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As her eyes scanned his face, he feared that she saw everything, right down to the core of him. Where his obsession with her was the strongest.

“Marissa, I think I should go to sleep now. You know, rest and all that.”

“Vishous said you came to see me. After Wrath was shot.”

Butch squeezed his lids shut again. His first thought was that he was going to drag his sorry ass out of bed, find his roommate, and beat the guy. Goddamn, V—

“I wasn’t told,” she said. As he looked at her and frowned, she shook her head. “I didn’t know you’d been by until Vishous told me last night. Who did you see when you came? What happened?”

She hadn’t known? “I, ah, a doggen answered the door. After she went upstairs, she said you weren’t receiving and you’d call. When you never did…I wasn’t going to stalk you or something.”

Well, okay…he’d stalked her a little. She’d just never known about it, thank God. Unless of course, V, that loose-lipped fool, had filled her in on that, too. Bastard.

“Butch, I got sick and I needed some time to regroup. But I wanted to see you. That’s why I asked you to come calling when I ran into you back in December. When you said no, I thought…well, you’d lost interest.”

She’d wanted to see him? Had she said that?

“Butch, I wanted to see you.”

Yeah, she had. Twice.

Well, now…didn’t that perk a guy up.

“Shit,” he breathed, meeting her eyes. “Do you have any idea how many times I drove past your house?”

“You did?”

“Practically every night. I was pathetic.” Hell, he still was.

“But you wanted me to leave this room. You were angry to see me here.”

“I was pissed—er, angry because you weren’t wearing a suit. And I assumed you’d gotten roped into being here.” With a shaky hand, he reached out for a lock of her hair. God, it was so soft. “Vishous can be very persuasive. And I didn’t want your compassion or your pity to put you someplace you didn’t want to be.”

“I wanted to be here. I want to be here.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

In the oh-my-God-this-has-to-be-Christmas silence that followed, he struggled to reorder the last six months, to catch up with this reality they’d somehow missed. He wanted her. She wanted him. Was it true?

Felt true. Felt good. Felt…

He let incautious, desperate words fly. “I am pathetic over you, Marissa. Yeah, totally fuc—er…really pathetic. Over you.”

Her pale blue eyes teared up. “Me…too. For you.”

Butch wasn’t even aware of making the big move. But one moment they were separated by air. The next, he was putting his mouth on hers. When she gasped, he pulled back.

“Sorry—”

“No—I—I was just surprised,” she said, eyes on his lips. “I want you to…”

“Okay.” He tilted his head to the side and brushed her mouth. “Come closer to me.”

With a tug on her arm, he eased her onto the bed, then pulled her over so she was lying on top of him. The weight of her was little more than warm air and he loved it, especially as he was surrounded by her blond hair. Putting both hands to her face, he stared up at her.

As her lips parted in a gentle smile just for him, he saw the tips of her fangs. Oh, God, he had to get into her, had to penetrate her in some way, so he leaned up and led with his tongue. She moaned while he licked into her mouth and then they were kissing deep, his hands threading into her hair and cradling the back of her head. He spread his legs and her body eased between them, increasing the pressure where he was hard and thick and hot.

From out of nowhere, a question shot into his mind, one he had no right to ask, one that tripped him up and had him losing his rhythm. He pulled back from her.

“Butch, what is it?”

He stroked her mouth with his thumb, wondering if she’d had a man. In the nine months since he’d kissed her before, had she taken a lover? Maybe had more than one?

“Butch?”

“Nothing,” he said, even as a fierce possessive streak clawed into his chest.

He took her mouth again, and now he kissed her with an ownership he had no right to, one hand shooting down to the small of her back, pressing her into his arousal. He felt this urgent need to stake