He carried me into a large room at the top of the stairs and put me down next to the bed. A beautiful silk chemise lay across the duvet. It tumbled to the ground in a shower of silk and lace when he pulled back the covers. No sooner had my feet hit the ground than my fingers were at his buttons. His hands tangled in my hair, stripped off my clothes. Urgency overcame me, dissipating my ability to feel nervous. I was nowhere near scared.
He threw me up onto the bed before crawling between my legs. “I love how you lose yourself to me, Reagan,” he murmured. I sighed in delight as his body entered mine. “But when the fear of death is upon you, remember that I would never hurt you. Remember to trust me.”
He began moving, slow and sensual, hitting all the glorious places within. His lips slid across mine, making my eyes flutter closed and my body coil with need. Together we moved, the sensations overwhelming.
“Here we go, my dearest. I love you.”
His bite made me suck air through my teeth. “Holy sh—” I arched back, lost to the feeling. No matter how many times I had felt this sensation, which was a great many at that point, it was always so fantastically overwhelming that I couldn’t think.
The draw on my neck had me wrapping my arms more tightly around his muscular shoulders. I squeezed his hips with my thighs, pulling to get him closer. Deeper. The bed thumped against the wall to his rhythm, fast now, my body so tight I couldn’t stand it.
A wave of pleasure washed over me, making me shake beneath him. He shuddered a moment later, but his mouth didn’t come away from my neck. Instead, he continued to suck, taking more.
Immediately, I began to build again, this situation having happened in the past. Those other times—three, he had said—he’d tried to pull back. Forced himself to slow. This time, though, his suction increased, if anything. Pulling with everything he had.
Another orgasm washed over me, dragging me under. I focused on that pull, on his hot mouth taking more from me. On his body still going, his shudder of release not stopping him. Another climax. Then another. They were coming right on top of each other now. I was probably screaming, or moaning like a banshee, but I couldn’t be bothered to care. Wave after glorious wave of pleasure pounded into me even as he did, each movement better than anything in the world. Vibrating through the fibers of my being.
Like a crack of lightning, a shock of fear hit me, so strong I stopped breathing. My ice magic flooded me, overriding the fog of pleasure and restoring my thoughts to crystal clarity. My fire swirled around it a moment later, the ink-in-water situation, mixed but not fused.
Air condensed around Darius, pulling him off my body. Fire swirled between us. Floated around the room. Frost coated the windows.
“We have found your threshold, my love,” he said softly, hovering above me. A smile spread across his face. “Look at how powerful you are. I doubt anyone has ever bonded someone such as you. I am the luckiest man alive.” A crimson drop fell from his full bottom lip and onto my skin. For some reason, it calmed me.
I cut out the fire and gently lowered him back to my body. Back between my legs. “Oops, my bad.”
“I think, for you, that feeling will get worse.” He kissed me softly. “I had hoped to power through it, but I see now that that will be impossible. You’d throw me out the window without meaning to.”
“Why are you taking such joy in my crazy?”
“Because I know that you will allow me to do this based on your regard for me. No one else would be able to. You’d kill them long before they could complete the first draining.”
“Why you, Darius?” I asked. “Why us? You’ve said it a million times—this shouldn’t be possible. You shouldn’t be able to love anyone, let alone a prickly girl scared of loving you back. And, as said prickly girl, I should die alone with ten cats. I’ve tried everything not to feel this way about you.” I still stopped short of using the L-word. “To ignore the effect you have on me, which is more than just fantastic bed mambo and pretty awesome vampire serum. It’s you, the man at the root of the vampire. I shouldn’t even be able to find him.”
“I don’t know,” he said, staring into my eyes, “but I’m past asking for reasons. I am now allowing the feeling to seep into every part of my soul—and accepting it for the gift it truly is. So many vampires would kill to feel like I do. To reconnect with their humanity. I get that ability, and I will not shy away from it. Not anymore.”
I just sighed and hugged him close, because I wasn’t beyond asking for reasons. Everything in my person, in my past, said not to trust vampires, especially elder vampires. Yet here I was, doing just that. It had to be a recipe for disaster. Had to be. I wasn’t lucky enough to find love, let alone get to keep it. My life wouldn’t allow it.
“Go slow and I’ll run interference with my magic.” I slid my thighs up his hips.
“Here we go again.” He slowly thrust forward. My eyes fluttered closed.
The pull on my neck wasn’t as glorious as normal.
“Can you boost the effect of the serum?” I asked.
“It is as potent as I can make it.” He pulled again, greedy.
My fingers tightened on his shoulders and I struggled for clarity.
He wasn’t being greedy; he was actually being gentler than normal.
Another pull and I tore my hands away from his body and gripped the bed, clenching it to prevent from doing something crazy. It felt like he was killing me. Murdering me.
The suck felt sickly now, dangerous. “Pull out, Darius,” I commanded as I turned my face away and put my energy into lifting the bed off the ground. It wasn’t nearly as hard as it should be. “Pull out of me. This has taken a turn for the worse.”
He did so without hesitation, but kept sucking, draining my life away. The bed wobbled with each pull, my energy sapping.
I squeezed my eyes shut and flexed each muscle, feeling his hardness against me and wanting it in me—and also wanting to rip it off and beat him to death with it.
“Definitely taken a turn for the worse. How much longer?” I panted like a dog in the sun.
His answer was to keep sucking, unmoving while he did so. He must’ve known I was on the edge.
I hummed a little tune as more power flooded me, coming from who knew where. It filled each crevice, eating away the haze from blood loss. Eating away my worry and guilt. All the tense lines of my life smoothed. I was confident I wouldn’t die. Without blood, air, food, water—everything—I still wouldn’t die.
Superman complex, had to be.
I love you, mon ange, he thought.
The ice magic had kicked in enough that I was reading thoughts. This was usually where the uncontrollable rage roared to life, but I didn’t feel it. Instead, I felt a deeper emotion, pulsing way down, in a place I’d sealed up after my mom had died. A place no man had ever occupied before. A squishy, emotional place that filled my body with warmth and light.
Love.