Redemption (The Penton Vampire Legacy) by Susannah Sandlin Page A

guest rooms became available. Someone who stayed here earlier probably left the shirt.” Someone as in careless, grieving Lucy, whose come-to-Aidan talk couldn’t wait much longer. “I came back to check on you. How do you feel?”
    Krys laughed again and leaned against the bathroom doorjamb. “A little woozy but maybe I went too long without eating. I guess low blood sugar caught up with me.”
    “I’ll bring you something to eat,” he said automatically. But not yet. Forget trying to talk her into staying while she was half-dressed and he was hungry. He needed to get her enthralled again before she realized this wasn’t an ordinary hotel room and he wasn’t the small-town hospital administrator she thought he was.
    But damn, he didn’t want to put her under. He wanted to wind his fingers through her hair, see if its shiny darkness felt as silky as it looked. He wanted to run his hands over every curve, taste her skin and her blood. He wanted to memorize her scent.
    Her pulse quickened as if she sensed his thoughts. Such a tiny physical reaction, yet it almost undid his ability to stay in control of his raging instincts.
    “Your eyes are amazing—I swear they change color,” she said, searching his face but not settling on his gaze long enough for him to study her pupils. Didn’t matter anyway—no way shewas still buzzed. Fully enthralled meant unconscious. Lightly enthralled, people were functional sleepwalkers. They didn’t stand there with bedroom laughs, tugging at the hems of little red shirts, ratcheting his hunger up until his damned body screamed for her. He hadn’t reacted to a woman with such raw need since—well, since he’d been turned. Mated males acted this way. He didn’t.
    Aidan closed his eyes and regrouped. Enough already. He wasn’t going to have this woman—not tonight, not ever, even if she was setting off every alarm in his food-sex control panel. Even if she wanted him, he might as well brand a big H on his forehead for “hypocrite” if he gave in to his wants.
    “Why don’t you get back in bed, relax, and I’ll see about getting you some food,” he said with what he thought was an admirable amount of restraint.
    She cocked her head and looked at him with narrowed eyes for a moment, as if she sensed the change in his thoughts. Or maybe his eyes had darkened as he tried to drill some common sense into his thick vampire skull.
    She walked to the bed, laughing softly as she tumbled onto the mattress, resting her head on the pillow, her dark hair fanning across the soft white cotton. Her lean body was relaxed, her long legs curled to one side, a hand resting on her stomach.
    Aidan’s slow-beating heart almost stopped. He wanted that image etched into his brain.
    “I’m OK now,” she said. “But you don’t have to go, do you?”
    His heart did a ridiculous flip-flop. “Ahh...sure. I can stay a few minutes.”
Such a bad idea.
    Getting closer to her was an even worse idea, but Aidan couldn’t enthrall her again if he didn’t get close enough to captureher gaze. He sat on the edge of the bed, tamping down the urge to touch her.
    “I didn’t imagine the evening ending this way, did you?” She smiled. “I don’t act like this normally—I really don’t. It’s just that when I met you...work wasn’t what I kept thinking about.”
    His breath released in a whoosh as she laid a hand on his knee and slid it up to his thigh.
She might want you now, big guy, but wait till she wakes up in the morning and finds herself locked in. She’s gonna hate your sorry ass.
    He didn’t know Krystal Harris. Did she come on like this to any man she was attracted to? God knows she was pretty enough, but he caught a hint of vulnerability from her, even when she was moving her hand near his point of no return. He believed her when she said she didn’t normally act this way, so she must be reacting to their instant chemistry, same as he was. Only difference was, she didn’t know that when