A possessive hand slid over her breast. Instead of pushing it away, she clasped it tighter against her, stimulating the rigid peak of her nipple. The firm little nub felt struck by tiny bolts of delicious lightning as the hand gently rubbed and squeezed her.
A wet tongue lapped at the spot where she'd been bitten. A moment later, the now-warm lips at her throat drifted lower, coasting across her collarbones, raising goosebumps. Mariel reached down, her fingers tangling in soft, silken hair. The scalp beneath was warm against her fingertips. The sensation of life gave her desire a focus. Here was someone who could alleviate the fierce ache building within her.
"Please," she heard herself repeat, though this time for a much different reason. At the back of her head lingered a question: why are you doing this? But the question was easy enough to answer: she had never felt such keen arousal, as though she might die if this passion wasn't sated.
The nightwalker moved between her legs. Its form was large and intimidating, and so was the cock it slid between her damp, silky folds. The nightwalker surged into her in one powerful thrust, and yet Mariel felt only a blinding pleasure that tore a cry from her lips. The nightwalker's length filled her to bursting. Her nipples tightened to diamond hardness. The nightwalker began to thrust into her, rocking her in a sensual rhythm against the floor. She curled her legs greedily around the nightwalker's hips, pulling it down and deeper into her, feeling it reach deep into the core of her.
Take me, take me, she thought, delirious. She'd been pierced as she'd never been pierced before and it still wasn't enough. The lips that seared her breasts only incited more desire in her, more hunger, as though she were becoming a ravenous creature herself…
"Yes."
The whisper across her nipple made her shiver violently. Her body clenched around the thick staff that pierced her. The nightwalker responded by surging into her more powerfully, as though it couldn't control itself. That was a wild thought, that she could inspire such passion from a creature so powerful. Mariel liked it and the image it painted of her. She was having sex with a nightwalker! And it was the best sex of her life! Mentally, she was as aroused as it was possible to be. Her body was a lightning rod for pleasure, greedily gathering up every new sensation. When fingers found her clit and gently stroked it, Mariel convulsed and let out a cry of uninhibited pleasure that she hadn't known she was capable of.
The body atop her gradually slowed and stilled. The lips against her breast glided up to her jawline and the sexual haze began to clear as the nightwalker kissed her there.
"I'm pleased to meet you," it said.
Reason dashed against her like a fierce winter wind. Mariel gasped and struggled, but the nightwalker didn't try to hold her down. Freed, she rolled swiftly across the floor, clutching her opened garments to her body as she did so.
She could just make out the nightwalker's form in the dim lighting, crouching like a hideous monster. But as she watched, it rose to a great height. It possessed the shape of a man, a tall and powerfully built one, the kind that would have turned her head on the streets. He towered above her as he fastened his trousers over his half-hard cock. She couldn't help staring.
My Lord, it mounted me with that. I wanted it. Yet the recrimination didn't come. Hard for it to do so, since her body tingled with remembered pleasure. Instead, Mariel felt only an illicit thrill, as though she'd ridden her horse off a cliff only to land safely in the ocean far below. Or as though she'd raced across the desert by horseback, as naked as the day she'd been born. This was the feeling she'd always wanted to experience.
"Be calm," the nightwalker said. It—his voice was deeper than the Marshal's.
The Marshal!
Mariel scrambled to her feet. "We're being attacked," she blurted, though why she thought a nightwalker would care, she didn't know. "The Marshals are out there, but…"
"I can hear them," he said quietly. "I can smell their blood."
"Clay," she whispered as fear spiked her heart. She worried for him, not to mention without the Marshal protecting her she was a dead woman. She should have been already, considering her present company.
She wished she could see the nightwalker's expression, or even what he looked like. Why hadn't he sucked her dry? Why had he done what he'd done to her and given her such pleasure without fulfilling his own?
"What is your name?"
The question startled her. She thought humans were only food to nightwalkers. Why would he care what her name was? Who named cattle?
"My name is Vellum," he said as she hesitated.
"You're a nightwalker," she whispered.
"I prefer the term vampire." She sensed, rather than saw, the smirk that curled his lips. "Nightwalker sounds so very lonely, don't you think? And at the moment, I am far from lonely." He took a step toward her. "Tell me your name."
Compelled, she couldn’t refuse. "Mariel. Mariel Johnston. Why did you—why didn't you kill me just now? Isn't that what nightwalkers—I mean, vampires, do?"