She tasted like sweat, and it was the sweetest, most erotic flavor to ever hit his tongue.

His fangs extended to pin-prick sharpness.

"Fuck, Gray!"

She wrenched free, turned in his grasp and slapped him hard in the face with the palm of her hand.

It felt like the brush of a butterfly's wings. That's how gone he was-beside himself. Hunger like he'd never known-predatory desire like he'd never known-coursed through his blood. The need was insatiable and he was unstoppable. He moved forward, struck again at her neck and this time made contact.

Dillon sucked in air, gripped his shoulders hard, painfully hard, but she didn't push him away. He knew she could-knew she was stronger than him by a thousand.

Blood, delectable blood snaked down his throat, and as it did he heard her moan, felt her nipples-naked and cool-grow hard against his chest. Oh shit, he wanted to fuck her senseless. His head dropped further, his fangs plunging deeper into her skin until he could do nothing but drink, drink and lap at her skin with his tongue.

"Fuck," she cried out, her nails digging into his skin. "Fuck!" And then she was slapping him. Slapping his face, his cheek, over and over as she ground her hips against his.

It only made him drink harder, deeper.

She knew her effect on him.

He knew she knew it.

Suddenly, he stilled, stopped feeding, his mind racing. But how did he know it? It wasn't in her head. The thoughts, the silent cries of need, the ever present push to keep going, harder, faster, deeper, that he'd heard in the heads of every female he'd ever bedded.

The world, the moment, once wide and fever-pitched, shrunk down to a pinprick. He rocketed back, his fangs pulling out of her skin in one clean movement. What the hell was going on here? His breath coming in heavy gasps, he wiped the blood from his mouth and stared at her.

She grinned at him, her breathing normal-her eyes clear, not glazed with passion. "You have a very nice set there, Impure. Sharp. Thick. Got the job done and then some."

She was unaffected. Completely and utterly. And he wanted to rage at her about it, force her to admit her attraction to him, but there was something far more worrisome on his heart at that moment. Eyes narrowed, completely uncaring of his nude frame and heavy cock, he said, "I can't hear you."

She turned away, grabbed a tank top and threw it on. "No worries. The buzzing will wear off in a moment. It's my blood. Pure, powerful-"

"No." He shook his head. She had to be thinking. Right now she had to have some thought in her head. But he was picking up nothing. She was a blank screen.

It was impossible.

Her eyes narrowed on him. "What's wrong with you?"

Did he tell her? Did he share his concern and ask her for a probable answer to the mystery? His head cocked, his gaze took in her fine features, cat eyes and firm set of her mouth. She seemed way too closed and he wasn't in a very trusting mood. Until he figured out the reason for this blip in his gift himself, he wasn't about to share it with the class.

"Maybe you need to go lie down," she said, nodding toward the door. Her bedroom door, he now realized. "Get some sleep."

Her bedroom. His gaze moved around the room. White walls, white bed, white, white, white except for the small stuffed animal wedged in between her pillows. A cat, or some kind of wild feline, he couldn't tell.

"Your room's upstairs," she said, her voice tearing him from the bed, from the odd plaything among all that virginal white. "It's right next to the bathroom."

"Yeah," he said. "Sure." Then headed for the door.

"And when you wake up," she called after him, "all this-everything that's happened--will have been just a bad dream."

His hand closed around the doorknob.

"And I mean, everything."

Slowly, he glanced over his shoulder. Dillon stood there in a black tank and jeans, her hair a little wild, her eyes trained on him-her thoughts a mystery. She looked hard, mean, insensitive and untouchable, and if Gray would have allowed himself to sink back into hunter mode, he'd have been all over that. Again.

"You understand, right?" she said, dropping her chin, her eyes narrowing. "You get it?"

"Get what, D?" he said with barely restrained bitterness.

She shrugged. "You know. It was as close as I'm ever going to get to Sara."

He stared at her. For one very long, agonizing moment. It stung. Her words. Stung like a motherfucker, and instead of wanting to walk out of the room, it made the newly unleashed predator in him want to prove her words a lie. But he was tired, tired of getting dicked around, and so he did it-turned and walked out. He walked down the hall, up the stairs, past the bathroom still heavy with steam and into the bedroom that supposedly belonged to him. He sank down on the mattress and prepared to wait. A minute, an hour, however long it took for her to forget that he existed so he could get the fuck out of Dodge and back where he belonged.

Where he had always belonged.