Yvette jumped up, the wet fabric chafing against her nipple, reminding her all too painfully of Haven’s touch. Damn, she’d been stupid to let herself be lulled into a false sense of security with him. He hated vampires just as much as his brother did. “Get your facts straight, Wesley. If anybody is using anyone than it’s your brother.”
Haven turned and shot her an acid look. “Look who’s changing her tune. A minute ago you couldn’t get enough of my blood, and now I’m the one who’s using you?”
“She bit you?” Wesley hissed and pulled his stake from his jacket pocket.
“He offered it!” Yvette yelled and glared at Haven. “In fact, he forced me to bite him, because he didn’t think I could restrain myself from attacking any of you.”
Wesley gave his brother an incredulous look. “You gave her your blood? Freely? Who are you? What the hell happened to my brother?”
“Shut up, Wes! If it wasn’t for your stupidity, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.”
“Oh, now it’s my fault that you let her bite you?”
“That’s not what I said! For once, would you please act rationally? Or do I constantly have to dig you out of every mess you get into?”
“So that’s what this is about! Go ahead, blame me for everything! Why did you even try to rescue me if you hate me so much?”
Yvette heard the cracking in Wesley’s voice and recognized the strain he was under. He wouldn’t last much longer.
“I don’t hate you!”
“Yes, you do. You hate me because I couldn’t keep Katie safe.” A long, tense moment passed between the brothers where none of them spoke. Only the creaking of the third cot could be heard, indicating that Kimberly had been awakened by their heated words. Yvette glanced in her direction and noted the confused look on her face, but the girl said nothing.
Then Wesley looked at Yvette and swept an assessing glance over her body. “God, Haven, you want her? How can you do this when she represents everything we despise?”
“I don’t want her.” Haven’s harshly spoken words stung. Even though Yvette knew that she wanted nothing from him, the rejection still hurt her ego.
“Then how do you explain what I just saw? You were two minutes away from fucking her.”
Wesley’s assessment couldn’t have been more accurate. Another minute or two of Haven’s hands on her, and she would have spread her legs for him, not giving a damn about who was watching. Hell, she had completely forgotten where they were.
Haven ran his hand through his thick hair, utter confusion and plain regret skidding over his features. “I don’t understand what got into me.”
Yvette closed her eyes for a moment. A feeding could bring on instant arousal in both the donor and the vampire who was feeding from him. “Wesley, you shouldn’t blame your brother. It’s not his fault. It was merely the side effect of feeding.”
“Side effect?” Haven lashed a glare at her.
Yvette tried to remain unaffected by the suspicion in his voice, steeling herself for his next reaction. “For a self-proclaimed vampire hunter, you know precious little about us.”
“Spit it out, Yvette.” His voice was full of venom now. The passionate man who’d driven her wild had vanished into thin air.
She crossed her arms over her chest and widened her stance, realizing too late that her arms created a shelf on which her breasts rose unimpeded and were presented as if she was offering them to him. Which of course she wasn’t! But it was too late to change her action, otherwise she would draw needless attention to them. When she looked back at Haven, she realized it was for naught anyway: his gaze had already snapped to her breasts, before he forced it back up to her face.
There were times when she wished she were less endowed. Now was one of those moments.
Yvette cleared her throat. “A vampire’s bite induces sexual arousal in the host as well as the vampire.”
“Ah, shit!”
She could only echo the sentiment, but for other reasons. While Haven clearly felt deceived by her, Yvette felt regret that the arousal hadn’t been real. He’d merely reacted to her because of her bite, not because he was attracted to her—whereas her own arousal, while heightened by the bite, had been real. She still remembered the times she’d fed from humans directly—before she’d started on bottled blood—and while she’d sensed the arousal that came during the feeding, she’d never felt anything of this magnitude.