Kiss of Crimson by Samantha Coville (best love story novels in english txt) 📕

grin and a slap on the back as he let me inside, the two guys next in line murmuring their displeasure.

The smell inside was repugnant. This wasn’t like the club I’d taken Eloise to. That was a place of dancing and drinks and picking up hot dates.

This place. It was where vampires could let loose in more ways than one. The stench of sweat, blood, and sex hung thick in the air. Flashing lights of various colors made it hard to see even with an improved eternal’s vision. Bodies pulsed on the dance floor like an ocean of depraved desire.

I found a couch and dropped onto it, ignoring the couple on the opposite couch. They were in a world of their own as the man brushed his fangs against her neck. Vampire blood was foul to the taste, but the thrill of a bite still attracted some young vampires.

I groaned and motioned for a glass of blood. I handed my card to the pretty woman who brought me a cup of cow blood. It would be disappointing compared to Madame Leona’s samplings, but it was the only thing the club could legally sell.

Sipping at my glass, I contented myself to watch the crowd. But the more I watched… the more I missed her. There was an emptiness in the whole thing.

I hadn’t felt something like that in literal decades.

There were other feelings too.

A hate for Leona. That woman had seen through me. But could I blame her? There was a twinge of admiration for the woman at the same time. She was fierce. Fearless in front of a vampire.

Where would things go from here? If things went right, Madame Leona would be off the market sooner rather than later. But what would become of Eloise?

I was pulled from my thoughts by a woman suddenly jumping over the back of the couch I was sitting on and plopping herself next to me with ease.

I tensed.

“Aw, that’s not the sort of reaction a girl wants from a guy.”

Evangeline’s fake pout made me uneasy. What also made me uneasy was how little of her body she was leaving to the imagination in her outfit.

She was wearing a tight-fitting, cherry red spandex dress. Her hair flowed around her bare shoulders, the tops of her breasts begging me to look. I did not.

And her skirt. It was riding up, nearly about to give me a full view of her nether area as her legs rested on my lap. Her heels were sparkling daggers.

I pushed her legs off me to avoid any show. She grumbled but pulled out a black lipstick and a compact mirror from her purse. She puckered up and applied a fresh coat of black before stuffing it all away and biting her newly painted lip with one fang.

“How are things going with your little extra credit project? What was her name? Eloise?”

The name dripped off her tongue like venom. She was taunting me.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I gritted my teeth.

Evangeline shifted herself closer to me and purred in my ear, her hand on my shoulder. “So not well at all then. Poor Arden, was the precious little angel too much for you?”

I didn’t respond. I focused instead on the dark contents of my cup.

Evangeline bit my earlobe and I tried my best to not give her a reaction. But she knew just how to press my buttons.

“I guess Jardin will have to put me on the mission and I’ll just chop the girl up into pieces myself.”

I threw my glass of blood onto the floor, letting it shatter. In one swift motion, I rose from the couch and dragged Evangeline to the nearby wall, my hand around her neck, holding her so she stood on her tiptoes.

Her hands were on my hand, making sure she had at least a finger of breathing room as I squeezed.

She gasped for breath, a smile beginning to spread on her face as her eyes studied me closely.

“Maybe you’re not quite the pansy I mistook you for. Maybe there is a man in there.”

My mind blacked out. I didn’t have any plan for what I was about to. I just had to stop it. All of it.

I had to stop Evangeline from running her mouth and grinding my nerves raw.

I had to stop the thoughts of Eloise filling my head. Her eyes. Her laugh. The gentle touch of her hand.

My mouth crashed against Evangeline’s. She didn’t seem at all surprised as she kissed back with an equal amount of force.

My grip on her throat didn’t lessen, but her hands began to touch all over my body. One hand in my hair. One hand roving over my chest.

Her tongue slipped into my mouth, and she let out a moan.

I pulled away, and my breath heaved. Evangeline’s chest rose and fell rapidly, her grin inviting me in for more.

I released her, much to her disappointment.

“I have to get back to work.”

Evangeline pouted again, and I sneered in disgust. “At least you know now that you don’t need your little mortal in order to have a good time, huh?”

As I slipped past vampire couples to leave the club, I found myself wishing the sentiment were true.

Kissing Evangeline was supposed to help get Eloise out of my brain.

All it had done was etch her ever more permanently there.

Thirteen

Eloise

"Did you find the dress?" My hands shook in my lap as Jewel peeped her head around the door and into my room. My makeup had already been done for an hour and my hair an hour before that. I had been waiting anxiously, staring at my blood-red lipstick and my eyelids carefully shadowed in smokey hues. My hair was pinned up in a tightly braided updo. Loose curls hung gently around my cheeks, framing my face.

Jewel nodded her head. But unlike her usual demeanor, which was quiet and huddled into the smallest version of herself that she could, this time she was bright and