Claiming the Vampire by Chloe Hart Page A

foot of the bed and locking the cuffs around his ankles.
    She’d actually done it. Celia knelt on the bed, between Evan’s knees, and looked with satisfaction at the four chains she’d attached to her bedposts, ending in iron cuffs around Evan’s wrists and ankles.
    Evan took a deep breath and let it out, something he only did when he was agitated. “Do you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing?”
    “Not at all,” she said sweetly. “I’m just making sure I have a captive audience when I make my case for completing the claiming ritual.”
    His jaw tightened, and he jerked at the chain on his right wrist.
    She shook her head. “I borrowed these from the club. They’re the ones designed for vampires. Not even you can break them.”
    “God damn it, Celia.” His voice sounded tense, almost panicked. “You can’t force someone to accept a claim. That’s one of our most ancient laws.”
    “I’m not going to force you,” she said, grasping the hem of her pajama top and pulling it off. “I’m just going to try really, really hard to persuade you.”
    She tossed the top onto the floor and met Evan’s eyes. When his gaze slid down to her naked breasts, she felt her nipples pucker and harden.
    “Fuck,” he whispered. “Celia, you can’t do this.”
    “What about this?” she asked as she shimmied out of her bottoms and tossed them on the floor, too.
    Then she rose up on her knees so he could see all of her, and very deliberately let her hand trail over her body and into the soft triangle between her legs.
    “I’m wet for you,” she said softly.
    “Christ.” His voice was a ragged whisper, and his gaze was riveted on her hand as she slid her fingers over her slick folds.
    “Do you want a taste?”
    His eyes shot up to meet hers, and she locked her gaze on his as she moved on her knees up the bed, straddling his hips but not coming close enough to touch his erection. She hovered over him, instead, dipping two fingers inside her wet heat and holding them up to his nose and mouth.
    Evan closed his eyes, and for a second she thought he might turn his head away. But then he growled almost helplessly as he opened his mouth, and she slid her fingers inside.
    She moaned at the feel of his cool tongue on her overheated skin.
    “Evan…” she breathed, caught by the expression of tortured intensity on his face as he licked every drop of her essence from her fingers.
    Then he did turn his head away, sharply. “Celia. We can’t do this. Please, love. We can’t.”
    She looked down at him in frustration. “Why?”
    “I’ve told you a hundred times. You’re too young. It’s too soon. You don’t know what you—”
    “Bullshit.”
    His eyes snapped back to her.
    She crouched over him, her arms on either side of his shoulders and her face a foot from his. “I’m not letting you go until you tell me the real reason. I’m not too young, and it’s not too soon. Give me credit for not being a moron and tell me what’s really going on.”
    “Celia…”
    “ Tell me .”
    “I don’t deserve you!”
    That was it. The real reason. She could tell by the sound of his voice and the expression on his face—equal parts anger and shame.
    “I know you think you’re selfish, Evan. And I don’t agree.”
    “Christ. It’s more than that.”
    He moved restlessly beneath her, and she shifted so that she was kneeling beside him instead of straddling him.
    “So tell me,” she said, her voice carefully neutral.
    “Would you mind putting your clothes back on?” he asked irritably. “I can’t think straight with you like that.”
    “Sure,” she said, hiding a smile. She pulled on her pajamas and sat back down on the bed beside him.
    After a minute he spoke again. “I told you once how I was made into a vampire.”
    She nodded. “You were shot down during the Battle of Britain, and your maker found you dying in a field.”
    “Yeah.” He shifted again, looking away from her. “What I didn’t tell you