Vein of Love (Blackest Gold Book 1) by R. Scarlett

do that. Evelyn’s dark eyes flashed in his head, and his hands curled against the wall. If he didn’t keep up at least a bit of strength, his health would decline, and with his role, he couldn’t risk being weak.
    Fingers grasped his jaw, and her chapped lips scratched against his. He shoved her hand away, stepping back.
    “What’s your name, handsome?” she continued, her thick makeup making her look clownish in the club’s strobe lighting.
    He gripped her throat and shoved her back against the wall. Leaning in close, he bared his teeth. “No kissing on the mouth, understood?”
    She blinked several times before she nodded. His hand spread down her throat to her collarbone and lingered, feeling her heart beating wildly. The girl wanted him. Badly.
    “Good.” He threw her head back and nipped at her jaw, making his way up to her ear. When she tried to touch his face, he glared and roughly removed her hands again.
    He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be the damn predator his kind was known as for centuries. He’d amassed enough energy tonight; he wasn’t going to waste his time avoiding the Darling household.
    “Come home with me,” Redhead giggled, gripping at his bicep. She was lightheaded off his touch, off his incubus seduction.
    He glowered down at her hand, manicured with long, red nails. “I’m not your type.”
    She swung her head back to the beat of the fast-paced music, then lost her footing and balanced against him, laughing loudly. “You’re exactly what I’m looking for, babe.”
    He sneered, fed up—then transformed his pheromones from seductive to pure aggression. She took an unsteady step back. “I’m not your type,” he repeated, yanking at the lapels on his suit jacket. He patted his breast pocket to feel the sharpened blade tucked away there, a nervous habit, and headed out the back door, exhaling when the breezy summer night air graced his hot flesh.
    Just as his shoulders relaxed, his phone buzzed and all the tension returned. “What?” he answered in a clipped tone. 
    “Bad timing?” said Lex, too chipper for him.
    “I’m busy.” Cradling the phone between his shoulder and cheek, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter and a cigarette laced with belladonna. He needed nicotine. Now.
    “I hope you apologized to her,” Lex said anyway, and he rolled his eyes at her stubborn desire to fix everyone’s problems. “She was puking in the hallway. Did you really have to kill the guy?”
    Gross. Now he’d have to replace that plant.
    “He was out of line. He threatened to expose her, and then mocked me about Scorpios and my family. He wanted a hundred nyxes—what the hell does he need with that much money?” Tensley walked down a dark alley, smoke billowing behind him in a heavy stream.
    Lex hummed. “Well, you terrified her.”
    “ Good .”
    “You don’t mean that,” she said.
    He stopped walking, closing his eyes and registering the softness in her voice. He reminded himself Lex was just an eighteen-year-old, one who’d spent two-thirds of her life living in fear, and took a breath, moving forward.
    “It’s a lot easier if she sees me like everyone else in our world does: a cold, heartless bastard,” he said, an ache blooming in his chest.
    She laughed humorlessly. “You mean the heartless bastard who saved me when he could have just moved along to different scraps?”
    “You caught me on a good day.”
    She laughed, the familiar sound calming his nerves.
    He rubbed the back of his sweaty neck. “Where are you?”
    “Calm down, Dad. I’m at my apartment painting my nails. Oh and I just ate the strangest, most delicious memory ever. He was on the subway, and I just leaned in a bit and touched his hand and oh my god, so good. First sour, and then so sweet.” She sighed dreamily, as if she could still taste it.
    “Soul eaters…” Tensley tsked.
    “Is this where I’m supposed to pity you? It’s not like incubi are on the top of the food chain