,” he admitted. “But it may be a medically necessary one.”
“Oh, of course it is.” She gave a short, breathless laugh that didn’t sound much like laughter at all. “Of course my level of horniness is now medically relevant. Because why wouldn’t it be?”
Severin didn’t smile—not even that little half-smile he did sometimes when one corner of his mouth twitched up. That worried her.
Instead, he stepped closer—not touching her, but near enough that his scent washed over her again—clean and cold and sharp.
Cassie’s thighs pressed together involuntarily and her breath caught in her throat. Oh God, he smelled so good! They both did. She felt like a starving woman being offered a tasty dish, but she knew if she took even a tiny nibble, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
His eyes flicked downward but not to her breasts this time—to her arm, where she’d been bitten by the Infected.