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very
sharp directly under the soft flesh of her chin. In the heavy press of bodies,
she could barely detect Daniel’s scent.
    “You’re right,” he whispered. “And now I’ve caught you.”
    They were crushed together in the crowd, and in the midst of
the cheering and screaming no one could hear them speak to each other. He
pressed close to her back, and his heartbeat was loud in her ears.
    “Is that my hairpin?” she murmured, striving to be
nonchalant. “How kind of you to bring it back to me.”
    “I’ll do that and more besides,” he promised, laying one
heavy hand on her hip.
    The crowd was pressed so hard around them that she could not
have moved, or indeed lifted a hand against him. Instead, she had to stand as
firmly as she could while his hand traveled from her hip up to her waist. Her
back was pressed flat against his chest, and his cock was blunt and hard
against her soft flesh. He caressed her side slowly, making her squirm. He
cupped her breast through the fabric of her gown, brushing her nipple with an
insulting slowness and attention.
    “You ache for me,” he murmured in her ear. “You would let me
take you here.”
    She made no response as he bit at her earlobe, teasing
nibbles that nonetheless showed her how very sharp his teeth were.
    “You’re teasing me,” she said, unable to keep the huskiness
out of her voice. “Have done, Daniel.”
    He pressed closer against her. The golden hairpin never
wavered against her tender flesh, and he dragged it down the elegant line of
her neck, just lightly enough to avoid drawing blood. He didn’t stop until it
was directly over the great vein in her throat, where stolen blood ran hot and
thick through her. She shuddered hard against him.
    “Do it,” she hissed, and she no longer knew if it was a plea
or a demand.
    He started to say something, but then the crowd lurched,
opening up before her, and almost against her will, she pitched forward. For a
moment, Genevieve paused, dazed, then she was off, darting through the crowd.
When she spared a glance over her shoulder, Daniel was trapped again in the
press of bodies. For a moment, she saw his face, dark and furious, before the
crowd swallowed him again.
    Her hand sought the scratch at her throat, raw almost to the
point of bleeding and just beginning to throb. She dashed at it with the heel
of her hand, knowing that it would stop bleeding soon enough, and she darted
into one of the narrow alleys.
    Genevieve stumbled into a couple kissing in darkened
doorways, swearing as they turned to look at her. They wore ragged skirts that
were hiked up to their thighs, marking them as two of the city’s many
prostitutes. Genevieve could see that their show of passion was for no one
except themselves, and when she was less in a hurry, she would have liked to
stop and speak with them, perhaps to buy them a drink and spend the night. As
it was, she knew that Daniel was likely hot on her trail.
    “Are you in trouble?” one girl said, and Genevieve was
warmed by the concern in her voice.
    “A man,” Genevieve agreed. “He’s chasing me.”
    “Come here, we can hide you…” one woman began, but she
yelped instead when Genevieve caught her up in her arms.
    The woman’s body was warm and soft from her lover’s embrace,
and Genevieve pressed her close. The woman’s scent would mask her own, and
Genevieve chuckled at her own cleverness.
    “Thank you,” she whispered, pressing a coin into the woman’s
hand, and with a leap and a grab, she pulled herself into the low window above
the doorway where the prostitutes stood.
    Not a minute later, Daniel came around the corner, sparing
only a single glance for the women who called invitations to him from the
doorway. Genevieve held her breath, waiting to see if she would be found out.
    “Did you see a woman come by here?” Daniel demanded. “Short,
with golden hair. She was wearing a cloak and a green dress underneath it.”
    “Oh come on, you don’t need her