Hunted Blood: A Love Triangle Vampire Romance (Beautiful Innocence Book 2)

Chapter 13 – Lorianna

Luke’s mouth moves against mine in a frenzy of passion that burns so hot I break out in a sweat. Even compared to the other times he’s kissed me, he’s never seemed to want me so badly. His lips are tender but also demanding, like he’s fighting an animal inside himself to just show me everything he feels but can’t express through words.

We’re both shaking like we survived the end of the world. Sometimes, that’s exactly how it feels. Vampires and hunters stormed into my life, destroying everything I knew, and Luke is a big part of that. I’m terrified of him hurting me again, but I’m also terrified of losing him. He’s been such a steady, reassuring, protective presence in my life these past few weeks since we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend, and the shock of losing that has been just as hard as his betrayal and my broken heart.

Right here, right now, Luke kisses all those fears away one by one. And I let him. I wish he would talk to me more about Ivan, more about the pain he’s in, because I feel it, too. That bleeding hole right in the middle of my chest, where Dad’s love and light used to be. It’s gone, and I’m in a tailspin without him, finding anchor with Luke.

I get it that he doesn’t want to talk. I’ve done so much thinking over the past two days that my head hurts, and at times, I’m just more confused than where I started out. I deserve a few hours of peace, a break from reality.

I finally just want to let go for as long as Luke will let me.

His teeth graze my lip, and I moan into his mouth, letting him in. He could devour me whole, but I’ve been through way too fucking much to let him take everything. We’ll talk later, once we’ve blown off some steam. It will take more than one conversation for him to fully rebuild my trust in him.

But this is a step. One that makes my heart beat with furious hope; I don’t want to let go. Not again. As Luke’s mouth moves against mine, my mind starts to shut off, and my body turns on. I don’t want to think. I just want to be, and I want to be with Luke.

Everything else can come later. After we’ve had a moment of rest, we can figure out how we can pick up the pieces.

If we’re able to.

I fall completely into Luke’s kiss, letting him push me onto the bed. His nose nudges into mine, and his hot breath tickles my face in the sparse moments when one of us needs air, but as soon as we gasp for another lungful, we’re right back at it again. Our mouths moving as if we’d sooner die than be apart again.

Luke might love me, and fuck, if it wasn’t for my complicated feelings about Alex, I might say I even love Luke, too. I used to be crazy about him—madly in love, even. I loved him to death and was just waiting for the right moment to give him my heart and all of me.

And then everything changed.

I can’t tell him my true feelings until I know I can trust him again. Because even if he’s spilled out some of his guts to me, I know it’s not everything.

Tonight, I don’t expect everything. And just because I let his hands roam my body, sending shivers through me, doesn’t mean I’m ready to get back together.

I just want to break away from the world.

His hands tremble as they explore, gently brushing down my chest and my breasts to my stomach. Every touch is feather-light, but it stokes the flames that always burn whenever Luke is near. During the good times and the bad times, I’ve wanted him, and now is no different. My fingers curl beneath Luke’s shirt, and I lift it enough to run my hands along the muscular planes of his abdomen. He lets me drag it up to his chest, then he pulls away just to look at me.

His hazel eyes seem almost amber in the dull light of the moon, and a couple strands of his long hair have freed from his bun to tangle around his face. Everything about him is perfect – his big chin, his narrow nose, a neck that I could drench in an endless stream of kisses if I could ever get Luke to sit down long enough to let me.

Those eyes… they rock into my soul, connecting with me on the deepest level. The way he looks at me right now, I know without a doubt that all his feelings are real.

Everything he’s told me, everything he feels, he’s not holding back anymore.

“Lori, I love you.” He pauses, like he’s expecting a response, and I open my mouth to say something, anything, even if it’s just an explanation for why. But he places a finger over my lips to shush me. “You don’t need to say it back, not yet. I just want you to know. I need you to know.”

Still, the glow of his love dims beneath the slightest shadow of hurt. I feel awful that I can’t return those words. A few days ago, I would have without hesitation. I loved him so much my heart couldn’t contain it all, and I wish I still felt that way. The glow of my love is still there, shattered into a million sterling pieces, but it has to be put back together again. As much as I believe he’s being honest right now, he’s fooled me before, and it’s too soon to return that kind of trust.

I wrap my arms around his neck and bring his mouth back to mine to show him that it’s not that I don’t love him or not that I couldn’t. I’m just afraid, afraid of everything he makes me feel. He matches every movement of my lips, every sigh and groan. The desire is so real it hurts, and I want to believe the emotions are, too.

Even if I can’t say it yet, I want him to feel what I do. Everything I can’t say. I want him to feel the hope, the blossom that he’s planted tonight. That maybe, just maybe, we could go back to where things were.

I finish pulling Luke’s shirt off, leaving him topless. His torso is toned, and a few faint scars pepper his sexy, athletic body. I trace one scar running through his six-pack. He shivers beneath my touch, watching me follow the thin white line through the valleys in his muscles.

Luke takes my hand in his and brings it up to kiss my wrist before locking eyes with mine again. “I’ll tell you the story of every single one, babe, if you want.”

I tilt my head, blushing. “How’d you know that was what I wanted?”

“I can see the curiosity all over you. It’s hot.”

His pelvic muscles tense as I move further south, exploring the smooth expanse of skin with teasing fingers. It’s like uncovering an unknown landscape—thrilling and full of secrets. Luke’s breathing becomes ragged when I reach that incredible, hot V between his hips down to his groin, where his bulge strains against his cargo pants.

“You’re sexy, too.” My cheeks burn, knowing he’s watching me check him out. “I want to see all of you.”

For our whole relationship, Luke has given me all the pleasure, rarely taking anything in return. I’ve felt him through his pants, but never in the flesh. Luke groans when my fingers toy with the button, and his firm hands grip my breasts through my shirt. I gasp, pushing up into his hands.

“Not today, babe. Let me focus on you.”

Just as I get the button undone, he tugs my shirt over my head, and his eyes go dark with lust the moment he makes contact with my bare skin. I find myself leaning into his caresses, trembling beneath his rough, powerful hands and the trails of heat they leave wherever they go. Silently, I beg for more. He makes me feel alive in the most impossible ways, and I can’t get enough. I’ve never been able to get enough.

Luke reaches under me and unhooks my bra, and the next instant, he’s throwing it away. Before I can fully protest that he’s kept me from taking him out of his pants, his hands are already on my bare breasts. The shock of pleasure surprises me, and I jam my head back into the bed with a groan. My nipples are already hard beneath his firm and sure touch. He knows exactly what I want, even without me saying it, and he seals it all with a searing kiss.

Every flick of his fingers against my sensitive breasts makes me descend a little bit deeper into madness. My hand travels again to his groin, fisting at his boxers through his zipper. The groan he makes is so erotic my thighs quiver with need, but Luke’s hand finds mine and reluctantly takes it away. We’re gasping when we finally pull apart our kiss, dizzy for air.

“Why won’t you let me touch you?” I sigh.

He kisses down my neck, my bare chest, leaving my skin sizzling in his wake. I know he’s trying to distract me when his tongue drags down my stomach and kisses my belly button, and I let him. If it’s not what he wants, fine.

If our relationship lives for another day, I’ll press him for the truth later.

“I’m going to make you feel so fucking good. Wanna make you forget about the rest of the shit in the world,” he mutters between kisses and licks on my bare body.

He kisses lower, and I shiver when he reaches the button of my jeans and looks up at me with eyes so dark with hunger I almost want to give him everything. “I’m going to claim all of you one day. I’ll make you mine completely. But not tonight.”

It’s a promise, now hanging heavy in the air between us.

And I fully believe him.

His words awaken something in me, a need that I’ve felt for him since the first time he kissed me, the want to experience everything. But there’s still a spark of hesitation, because don’t I also want that with Alex? It’s the whole reason I’ve held off from going all the way with Luke; it didn’t feel right so long as I still wanted Alex.

If anything, I want Alex more than before. Not only does it seem like he and I could be possible now that I’ve fallen asleep in his arms and have a better idea of how he feels about me, but it felt like he wanted us to become something, too.

I’m more confused about my feelings for Luke and Alex than I ever have been before.

He unbuttons me and works my jeans off my hips, bringing them all the way down my legs and throwing them away into the darkness. Luke buries his head between my thighs, pressing his mouth right over my clit through my panties.

I gasp and push up into him. “Luke!”

“You smell amazing. I bet you taste even better.”

He hooks his fingers around my panties and pulls them down and away, baring me to him. I can feel how wet I am, sopping and needy, my whole body burning like I’m on fire just from him seeing more of me. All of me. In a sudden bout of shyness, I try to close my legs so he can’t see.

“Don’t do that, you’re gorgeous.”

His firm hands wrap around my thighs and push my legs up so he can bring his face down completely into me, planting sweet, gentle kisses on the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top of my most secret areas.

A rush of sensation rages through me, and I groan, rolling my hips into him. “Oh…”

“Does that feel good?”

“Yes,” I moan. “More, please.”

Luke’s tongue swirls, slow, with his lips working me lovingly, building up the tendrils of heat deep into the core of my being. I sink into the feeling, letting Luke whisk me away into an ocean of pleasure. Like this, it’s not hard to remember a time I loved him fully and truly, to see how we could bridge that gap and learn how to love him that way again.

His tongue flicks and swirls down my slit and then plunges deeper into my folds, awakening a thousand different sensations that I have imagined but could never truly understand until this moment. Heat rages into an inferno in the center of my being, crashing through me and threatening to spill out of every cell of my body and burn me to ashes. My thighs quiver around Luke’s head, and my hands claw at the sheet, searching for anything to keep me grounded.

Everything goes white, and I’m panting in the aftermath. “Fuck.”

Luke chuckles against my heat. “You came so fast, Lori. Let’s see if I can get you to go again.”

My cheeks burn. “Is that possible?”

My inner walls clench and ache at the suggestion, desperate to have something inside them. Luke gives me a wicked grin. “Fuck yes, it is.”

It’s like he can read my mind. He slowly inserts a finger into me, and my mouth opens in a prolonged gasp as my inner walls part to let him in, then squeeze as if to say this feels fucking amazing, you’re never leaving.

“Oh, Luke…” I sigh and lift my hips into his hand and face.

I clench around Luke, but if anything, that seems to make him want me more. He curls his finger up, caressing inside me just as gently as everywhere else. He douses me in kisses across my thighs and my opening, putting every nerve in that part of my body into overdrive. I rise from the sheets, my hands clawing at his scalp and pushing him into me. The heat builds higher and higher, to the point that I’m shaking like I’m about to explode.

I’m no longer in my body. It’s not me and Luke in this bed, but we’re in another plane together, rising above the world and forgetting everything else. Just the two of us, no vampires, no deaths, nothing. We never broke up, my world was never shattered, and we’re just at peace.

Luke pushes his fingers a little bit farther up, repeating those same perfect motions with his tongue and hands. He pushes me higher and higher until I’m finally falling off the edge again. The inferno inside me explodes into another thunderous finale, and I lurch forward, grasping him with a cry so high-pitched it could wake the dead.

I cover my own mouth as I moan, afraid my noises will wake up my aunts, but I’m too numbed by the tsunami of pleasure raging inside me to do anything else. By the time I collapse back against the bed, Luke is kissing his way up my stomach and across my breastbone with a smug look on his face.

He finds my mouth again, and I wrap my arms around him. It feels like every cell in my body is burnt out and exhausted, like I ran a fucking marathon. “Oh my god, Luke, that felt incredible.”

“Sounded like it,” he whispers against my lips, and his confidence just makes me shiver. “I can’t wait to have you making those sounds again.”

His lips are soft against mine, but I can still feel the raging need inside every burning touch. His hips grind against my leg just slightly before he adjusts, then kisses me on the forehead and rolls us both onto our sides. He brings the sheets and blankets up over us and snuggles into me, his powerful arms flattening me against him.

He puts his arm over my shoulders and brings my head to his chest. His heart thuds into my ear, and a smile curls my lips as he kisses my neck and ear, whispering things that I’m too exhausted to hear. I just know that so long as he’s here with me, I’ll be safe.