THE DARKEST HEART
Trade Paperback
Gallery Books/A Division of Simon & Schuster
ISBN-10: 1416562664
ISBN-13: 978-1416562665
On Sale June 21, 2011

She locked her door, threw herself onto the bed and lay very still, hoping for sleep.

No sleep. Of course. Her thoughts buzzed like a swarm of bees.

Peter doesn’t hate you. He wants you.

What? Where did that thought come from?

From the way he’d looked at her today? His nasty assumptions? His desire to protect Lady Augustine ...

Where are you?

He was there, a thick mist settling over her body, enfolding her. Leaning over her shoulder, enticed by her earlobe. Yet another secret spot to just pierce lightly, judiciously. Only here, he could feed on more than a drop. He could inhale, taste, rub the taste of her onto his lips, his tongue — and she’d never feel it.

Just the thought ... Sensual and arousing as tasty as her sex ...

Nick the lobe — just there, just — a drop spurted into his lips; he rubbed his lips together to spread it before he tasted. But wait — there was yet another drop — this he licked and she shuddered at his hot tongue swiped her lobe and tasted her blood yet again.

Who enslaved who really?

She knew he was there, playing with her earlobe, licking and sucking at it until she almost couldn’t stand it.

Kiss me.

I’m kissing your ear ... the luscious gift of the oozing blood in your lobe ... a banquet, an unexpected feast of you on my lips and tongue that will bind you even tighter to my desire ...

Kiss me.

Let me linger here where you can feel me. Let me wallow in this orgy ... as little as it was, it slaked his thirst thoroughly because he could roll the ooze in his mouth, on his lips and let it seep into his very pores, into tip o his tongue, into his consciousness.

She was so perfect for his purposes — beautiful, malleable, suggestible, virginal, ripe for planting ...

Sleep my pretty.

Kiss me.

That will come. And more. Sleep ...

Her eyelids drifted downward.

He nibbled her ear until she dozed off, flicking his tongue at the last little smear of dried blood on her lobe. Dangerous, how much he enjoyed the taste of her, but this drop by drop seduction was a necessary part of his physical possession of her. She craved him now. All her senses had been heightened by his patient blood-letting, his sensual kisses, the promise of pleasures to come.

It was a matter of time, and how much he felt like prolonging the dance, always being aware the appetite was whetted by what

it couldn’t have. Not only for her, but for him.

Nothing had changed. Charles was still in the picture and would grab whatever opportunity he could to get her alone. And now Peter Augustine, with his hot eyes and hot male blood duelling with her as if he hated her when he’d rather have bedded her.

Never.

Mine.

Done.

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