The Shadow Zone 2: Winning Madeline by Isabella Jordan

her clever mouth drew out until he was spent. Considering his strength, that was saying a lot. She swallowed before easing him down with little flicks of her tongue, tender touches of her slim fingers.
    Maddox was wrecked. The bedding was kicked everywhere and feathers littered the mattress around his head where the remains of the pillow rested. Before he could straighten himself up, her hands were there, gently fastening his slacks but leaving the buttons on his shirt undone. Would she let him do that part? Did she want to see his chest?
    Could he be more of a pathetic, weak-minded fool?
    She stayed where she was as he struggled to sit up. Fresh guilt hit him hard when he heard her stomach’s familiar growl. All that food within her reach behind him. More than she ate in a month, he realized.
    Smoothing her now dry hair back from her perfect face, he shook his head. He’d like to kiss her more than anything, have her fall asleep against the heart that would be pounding so hard for her if it could.
    But what he wanted and what she needed were very different things. It was time to free her of responsibility. That’s why she waited.
    “This is my room at Rick’s home,” he said simply, wanting to cut to the chase. “So we’ll share it. Is that all right?”
    Concern clouded those pretty purple eyes but she nodded.
    “I would very much like to read, relax my mind right now,” he explained, trying to come across as bored and no longer interested in her. As if . Pulling a thick tome of Shakespeare from under the bed where he’d planted it earlier, he patted her on the head gently. “Do what you will. I won’t require you for the rest of the night.”
    “As you wish.” Her voice was low, respectful. Oh, how familiar he was with that tone. Her eyes, however, were alight. He knew she was hungry. Slowly she rose and he feigned interest in some boring passage from A Midsummer Night’s Dream that he’d read two hundred times.
    Maddox pretended not to notice when she retrieved the apple and devoured it with more zeal than he’d ever seen a newborn vampire display. The grapes, the pears, the cheeses, all went the same way, and after a few moments, she seemed to forget he was even there.
    He got to watch her in between mindlessly scanning the meaningless words before him. She sipped the fine wine from Rick’s cellars when she’d finished eating and Maddox smiled, knowing it would help her sleep. Hoping, anyway.
    He didn’t have to hope long. Less than an hour had passed and she fell asleep on the carpet by the tray of food, sleeping more soundly than he’d ever witnessed -- and he’d watched her a lot.
    Well, he’d have to wait to taste her lips, her body. He could do that. But he decided he would enjoy one thing. Rising silently, he lifted her from the floor and carried her back to the bed to lie beside him.
    Madeline never stirred, curling on her side with her small hands tucked under her chin like a child. Maddox faced her in the enormous bed, watching her breathe, wondering what she dreamed of. One day he hoped she’d dream of him.
    She was his now. One day, she’d know it.
    * * *
    Maddox was gone when Madeline awoke the next morning and that was only the start of the seed of unease growing in her stomach. An older gentleman brought in a heated cart loaded with all sorts of foods, some of which she’d never seen before. But she didn’t feel like eating much. She wasn’t entirely certain whether the gentleman was human like her or…
    Shortly after that another young woman came in to help her bathe. It was her second bath since she’d been brought here, only now it was less of a surprising treat and more of a worry of why they were so concerned for her hygiene. They wanted her clean when they ate her?
    The room where she bathed was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Where did the water come from anyway? Madeline had never lived in a place where water came into the house by any means other than her two hands