A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole Page A

horns.
    The infrequent demons who were strangers didn’t exactly line up to come calling at the coven. Even they found Val Hall, their fog-enshrouded home in the bayou, terrifying, with the shrieks echoing within and the constant lightning hovering.
    A few years ago, Emma had finally grasped that she would be alone when yet another cute, perfectly doable human male in one of her night classes had asked her out—for coffee the next afternoon. Emma loathed Starbucks for its very existence.
    She’d realized then that she could never be with a man who was of her own kind, and could never be with most who weren’t. Sooner or later they would discover what she was. The reasons she hadn’t found someone in her life— A matinee . . . ? Dinner and drinks . . . ? A picnic . . . ? —weren’t changing, ergo . . .
    Later she’d “accidentally” bumped into the human just to know what she was missing. Warm touch, appealing masculine scent. She’d realized she was missing a lot.
    And it had hurt.
    Now Emma had a cruel but divinely handsome Lykae who couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. She feared she’d be a sponge for his touch even as she hated him.
    She feared he could make her a beggar for it.
    *  *  *
    â€œWhat if I fall asleep?” she asked, her voice soft, her lightly drawling accent more pronounced.
    â€œFall asleep. Doona care,” Lachlain said, as he kneaded her neck and her slim shoulders.
    She moaned again and her head sank back against his chest. She sounded as if she’d never been touched like this. The utter surrender wasn’t sexual, but he thought she’d give anything for him to continue. She seemed starved for it.
    He remembered days in his clan. Everyone roughhoused, men always found an excuse to touch their women, and if you did something well, you received literally a hundred slaps on the back. Lachlain had spent most hours with his family with a child perched on his shoulders and two bairns dragging on his legs.
    He pictured Emma as a timid little girl growing up in Helvita, the vampire stronghold in Russia. Though gilded with gold, Helvita was damp and dark—he should know, since he’d spent time enough in the dungeon. In fact, she might have been there when he was imprisoned, if she hadn’t already journeyed to New Orleans.
    The vampires who lived there were as cold as their home. They would not touch her with affection—he’d never seen a vampire display affection. If she needed it like this, how had she gone without it?
    He’d suspected she’d been long without a man, but now Lachlain knew that if she had had someone, the man didn’ttouch her nearly enough and she was well rid of him. He recalled how when they’d been in the shower, her tightness and her reactions had made him wonder if she’d ever had a man. But now, as then, he thought it unlikely she was virgin, since not many immortals made it through centuries abstaining. She was just small and, as she’d said, shy.
    Remembering her tight sheath made his cock go painfully hard for it. He lifted her into his lap, turning her side to his chest. She stiffened, no doubt from his shaft throbbing under her arse.
    Urges wracked him. She was wearing the silk that was little more than a string, and the sight of it was even better than his imaginings. He opened his mouth to simply inform her that he was about to stroke his fingers between her legs and then settle her down on his shaft. But before he could, her delicate hands lighted upon his chest, their paleness standing out against his skin. She waited a moment as if testing the waters. When he did nothing about her hands, she rested her face against him, settling in to sleep.
    He drew back his head and frowned down at her, bewildered by this. Was this . . . did she trust him? Trust him not to take her while she slept? Damn it,