I smiled at the thought.
Christian suddenly reached out and touched my face. “Seems like forever since I’ve seen that look.” He scooted closer. “There’s something I can’t get off my mind.”
“What’s that?”
“Fletcher.”
I slanted my eyes away.
“Are you planning to hunt him down?”
“No,” I quickly said, shifting my position.
“You don’t want to see him dead?”
I braved a look. “We’re immortal. I’ll run into him again… eventually. And when that day comes, I’ll be ready. But right now, Keystone is my priority. I’m not letting him ruin the life I’ve built. Not again. He won’t take that from me.”
Christian leaned in so close that his lips brushed against mine. The nearness of him gave me comfort for reasons I couldn’t explain, and a fire smoldered in his black eyes.
I wanted him.
He claimed my lips with a hunger that belied his outward calm.
The absence of touch was cruel, so I scooted closer until he wrapped his arm around me. Christian’s lips were firm and sensual, his tongue stroking against mine with restrained passion.
It shocked me how easy it was with him—how familiar.
His hand swept down my back to my thigh, fingers slipping beneath the string of my bikini bottoms. One snap, and he could tear apart the fabric, but instead he tortured me with his inviting touch. Christian slowly broke the kiss, his whiskers coarse against my skin. I liked the way they felt against my lips—it made me want to scratch my teeth against his jaw. He dragged his mouth to my neck, and when he stroked my artery with his tongue, I desperately clutched him.
Suddenly, a dark memory slithered in my thoughts, and I drew back.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, confusion swimming in his eyes.
I wanted to turn around and face the fire so he couldn’t see my anguish, but instead I wiped a spot of blood that had dried on my wrist. “I’ll never be clean.”
“I can fix that with another pail of water.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” My lip quivered, and I silently cursed myself for letting my emotions take over. “How can you be with me after knowing what he did?”
Fletcher had pleasured himself on more than one occasion, and the few times he climaxed, he’d done it right on me. Christian had to have known, but if not, I didn’t want to verbalize that fact out loud.
With the crook of his finger, he tilted my chin up to look at him. “Your Creator took pleasure in degrading you. But if you allow yourself to feel ashamed about something you had no control over, then he wins. You’re strong. You have the gifts and potential to be a powerful immortal, and Fletcher knows that. I’ve heard a Mage can tell a lot of things from stealing another’s light. He wants you for himself, and that means never showing you what you’re capable of becoming.”
“And what’s that?”
He cupped my face with his hands and stripped me bare with his eyes. “Everything.”
I leaned forward to taste his lips again. So soft and pliant—a contrast from the hard, cruel man I knew him to be.
Christian drew back. “Are you just doing this to remember?”
I softly kissed the corner of his mouth and crawled onto his lap. “No. I’m doing this to forget.”
He sucked in a sharp breath when I licked his earlobe and then nipped it. Christian wasn’t touching me, and my constant craving for his physical affection became unbearable. I needed to feel something besides hate, besides pain.
He gripped my shoulders and held me back. “Don’t do something you’ll regret later. It’s too soon.”
“Stop saying that!” I struck his chest with my fists, my voice broken. “I can’t wait five years to get my life together again. I can’t go on feeling this emptiness that’s growing inside me like a black hole. If I don’t feel something now—something good—I’m going to shatter into a million pieces.”
Christian wrapped his arms around me. “I won’t let you fall apart.”
With those words, he reclaimed my lips.
My fingers were lost in the tangles of his hair, my hips rocking against his. I put away my past so I could savor this moment without regret or fear. Christian’s kiss branded my soul, and though I still wasn’t sure what to believe about our relationship, I knew without a doubt that we’d kissed before. Maybe it happened two months ago or maybe in another lifetime, but my lips had known his.
An invisible connection held me to him, rousing my desire like never before.
He lifted me up with one arm and lowered me onto the enormous bearskin rug. Breathless, I watched as he admired my long legs with a fervent gaze. His fangs were slightly extended, exciting me on a level I’d never known. When his finger trailed up my thigh and stroked the outside of my panties, a soft moan caught in my throat.
Oh God, I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.
“Let me see what’s mine,” he growled, slowly pulling them off.
Christian’s roguish good looks were defined by his midnight eyes and dark hair. As he stripped out of his shirt, I ran my fingers over the whiskers on his jaw and neck. Though I’d teased him numerous times about his beard, I never wanted anything more than to feel the scratch of his jaw down my breasts and thighs. Firelight cast shadows on the sinewy lines of muscle in his chest and biceps. He didn’t doubt himself. He didn’t hesitate or second-guess his actions.
“You’re nervous,” he said. “I can hear your heart racing.”
“Don’t eavesdrop on my heart.”
Taking his time, he crawled over me and hooked one of his fangs through the center of my bra. With a sharp tug, the fabric ripped apart.
I arched my back when his hot lips brushed against my nipple. Watching him, I wasn’t sure if his tongue or fangs excited me more. His mouth hovered above my breast, breath heating my skin while he peeled away my bra and tossed it aside.
Mage light surged to my hands, the sexual energy so intense that it flooded my body.
“Your skin is soft like butter,” he groaned.
A distant part of me wanted to laugh at his analogy, but he intoxicated me with his textured voice. They weren’t honeyed words but ones spoken with gratitude, as if speaking his thoughts aloud.
Christian moved to my other breast, one of his fangs grazing across the peak of my nipple.
I gasped. “Do that again.”
A dark smile touched his lips. “This?”
The second time he did it, I felt the pulse of a gathering orgasm. I was familiar with my Mage sexuality, but my Vampire impulses were new and completely unexplored.
I snapped my arm away when he touched my hand. Though I knew Mage energy wouldn’t hurt a Vampire, I instinctively protected him from my power.
Why was protecting Christian instinctual?
When I reached for his belt, he seized my wrists and straddled me. There was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, and he must have been wondering if I was going to flip out and stake him.
Had Fletcher ruined me?
“I’ll never know unless I do this,” I said.