Chapter Twelve
ELIZABETH REACHED FOR Lukas as he reached for her, each unbuttoning the other’s shirt, pulling it from the waistband, pushing it off the other’s shoulders.
“The door,” Elizabeth said on a laugh.
Lukas pressed a hot, lingering kiss to her bare shoulder, then moved away to shut the door. On his way back to her, he pulled his arms out of his sleeves and tossed the shirt on the back of the desk chair. She did the same with hers, and they came together, chest to chest, his arms curling around her waist, hers around his neck, as their mouths found one another’s, tasting, licking, stroking.
The kiss turned hot, his taste nectar, the feel of his cool, hard body, like Heaven. He smelled of winter nights and warm fires, and never, never did she want to be parted from this man. How was she ever going to return to being alone?
Lukas pulled back, his gaze soft and sad, as if he’d felt the change in her mood, as if he shared it. “We’ll be together again, Lizzy-mine. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that. You have no idea what will happen.”
He swept her into his arms and deposited her on the bed, following her down, lying halfway over her, his face inches from her own. In the glow of the lamplight, his eyes gleamed with soft blue fire.
“Then I’m going to willfully ignore that fact for now. I’m going to believe that nothing will keep us apart. I’m going to love you tonight. And in a few weeks, after the equinox, after the sorceress has renewed the magic of Vamp City and those of us trapped are free to leave again, I’ll come to you and crawl into your bed, and I will love you again. For the rest of your life.”
She lifted her hands, framing his beloved face. “I’m going to hold you to that.” Her fingers slid up into his hair. “Now love me, my vampire. I need you.”
He smiled the sweetest, sexiest of smiles and dipped his head to her neck, licking and kissing his way slowly up her throat while his hand slid down her chest, cupping one breast, then the other, caressing, tweaking, then moving down, his palm sliding over her abdomen to the waistband of her pants.
And all the while, he rained kisses over her jaw, her cheek, her forehead, her nose.
“Lukas,” she sighed, stroking his shoulders, his neck. The play of muscles beneath her hands delighted her.
His fingers, deft as ever, unbuttoned her pants, unzipped the short fly, then burrowed beneath the waistband of her panties, sliding down into her dampness, into her body.
With a gasp, she arched into his touch, driving his finger deeper. “Lukas.”
“Come for me, baby,” he whispered against her temple, as his finger stroked in and out, his thumb flicking her clitoris. “Come for me.”
“Bite me, Lukas. It felt so good.”
He rose over her slowly, his gaze catching hers, his eyes already white-centered, his fangs elongating as she watched. And all she felt at the sight was a thrill of excitement and anticipation.
Tipping her head to the side, she gave him access to her throat. His eyes crinkling at the corners, he dipped his head, kissed her neck, and sank his fangs into her flesh. As he took the first pull, she cried out at the pleasure, shocked by the orgasm that was already beginning to build low inside her. As his finger moved in and out, his thumb working its magic, his mouth pulling at her neck, she exploded in a fiery shudder of intense, wonderful, pleasure.
As she floated back to Earth, Lukas removed the rest of her clothes and his own. Opening her arms and her thighs, she welcomed him to her.
“Love me, Lukas.”
“Always, Lizzy-mine.” Then he slid into her body, and she rose to meet him as they came together, one, driving each other up, gasping and straining and loving, until release broke over them in a brilliant fragmenting, a blinding blaze of ecstasy, a rapture beyond comprehension.
Finally, they lay together in a tangle of sheets and limbs, exhausted, replete, and thoroughly loved. Tucked tight against Lukas’s chest, Elizabeth drifted toward sleep.
This was the only place in the world that she wanted to be. And it was the one place she couldn’t stay.