Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

If this was death—real, final death—it wasn’t so bad. It was dark and cool, and I could smell freshly mown grass and Ben’s spicy cologne.

I opened my eyes to see an expanse of stars above me, brilliant little pinpricks of light against velvety blue. I was tucked into Ben’s side, my face buried against his chest. His hands were curving around my ass, squeezing lightly, which led me to believe that he was OK. Surely he wouldn’t devote the energy to sleep-groping unless he was a hundred percent.

Probably.

I sat up slowly and looked around. We were still in the tobacco field, which was good . . . right? No one had shown up while we were sleeping to move us to the next level of the Saw killer trap. But we were still in the tobacco field, which meant that Jane didn’t know where we were. That she’d gone to bed at dawn not knowing whether we were safe. And it occurred to me that the idea of causing Jane that sort of worry hurt me.

I would think about what that meant at another time, when I wasn’t pondering how the hell I was going to trek across Half-Moon Hollow to get to Jane’s house. I leaned over Ben, who was still pretty much asleep, and kissed his mouth. He slowly came to life underneath me, moving his hands over my back and moaning softly into my mouth. I nipped his top lip, dragging my teeth across the flesh and sliding my tongue against his.

“We need to get moving,” I told him.

His eyes fluttered open, and he started, like he was still caught in the memory of running from the rising sun. He sat up so quickly I had to roll aside to keep from being head-butted. He covered my body with his and whipped his head around. “What? Why aren’t we little piles of ash?”

“Why are you questioning it? Let’s just be grateful that we’re not little piles of ash,” I teased him. “So we’re not exactly sunproof. We can’t function in sunlight, but we don’t burn. Good for us!”

“It’s kind of like a time-specific narcolepsy,” Ben offered.

“Exactly. And I think we need to get moving before Dr. Hudson and his evil science squad show up to see the results of their experiment.”

“Do we have to leave right now?” he asked, sliding his hands down the cradle of my hips. “We didn’t die. We’re away from the house. This is the quietest, most private place we’ve found in weeks.”

I laughed as Ben bent his head to kiss me. “I’m not going to have sex with you in a tobacco field. That is sad.”

“It’s not exactly the romantic location I had in mind, but . . .” He paused to kiss me again, planting his hand in the dirt above my shoulder so he could arch his hips against mine. Our tongues tangled, all lazy and soft, while his free hand skimmed over my breasts, sliding my shirt ever so slightly up over my belly. I could feel him, hard, between my legs. And we’d been waiting for so long, and I wanted him so much. And if he stopped this time, I might have to test our vulnerability to stakes myself.

OK, fine, I was going to have sex in a tobacco field. It was still less weird than that time I’d made use of a storage closet with Brandon Ross at the haunted house at my high school’s fall carnival. And this time I wouldn’t have anxieties about getting pregnant to the tune of Monster Mash.

Oh, my God, brain, please stop and focus on the kissing.

During my disturbing mental sidetrack, Ben had wriggled my shirt off. His mouth was cool and wet against my neck, and his tongue was doing wondrous little flicks against my jugular. I sighed, dragging my fingers through his hair and pulling at it to keep him there. His hand wandered up to my hips and dragged down my zipper, tracing over a seam that was growing wetter by the second. He applied just a little bit of pressure with his thumb, and I was bowing up off the ground, moaning.

Between those tight little circles and the long, drugging kisses, my orgasm practically sneaked up on me, going from a pleasant throb between my thighs to dropping over the edge, plunging headlong into endless, tingly space in no time at all. It felt different as a vampire. Every sense was heightened. Every sensation was stronger. And I basically ripped Ben’s pants open as I held on to him and rode out the waves of release.

The button popped off and hit me in the eye, and I didn’t even care. Because I got a look at what had been lurking in Ben’s pants and decided that while Gigi might have ended up with a gorgeous Russian vampire . . . she was an idiot.

But I wasn’t about to bring up Ben’s pretty ex-girlfriend/almost-fiancée right now, because talk about a mood killer.

But honestly, she was an idiot.

What was Ben doing with his fingers now?

I threw a leg over his hips and crouched above him, wrapping my hand around him and dragging my fist up and down. He made this great whimpering noise, clutching at my thighs. His fingernails scraped lightly at my hips, snagging my underwear. As I rubbed my thumb over a particularly sensitive spot, he yanked, and the elastic snapped. The shreds of my underwear fluttered to the dirt.

And while I liked that pair a lot, I couldn’t complain, as he let me guide him inside me, full and thick and . . . warm. It had been so long since I’d felt warm I almost didn’t recognize it. But Ben was warm to me, and I bent to kiss him, to slide my tongue along his lips as he moved inside me. He wrapped his arms around me, pinning me to his chest. I couldn’t seem to get close enough. Nothing seemed like enough. It didn’t satisfy this need thrumming through my whole body.

I could feel my fangs drop, scraping against my bottom lip. I dragged them gently across Ben’s throat, making his hips stutter and his head drop back. He moaned, and his own fangs slid out. He planted his feet in the dirt and rose to meet my thrusts as I traced the line of his jugular with my sharp little double canines and bit down. His hands clutched at my back with crushing force, and I felt his fangs sink into my neck. I expected pain, but instead I felt that delicious coil of pressure between my legs spike.

His blood filled my mouth, cool and sweet and savory all at once. It was every fantastic flavor I’d ever tasted, and it was mine. The more I drew into my mouth, the more Ben drank, and this heavy cord of sensation seemed to drag through me.

This orgasm didn’t catch me off guard. I could feel it building from the tips of my toes, tightening my thighs, making my nipples draw into hard points against his chest. He took one last long drink at my neck, and I yelled, feeling every cell inside me expand and contract in one rippling wave.

Ben shouted nonsense against my neck, slumping to the ground underneath me. I laughed, melting on top of him in a boneless heap.

I wasn’t moving.

For a year.