And just like that, without him even realizing it, Christian was making love to me.
I touched his face, wondering how it was possible to feel this way about Christian Poe. Sex didn’t explain the ache in my heart at the thought of him with anyone else. It didn’t explain the butterflies in my stomach or the need to learn about his past and find out why there was so much pain and loneliness.
He placed a tender kiss in the palm of my hand, and I closed it into a fist, wishing I could keep that kiss forever.
The fire warmed our bodies as the blustering wind whistled through the cracks in the door. I turned away so Christian was flush against my back. He slid his hand down and pleasured me.
I nearly detonated.
When his mouth found the curve of my neck, a compelling urge came over me to bite him again.
“Do it,” I whispered.
“I can’t.”
“Drink me.”
Teetering on the edge, I grabbed his hand and turned his wrist toward my mouth. I only wanted a taste. Just one small drop of what he was feeling in this moment. Right now… with me.
The second I pierced his skin, Christian bit my neck and pumped hard. Our orgasms united, and I cried out his name.
“Mine,” he growled, his arms holding me in their iron grip.
I knocked him onto his back and straddled him, pinning his wrists to the rug. His erection pulsed inside me as he writhed, trying to free his arms.
But he couldn’t.
For the first time, I felt wholly connected to my Vampire heart. The one that beat inside my chest and demanded I listen. Mage light still pulsed through my hands, but another side took over—something wild and dominant. I pulled another moan from him when I rocked my hips again and again.
The northern lights had nothing on the flashes of light I saw in that moment. It was sensory overload. His heat, his skin, his taste, his smell, his thoughts—everything Christian wrapped itself around and inside me.
Another wave of pulses struck me so suddenly that my fangs punched out.
He clenched his fists, the cords of muscle in his neck taut as he turned his head away. “Take everything you want. I’m yours.”
Instead of taking his blood, I rode out my orgasm. His body was enough.
When the pleasure subsided, I sat astride him, suddenly overcome with guilt. Tears slipped down my cheeks.
Christian sat up and wiped them away with his thumbs. “What troubles you? The blood sharing was too much.”
I shook my head, unable to speak.
“Feck me, I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not you.” I swallowed hard and tried to take a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to be forceful—so violent. Pinning you down and all that blood...”
A smile played on his lips. “Jaysus wept, lass. You could strap me to a missile and ride me over the Atlantic if you want.”
He rolled me onto the rug and lay beside me.
Christian tucked a tress of hair behind my ear, his obsidian eyes carrying a warmth I’d never seen. “There’s nothing wrong with what we did. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I like it rough. I like it dangerous. That’s something I never get to have.” He pinched an eyelash off my cheek and looked at it before flicking it away. “I know you’ve never been with a Vampire, but have you ever been with Breed?”
I shook my head.
“It’s not the same as with humans. We have primal needs that are… unique. I can’t do that light-sharing business, and I don’t know if that made it less…”
He sought the word, but I wouldn’t let him have it.
I touched my fingers to his lips. “Don’t.”
He kissed them.
I’d always had an unexplainable attraction to Christian, but if he was just something I needed to forget about the past two months, then the sex should have been enough.
But it wasn’t.
Once again, I was wrestling with emotions that had no logical explanation. Why did I feel compelled to lie beside him and watch the firelight in his eyes? Why did I trust him so completely? What could have happened between us that would have changed my feelings of loathing to love?
He pinched my chin. “After we cuddle, I’ll go empty the bucket of blood.”
I belted out a laugh, and moments later, I completely lost it.
“Do you mind sharing? It doesn’t boost a man’s ego to have a woman laughing at him in bed.”
Which made me laugh even harder. Lying on the pelt of a dead animal could hardly be called a bed. This whole scenario suddenly struck me as so outrageous that I couldn’t help myself. It was sexual, beautiful, intimate, dark—and yet only Christian could top it off with cuddles and buckets of blood.
It was just so us.
That word lingered in my thoughts for too long, and the laughter died in my throat.
“I should have learned my lesson the first time about sweet talk,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head, humor dancing in his eyes. “Nothing.”
I stroked his chin, tugging at the whiskers on his beard.
“Would you rather I shave it?” he asked.
“Why?”
His eyes slanted away tellingly.
I tugged his beard so he’d look at me. “Nothing about you reminds me of him. And if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about him while I’m basking in the afterglow.”
“Duly noted.” His finger trailed down until it slipped between my legs. “You have an attractive fanny. I’d like to have a close-up introduction sometime. Your vein down there is delicious, but there are other things I’d like to taste.”
The thought of it gave me goose bumps. I glanced down at his groin and noticed a mark beneath his coarse hairs. “What is that?”
“My tattoo.”
I flicked my eyes up. “You put your Keystone tattoo in your pubic hair?”
“Did I not say you had to go deep to find it? I’ve been with a lot of women. I can’t exactly have an identifying mark on my body.”
“I’m just surprised you didn’t put it on your dick so you could show how big the bird gets.”
He shivered. “If it’s one place liquid fire doesn’t go, it’s there.”
“So you’d have no problem with a needle on your manly bits?”
“The needle would have hurt, to be sure. But I draw the line at liquid fire.”
Distracted by earlier events, I switched topics. “Do you think they’ll arrest me for killing those men?”
Christian raked his hair back. “Forget about all that. Has anyone ever told you how fetching you are?”
“Don’t do that, Christian. I’m in serious trouble. Maybe not with Viktor, but when the locals find out, they’ll probably bury me alive. What if those two men were in a pack? What if they were friends with a high member of the Council?”
He propped his head in his hand and looked down at me. “I won’t let that happen. You have my word I’ll protect you. Now, can we talk about something besides your death? I’m trying to bask in the afterglow.”
I pinched his dark nipple. “What are other Vampire women like?”