I didn’t see Caleb again until the next day. All morning, my stomach fluttered, wondering what exactly Natalie had done. She didn’t know Caleb the way I did. He had a complicated, sometimes violent history. I wondered what would happen when Caleb realized my best friend had invaded his privacy to play a prank on him.

Natalie had fallen asleep just after midnight, and she slumbered blissfully in the hotel’s luxurious four poster bed. I hadn’t slept since my transformation. I’d barely even closed my eyes to rest them. My body was pushed to the point of exhaustion. I laid in bed and wondered what Natalie had asked her bodyguards to do. Caleb didn’t like being followed, and I hated to think what would happen to those bodyguards if Caleb thought he was being threatened.

I heard a gentle knock on the hotel door just before sunrise. Before I had the time to look through the peephole, the door pushed open. Caleb stood before me with an unreadable expression on his face. I tried to see the images in his mind, but he blocked me. He wore a fitted black T-shirt that accentuated his strong biceps, and loose black slacks. Every time I saw him, he looked better than before. I glanced away for a moment to catch my breath. He was impossibly beautiful, and grew more handsome each time I saw him.

“Caleb.” My throat felt dry. I steadied my voice, trying to act casual.

“Good morning, Abby.” His fingers brushed through his inky dark hair, and he smiled at me. His eyes crinkled at the edges, and he looked almost amused. “Any reason your friend Natalie called those brutes to follow me? I thought she was beginning to like me.”

“You can ask her when she wakes up,” I bit my lip. “It probably had something to do with what happened last night at the hotel bar.”

“I don’t need to ask her, Abby. Why did you…never mind.” His voice sharpened. There was something menacing and unhinged about Caleb, especially when the vampire inside him emerged. He was dangerous, and I was his most prized possession. He wanted to have me followed, but he didn’t like it when I returned the favor: A double standard to the highest degree.

I started to protest when his sapphire eyes swept over my body. The gleam in his eyes told me what his business was with me this morning. He had the raw, hungry look I’d come to expect. The day he stopped wanting me would be the day I knew we were finished.

“I think you deserve to be punished.” His lips curled and he licked the seam.

“Is that so?” My brows rose, and if he hadn’t been so sexy, I would have been terrified.

He lunged towards me and swept me into his strong, powerful embrace. Before I knew it, we were in my bedroom, pressed against the mattress as he kissed me slowly. He smelled especially good – like a mixture of light cologne and aftershave. I inhaled the scent of him, wanting to memorize it in my brain forever. His skin was hot, and I knew exactly what his intentions were. Still, I didn’t think we should solve all our arguments sexually. Although, he was incredibly hard to resist.

“Anyone else who’d have me followed would regret it,” he growled. “You need to be punished.”

“Are you threatening me?” I narrowed my eyes playfully at him. “You know, you can’t fault Natalie for it. She was just trying to protect me.”

“From what?” His eyes widened, suddenly serious. “Whether you believe it or not, I was protecting you last night at the bar.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes. “The person you were protecting me from just happened to be a handsome, eligible man. I am in love with you, Caleb. You don’t need to be jealous of other guys.”

Caleb growled in my ear as his body pressed against me. “Abby, do you know how frustrating it is to be with you?”

“I hope that’s a joke. I have been nothing but faithful to you, but you treat me like you own me.” I paused. “While you carry on with Reina on the side,” I said under my breath.

His teeth sunk into my neck, piercing the skin, and causing me to cry out. A trickle of blood ran down my neck. He licked it off my sweet skin and smiled.

“You still have some of your human traits, Abby. Even your blood still intoxicates me.”

I wiped the blood from my neck and traced a path across his lips with my finger. I pushed my forefinger into his mouth, covered in my blood. His eyes immediately turned a deep amethyst, and he whimpered.

He reached down to the back of my thigh and hooked my leg around him. My knees opened and my other leg wrapped around his body.

“If one of those bodyguards overheard…” He paused, his skin growing hotter as he spoke. “It would be dangerous for both of us. What do I have to do to punish you, so you never do that again?”

My muscles tensed, and I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me, or if his threats were serious. I swallowed and licked my dry lips. His cock hardened and pressed through his pants against my sex. His erection was thick and pulsing. I felt the heat on my thigh, like a red-hot poker against my skin.

“Someone has been a bad girl.” His hands threaded through my hair, and he pulled me closer to his face.

I melted into him. My hips rolled against him, and I pushed my clit towards the seam of his pants. His aggression fueled my desire for him, and increased it to a fever pitch.

“Caleb. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it,” I whispered huskily.

His nostrils flared, and his mouth gently sucked the edge of my jaw. “Angel. You know how vulnerable the vampire network is. You know we have enemies. I know who to trust, but you don’t. If you make your alliance with the wrong people, we could both get hurt.”

When I lifted my hips towards him, he gripped my ass in his fist. His rough hold only made me feistier.

“Caleb, I highly doubt the random guy in the hotel bar was out to get you. He was just some business traveler looking to make conversation.”

“You don’t know that.” He narrowed his eyes at me.

Caleb’s blatant paternalism annoyed me. He didn’t trust me, and he wouldn’t even tell me exactly why he was so paranoid. It was more than jealousy – it had to be. But he kept me in the dark on so many secrets. More mysteries piled up every day. It was too much. My head throbbed, and I needed a moment of peace.

“I want you to leave.”

“And if I say no?” His cock pressed harder against my thigh. The fabric of his pants was hot against my cool skin.

“God, Caleb. One day you’re hot, the next you’re cold. There’s so much I don’t know about you. Why won’t you tell me the truth? You make me so mad!”

“I can tell you’re angry, angel.” His hips rotated in a circular motion, winding up my already intense desire for him to a fever pitch. “You’re conflicted about me. But underneath all that, you love how I make you come.”

“You sure about that?” I pushed against him, but his body was as heavy as steel.

“Yes, I’m very sure.” His tight biceps flexed against me, and I became even more aware of his overpowering strength. His clothes felt like he might burn through them, and the way his body slid smoothly across mine reminded me of sex.

Caleb Crane knew exactly how to make a woman scream with pleasure, and how to make her melt in the palm of his hand. He had centuries of practice; I didn’t even want to think of all the women in his past. I closed my eyes, and the curves of my body slid into the rhythm he created. When I wasn’t with him, it was easy to forget the power his sexual attraction held. But when I was underneath him, the pull to him was undeniable. I couldn’t have escaped, even if I’d wanted to.

My body instinctually responded to him and I moaned softly. I pushed my hips harder against him, angling for his body to massage my clit.

“There we go,” he smiled. “I want to make you feel good, Abby. I want to make you the happiest woman alive.”

“I know what you’re doing.” My legs gripped him tighter, as if they were magnets attached to the hardened steel of his body.

His eyes met mine and he paused for a moment, studying my face with calm intensity. Then, his lips met my throat, and he sucked gently at the tender skin. It’d never felt something so intensely erotic in my life. His body churned against mine, and I responded with a roll of my hips. The only thing separating us from fucking was our clothes.

“I think you’ve got me all wrong,” he said through casual licks along my jawline.

“Mmm. I don’t think I do,” I said as my limbs relaxed, and I submitted to his touch completely.

“I like that you challenge me, Abby. I’ve never met another woman who stands up to me the way you do. It’s incredibly attractive.” His teeth skated along my skin, until he reached the exposed point of my nipple.

“So good.” My hips thrust upward, and my body tightened. I needed to come.

His voice dripped with sex, raspy and low. “I live for your pleasure, Abby.” His tongue moistened his lips, and he went back to work, sucking the bead of my nipple.

I thought of his long, erect cock and how badly I wanted it in my mouth. I whimpered, and tried to scoot my body downwards.

“Uh-uh,” he swatted my ass playfully. “I’m teaching you a lesson, Abby. It won’t work if you get me off with your mouth.”

“Caleb.” My hands slid down his back and over his flexed buttocks. I rubbed against him, arching into his hips as my body tensed. My orgasm overtook me, a giant wave of pleasure and erotic sensation. I bit my lip to keep from screaming and pushed hard into him. I’d never had a man make me come by pleasuring my nipples.

His mouth sealed over mine, and he gently licked me while my orgasm rolled through me. My body trembled beneath him. I fisted his long locks of dark hair, and kissed him back. He sighed with a hint of satisfaction and rolled me on top of him. His cock pulsed at the seam of his pants, stretching the threads. My hand glided to the button fly on his pants, and tore it open, revealing his massive, heavy cock.

Drunk and high on the aftershocks of euphoric bliss, I slid down his body, ready to taste him. With my teeth, I pushed his boxers down his thighs and slid the wide crest of his cock between my lips. The taste of pre-cum, salty and sweet, dripped lightly on my tongue like honey. My tongue ran along the shaft, as I pulled him nearer to me.

I glanced up at him, and met his gaze. He was so hot he glowed, and his eyes were fiercely amethyst. He growled, and lifted his hips closer to my mouth, so I could slide him further into the back of my throat.

“Damn,” he cried. His fingers laced through the locks of my hair. “I’m so close, Abby.”

“I know,” I said under my breath. I craved the power I had when he was in my mouth, so vulnerable and at my command. At no other time could I match Caleb’s intense power, except for when I held him hostage sexually. My lips circled around his shaft, and licked down to his heavy balls.

“You’re amazing.”

I didn’t let him know that the pleasure was all mine. When I had Caleb like this, I knew he was truthful with me. His body, and its reaction to me, didn’t lie. He couldn’t play games with me when I had him inside me, and I knew that when I left him, he’d do nothing but think about how I’d made him feel. I’d make sure of it.

I slid my fist around his shaft and pumped him hard. His massive, thick cock laid heavily in my hands, throbbing against my satin skin. He cried out one last time, a howl that haunted me with its raw power and masculinity. His warm, salty cum spurted against my throat. I pressed my lips to the head as he came hotly, the milky white seed spilling down my chin. His body spasmed, and he braced himself against me, completely vulnerable. I sucked his head in my mouth, and he groaned.

“Fuck, Abby.”

His eyes rolled back into his head, and his grip tightened around my shoulders. He kept coming, hard and fast –an unrelenting spray of his masculine seed. I coaxed it out with the suction of my mouth, letting the sweetness spill from my lips. His body heated, and his muscles tightened into steel. I pulsed the underside of his cock with my tongue, and fluttered it one last time. He emptied himself in my mouth in one final spurt.

His body relaxed, and he pulled me up to his chest. He held me close, and I felt his body temperature change from scorching hot to somewhere north of warm. The heat radiating from his body warmed my skin, and I inhaled the scent in the air around us, deliciously heavy with the aroma of sex.

We laid there for a long while, both too spent to speak. I closed my eyes, forgetting where we were and what had happened. I’d lost track of time. Natalie would be waking up soon, but she was the last thing on my mind.

“What about New York?” I asked after my mind had quieted. “Were you ever really going there, or was that just an excuse to get me out of LA?”

“Yes, it was a real thing.” He paused. “I need you to stay close to me, Abby. I’m the only one who can protect you…from…”

“You sound paranoid, Caleb. I know you mean well, but I’m an attorney. I can take care of myself.”

He shook his head. “You’re a young, vulnerable vampire, who’s not even begun to come into her powers yet. There are those who make a sport of hunting people like you. Not to mention, because of how I feel about you, it puts a target on your back.”

“Like that guy down at the bar?” I winked at him. “Was he some big, bad werewolf out to get me? He looked like a dentist in a polo shirt.”

His jaw tightened. “It’s not funny, Abby.”

“I know, Caleb.” I squeezed his ass playfully. “I’ll play nice if you’ll agree to give me a longer leash. I can’t have you hovering all the time, you know?”

His grin surprised me. “Okay. I’ll try my best, but I can’t make any promises. I really do love you, Abby.”

The tenderness in his voice cut me to my core. Was Natalie right that I should never trust a vampire? Resting here with Caleb, it seemed like he was the only one I could trust. I laid my head against his chest, and waited for the sound of his heartbeat.

It never came, but I knew that I’d found a place in there anyway.