Broken Heart 05 Over My Dead Body by Michele Bardsley

kinda turned me on.
    I let my gaze rove the corded muscles of his neck. Sweat trickled, probably because of Oklahoma’s insane humidity and heat. Summer was a bitch. My nostrils flared. I’d never thought of sweat as sexy, but the musk of it, the dance of it on his flesh was intriguing.
    My mouth went dry and I licked my lips. Brady’s gaze was drawn to the motion. He lifted his hand to cup my chin. Slowly, he drew his thumb across my lower lip. I barely resisted the need to suck on that digit. Again, I had the strangest urge to sink a fang into his flesh.
    I wanted to drink from him. I wanted to taste his essence on my tongue, absorb it into my body. I wanted to strip him bare and worship him.
    Whew. Day-amn. I needed to get a hold of myself. I dropped my hand at the same time I withdrew my face from Brady’s gentle snare. I intended to step back, to break whatever spell wove its magic on us.
    Brady refused to be rebuffed. He reached out again and took my hand, tugging me until I was flush against him. Had I the ability to breathe, my lungs might’ve given out right then. Emotions tangled: excitement and fear, desire and reluctance, need and caution.
    My palms flattened on his oh-so-muscled chest. God, he was warm. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my own heartbeat, my own breath, until I stood here, toe-to-toe with Brady, and felt the life pulsating within him.
    I thought about what he said about the past and regrets. He wasn’t a man without his own secrets.
    “What do you regret, Brady?” I asked softly.
    “Not kissing you,” he answered. Now, that was an excellent response, but it also completely avoided the question. I needed to learn that technique.
    But Brady had other things to teach me.
    “Step on my feet, short stuff,” he said. He was at least six inches taller than I was, and standing on his thick-soled boots gave me a nice boost.
    He wrapped his arms around my waist and gathered me close. That’s when I felt his erection. It pressed against my belly, thick and urgent. My thoughts skittered. Not that we could have sex—I mean, not all the way, because as much as I liked Brady, marriage was out of the question. I couldn’t bind myself to a human, and no way could I Turn him.
    “You’re doing it again,” he murmured. “You don’t have to worry about the past.”
    Yeah, I did. In a big way.
    “I was thinking more about the future.” I licked my lips again. “Where could this . . . whatever this is . . . possibly lead, Brady? Maybe it’s not the right thing. You and me.”
    I cleared my throat, trying to swallow the damned knot clogging it. Leave it to me to be all practical in a romantic moment. I stared up at him, but he didn’t seem deterred.
    “Kiss me,” he demanded softly. “Then you can tell me to fuck off.”
    His lips skimmed mine. The tender assault caught me off guard. I clutched his shoulders, my knees going mushy. No worries about falling; Brady’s arms were snug around me.
    My vampire body was bereft of the usual human responses to arousal. No breathlessness. No spike in blood pressure. No frenetic pounding of the heart. All the same, my body hummed in expectation. Despite my lack of body temperature, I still felt heat stab my belly.
    Another brush of his lips.
    The heat traveled south, pooling in a part of my body that hadn’t seen action in a long time.
    Whoa.
    The third time Brady’s lips met mine, they stayed there. Soft pressure. Then moving away. A breath. His. And then again, the capturing of my mouth, this time longer.
    I clung to him, not a true participant in the endeavor. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to kiss. It was that I was swept away by him.
    Had I thought he wasn’t patient? How stupid. The man had plenty of patience.
    “Simone,” he whispered. My name sounded like a prayer. Then he went in for another mouth-to-mouth assault (ohwowohwowohwow). His lips opened slightly, an invitation for me to do the same. I gladly RSVPed, and then his tongue