Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gemma had never been so cold. She remembered bits of travel, such as the jarring movement of the horse. She had no idea where she was or whose bed she now slept in. Wait, this wasn’t a bed. What the hell was this? A cot?
Someone had washed her. There was no blood anywhere, and she was in new clothes—a man’s extra-large Renaissance festival shirt. A touch to her side found the knife wound was gone.
Her hand flew to her neck. Nothing to feel there, but she remembered…something. The witch knifed her and she was dying. Then, Skarde’s teeth in her skin. It hadn’t hurt. Had he turned her?
Now she was terrified.
He’d bitten her. A quick touch and…sharp canines.
Oh my freaking God. Was she a vampire?
Skarde eased next to her on the rickety wooden structure. It creaked complaint under the strain of his extra weight. He pushed his damp hair off his forehead. No longer did he wear leather, instead wearing a shirt and regular pants, although not jeans. Brown cotton pants.
“What did you do?” Gemma sat up quickly. Dizziness slammed into her mind and forced her back to a prone position.
“We’re going to get to the panic and the talking part of this. I haven’t allowed myself to go there yet either. But later.” He bit his wrist. “Take my blood.”
“What? No. Eww. Never.”
He held his wrist to her mouth.
When the aroma of his blood registered, she moaned. “I thought we had to drink human blood.”
“The best blood for our kind is from each other.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her teeth hurt. This wasn’t a hunger. It was starvation, as if she hadn’t eaten in months. Skarde rubbed the bleeding rivulets against her lips. A lick…a groan. She latched on, instinct taking over.
As she drank, the dizziness disappeared. The chill vanished. In its place, the warmth of his blood flowing into her mouth and down her throat consumed her. Hormones went wild in her body with an unrelenting force.
Without breaking contact with his wrist, she memorized the details of him. The chiseled planes of his face, the stubble along his jaw, the long dark hair that fell past his shoulders, unbound and curling from a recent wash. Need pounded through her.
“I can give you that too,” he said.
Was he reading her mind? How did he know she wanted sex?
Need for more of his glorious blood warred with the warning in her head. The tone of his voice… Was this the real Skarde or the fake Skarde who could seduce anything?
She released his wrist, pushing it back to him. “I don’t need a pity fuck after you turned me into a… Oh, hell. I can’t believe you did it.” She covered her eyes as she sat up, this time without the woozy sensation.
“That you’ve made the transition to become one of us is a miracle.” He lifted her hand and kissed the palm. “There hasn’t been a new vampire that’s fully made the turn in over a century. You are the most exquisite female of our kind that I’ve ever seen.”
“This is unreal. You shouldn’t have done this. I asked you not to.” He’ll come to hate me. Because he believes in a stupid prophecy. “You and me? We’re done.”
His face darkened. And goddamn if that didn’t excite her. This was Real Skarde. No hiding the genuine emotion.
His fist wrapped in her hair, controlling her head as he loomed above her and leaned in. “We are not done. We’ve barely started. I’ve never waited this long to have what I wanted.” He leaned in to press his face to her arched neck. “I want you in every sense. To taste all of you. To be inside you.”
She ran a finger along his neck, transfixed by the pulsating vein. Her teeth ached. Not all of them, just the front ones. She touched her canines, which were now sharper and longer than before. And more sensitive.
“Those are sexy too.” He pulled his shirt over his head and shimmied out of his pants. Seconds later, naked, he was back over her. He was big. So big. Everywhere.
“Tell me ‘no’ right now. Deny you want me,” he said, voice low.
She tore her gaze off the ink on his lower abdomen. “I lied.”
“When I’m deep inside you, I want you to bite. Right here.” He ran a finger along his neck.
She touched his neck when he pressed over her. Her finger paused to feel the vein’s pulsations. She could actually hear the thud-thud of each heartbeat. “Have you been bitten by another vampire before while doing this?”
“I’ve never had sex with a vampire. I’ve never bitten a human during it.”
“So, I’m your first.” With a small smile she ran her finger, transfixed, down his neck to his collarbone.
“Our senses are heightened compared to a human’s, which makes this more intense.
Let me show you.” Her body bowed up toward him when his mouth touched one of her nipples.
She hadn’t even realized he’d unbuttoned her shirt.
He sucked and rolled her nipple with his tongue.
Nerves detonated from her nipples in waves of sensation more concentrated than anything in the past.
He repeated the sucking and rolling. Noises came out of her from deep in the back of her throat—wild and erotic.
He nibbled with tiny pinpricks of pain, and then he was sucking. The sensation shot straight to her core. “Your blood tastes better than anything I’ve ever tasted.”
“You bit me?” She arched to peek at her chest where he licked every droplet of blood.
His hooded glance was pure wickedness.
She twisted, desperate to have him inside her to ease the escalating demand of her body.
“And I’ll do it again.” He kissed up to her neck and along her jugular.
“This is almost too much. You barely touch me and… Oh, holy Jesus.”
His fingers teased along her core and pressed inside. “When you’re stronger, I’d like to taste your blood straight from your neck. While I’m here.”
She arched upward with a hiss. “Please… Skarde, I need you. Help me.”
Bringing his mouth back to her breasts, he sucked and nipped and licked.
He repeated the actions until she clawed at him.
Then his mouth moved down her abdomen. He reached around with one hand to lift her butt, angling her to his mouth.
When he descended on her, his mouth sucking and tongue penetrating her, she moaned long and hard until the tension building inside her began to sharpen.
“Look at me. This is to take the edge off. Then I’ll show you more.”
“Will there be tossing?”
He chuckled as his mouth returned to her. His hand released her ass to press two fingers inside her, starting a rhythm that mimicked the motions of his tongue, flicking and pushing and swirling.
He was a god. There was simply no other explanation as sensation built inside her.
She bucked up against him. He caught her across her pelvis to anchor her in place.
Her hands dug into the blankets beneath her as every nerve ending lit up. Her mouth fell open and everyone within a mile had to have heard her scream his name. But Skarde didn’t relent. He kept pressing, making her come over and over until her legs shook with weakness.
“How do I make you come that hard?” she asked in a voice that sounded drugged.
“You’re going to bite me. I already told you.” He kissed his way up her abdomen. “I guarantee I’ll come harder than I’ve ever come in my life.”
“You may have to remind me. If anything like that happens again, I’ll forget.”
“It’s going to happen again. You’re going to have to tolerate some tossing. If we continue here, the bed frame will break.” He lifted her. With ease. No grunting like she’d gotten in the past from exes as if she weighed two tons.
He chuckled. “Stop cringing like I’m going to drop you. You weigh nothing.”
“I tried wall sex once, years ago. Absolute disaster. He fell over trying to lift me and hurt his back.”
Her back landed against the wall. Not a slam, but a press as Skarde supported her with his body. “The problem with the wall isn’t my back. I can’t take it slow. The wall is made for hard and fast.”
She bit her lip and moaned. “Yes. That. All of it. Hard, fast, and then I’ll bite. You want it hard, don’t you? I’ve never bitten someone. How do I do it?”
“Damn it,” he whispered. “I want you so fucking bad.” His hand spread her thighs around him. He teased her entrance.
“Then why are waiting? You already did the dirtiest of deeds and made me a vampire like you, which means I’m not fragile. I’ll heal. So, for fuck’s sake…” She wiggled to get him to loosen his grip.
“Feels like this is a point of no return.”
“You’re adorable. I’m pretty sure we passed no return hours ago when you elected to bite me instead of letting me die. I need you inside me. Hard. Fast. Make me scream. Again. I’ve never done it this way before.”
He grunted, his fingers curled into her hips, but he didn’t move.
“Use me,” she begged.
“I’ll never use you, Gemma. That’s all I’ve done before. Use and leave. Not with you.” He pressed a kiss on the side of her neck. “All this is different.” With a barely detectable whisper he added, “Much more complicated.”
“Get out of your head. I need the Skarde who likes to fuck. The one rumors say is a wild sex god.”
He blew out an uneven hiss.
She dug her nails into his arms.
He ducked his head. “Don’t push me. I want to be wild, but you’re tiny, and the first time I have to go slow. You deserve that. The wall makes it so fucking hard to do that and I’m not taking you on the floor. It’s hard and cold.”
She wiggled beneath him, her pelvis gliding across his dick. “I want you so much.”
“I need to be inside you.” Desperation laced his tone and he pressed forward, but only a tiny bit. “Gemma, beautiful, I need you to relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You’re not.” He pressed his thumb against her clit. She released a long moan. With each pass of his thumb, he moved deeper inside.
“You are so big,” she whispered.
“You can do this. Look at me.” She opened her eyes, not realizing she’d shut them.
“Bite me, Skarde.”
He nibbled along her neck and bit. Not a sharp pain, but an erotic prick at the same moment he surged inside her.
His mouth applied suction to her neck as his pelvis rocked, rolling into her in a way that…
Stars. Freaking stars.
“Fast. I need you fast. Friction. Please, Skarde.”
She shifted.
He lifted his head off her neck and moved his hips…in and out. Faster.
“Never been this good,” he said hoarsely.
“Oh my God.” The climax built deep inside. Instinct insisted it was her turn to bite. She pulled his neck to her mouth, kissing sweat off of it. “Are you close?”
“Fuck, yes,” he gritted out.
“Faster.”
He complied, her back hitting the wall with each thrust. The cords of his neck strained.
She could hear the rapid beat of his heart.
It lured. It teased. The need to taste his blood roared in her head more than the need to find release.
She wished she had the ability to be gentle, but biting a moving target wasn’t easy.
She missed the first time. With a noise close to a growl, something she’d never heard from herself before, she grabbed his neck and struck.
The impending orgasm crested inside her as his blood flowed down her throat. She nearly went blind with pleasure.
“Gemma!” he yelled as he thrust so hard he dislodged her mouth from his neck.
Chest heaving, bodies begging for air, they both stilled. She leaned forward and latched onto him again, drinking deep.
His body bowed. He cried out as he pumped his release into her, this time careful not to throw her off his neck. As he relaxed and sagged against her, she hoped he wouldn’t lose his hold on her. She licked the bleeding droplets on his neck, the holes already sealing.
“Is it always this way?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He kissed her cheeks, her eyes, and then her nose before he pulled out of her slowly. He gently moved her back to the cot. “It’s never been this way for me. You should sleep. It’s almost daylight.”