Blood Rites: (Royal Blood #3) by Amity Cross

and everything in between. Ruin and rule.
    Lorelei was worth it. I’d call Sykes in the
morning and withdraw.

 

Twelve
    Lorelei

    At first, I felt different. Almost
listless.
    I woke slowly, my body stiff, but completely
satisfied. Then slowly, the memory of Vaughn’s touch began to
surface, the ghost of his mouth all over me, the incredible release
he’d coaxed out of my body. The place between my legs ached, my
flesh throbbing. I never thought my body was capable of having that
kind of orgasm, let alone more than one in the same night.
    Rolling over, I opened my eyes and stilled
when I was greeted with an empty bed. The satisfied grin faded from
my face and was quickly replaced with a frown. He was gone. I sat
up, clutching the sheet to my naked chest, listening.
    I didn’t have much time to feel inadequate
because Vaughn’s voice was the first thing I heard. He was yelling
at someone from somewhere down the hall. That must’ve been what had
woken me.
    “I’m deadly serious,” he was saying.
    There was a pause.
    “I want out,” he snapped. “Deal’s off.”
    He must be on the phone to someone from his
work. My heart instantly calmed and I sank back into bed, resting
against the padded headboard. I hadn’t had much of a chance to take
in my surroundings the night before and now that daylight flooded
the room, I could take it all in.
    Vaughn’s bedroom was really
nice. The king-sized bed was sleek and modern in design, the
headboard behind me made from quality padded linen, steely gray in
color. His furniture was dark chestnut, the side tables and dresser
minimal and very masculine. In short, it was
very…Vaughn.
    “Don’t threaten me,” he exclaimed, his voice
booming down the hallway. “Do you value your life?”
    I frowned, not sure if this was something I
should be listening to.
    “ I am your one and only link to
Lafayette…if I were to say something to him, then he will put you
on his no-fly list.”
    Uh…that didn’t sound very good. A deal he
was brokering must be going sour. I could still hear him arguing on
the phone and didn’t have it in me to eavesdrop any more, so I did
the next best thing. I opened his bedside drawer.
    My gaze collided with a gun and I gasped,
closing the drawer with a dull thud. What the bloody hell? My heart
thundered and I glanced at the open door, listening for Vaughn.
    A gun? What did he have a gun
for? Were the rumors about him true? They said he was a playboy,
but some people said he was bad. Like the bad guy in the movies
bad. I’d seen nothing that had led me to believe any of that was
true. He could just have it for personal security. I knew how
rumors went in this life all too well. They started small, but soon
twisted into total outlandish fabrications.
    I shifted closer to the side of
the bed and opened the drawer again, this time a little more
slowly, like its contents were going to jump out and bite me on the
ass. The gun sat there, all innocent looking and my curiosity grew.
I’d never seen a gun before. Not in real life. I pulled it out of
the drawer and held it in my hands, the metal cool against my skin.
Hmm…it was heavy.
    “Lorelei.”
    I gasped, and my gaze collided with
Vaughn’s. He was standing in the doorway, naked from the waist up,
and all he wore from the waist down were a pair of black fitted
boxers. Damn it, he’d caught me snooping and I was staring at his
cock.
    “That’s not a toy, Lorelei.” He crossed the
room and took the gun from my hands, sliding it back into the
bedside drawer.
    I stared up at him, not sure what to say
first. Color me intrigued.
    I tilted my head to the side, allowing the
sheet to fall away from my naked breasts. Vaughn’s gaze instantly
dropped, his shoulders tensing.
    “You’re not…” He trailed off, shocked that I
wasn’t running for the hills.
    Things weren’t adding up, but when you were
stuck in sexual thrall with a powerful man, things just…slipped
through the cracks. Dangerous