Chapter 4 #3
I wasn’t joking when I said that I refused to complete the bond with her father across the hall. That ritual was sacred, and we wouldn’t have an audience, even by chance.
Running my lips down her throat, I pressed my thigh harder against the wet patch of fabric between her legs. She ground down against it and reached up to grip my hair in her fists.
I had to keep my head. I knew that. But we both deserved a little bit more.
Shoving her T-shirt up, I nuzzled between her breasts before pinching her nipple between my lips. It was small and hard, and my cock jerked as I sucked that little nub before opening my mouth wider to pull in as much as I could get. Gods, she was perfect.
Rosemary gasped as one of my fangs nicked her.
It was an accident. I was trying to be careful and hadn’t meant to break the skin, but the moment I got the taste of her blood, my heart thumped so hard it felt like it was going to break out of my chest. My cock was leaking. My balls were pulled up tight against my body.
If I didn’t stop, I was going to go too far.
Pulling back, I tongued her nipple as I reached down between us. My fingers slid through her folds easily as I found her clitoris and pinched it between my fingers.
It was then that I realized Rosemary wasn’t being quiet. Not even trying. Her moans and mewls were ringing through the room like a beautiful symphony.
I loved it.
I also knew that if she had any idea of the noise she was making, she’d be mortified.
Pulling my hand away, I threw back the blankets.
“What? No,” she complained, her hands tightening in my hair. “No, don’t stop.”
“Shhh,” I whispered back, tugging her hands away. “Roll over.”
It said something about how close she’d been that she rolled onto her belly without a word of protest. Looking at her shirt tucked up around her neck and the tiny pair of panties she was wearing, I nearly lost all sense of resolve.
“Danny,” she whispered, pulling her knees up until her ass was in the air. “Please. Fuck.”
Taking a page out of her book, I fisted my hand in her hair and turned her face down.
“Bite the pillow, sweetheart,” I ordered as my other hand smoothed down her back and pulled her underwear down to her knees.
As soon as she’d done it, I pressed two fingers inside her. Then three.
The pillow muffled the sounds of her moans, but nothing could hide the wetness that dripped down my hand as I worked her. Using my thumb to manipulate her clitoris, I leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“That’s it, Rosie,” I praised, practically choking on my words as her pussy clenched around my fingers. “That’s it. You’re so wet. It’s running down my hand, baby. Getting all over me. I can’t wait to taste that sweet pussy.”
She came with a wail, her face pressed so far into the pillow that I could barely see her.
I gentled the movement of my thumb and kept my fingers inside her, enjoying the pulsing of her inner walls.
The thought of her doing that once I’d gotten my cock inside her made my eyes nearly roll back in my head.
“You,” she gasped as she lifted her head.
She jerked her hips away from my hand and pushed me over, her mouth on my chest as I landed on my back.
A moment later, her hand had slid into my underwear and wrapped around my shaft.
I arched against her without thought, everything in my head growing fuzzy.
“You’re leaking,” she whispered against my nipple, biting down until the zing of pain made my cock jerk in her hand.
Smoothing her hand over the head of my cock, she gathered up the wet and slid it down my shaft, using it to lubricate as she jerked her hand back and forth. It felt incredible. Too incredible. I wanted to be inside her. I needed to be inside her.
Just as I decided that I was an idiot for waiting and began to reach for her hips, her other hand cupped my balls and squeezed.
I came so hard I couldn’t even breathe.
Her hand slid carefully out of my shorts, and if Vampires could’ve died from heart attacks, I would’ve been a goner as I watched her lick the cum off the palm of her hand with a sigh.
“Gods,” I breathed.
Rosemary’s eyes closed slowly in relief. Pressing her cheek against my sternum, she smiled. “That’s better. Not gone, obviously, but I think I can sleep now.”
I was glad she could, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever sleep again. The memory of her pussy clenching around my fingers, her hand around my cock, and the way she’d carefully cleaned off her palm with her tongue would never let me rest.
As she rolled off me and reached for the blankets tangled around our feet, I took her in.
Moonlight just barely filtered in through the window, but I had excellent night vision and could see the way the muscles in her back and shoulders flexed and shifted as she straightened the bedding.
She was sleek and powerful, and it was impossible not to stare.
Muscles like that took a lot of work. I knew the kind of dedication and commitment it required. Even with good genes, no one looked like she did without consistently pushing themselves to the limit.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered, reaching out to help guide her panties back up her thighs.
“I do okay,” she joked, flopping back down so she could tuck a pillow beneath her head. “I look a lot like my mom, in the face at least.”
“Was she tall like you?”
Rosemary shook her head. “Nope. She was a respectable five feet six inches. Pop’s not sure why I’m so tall. I caught up to him when I was thirteen. I know you look like your brothers, but do you look like one of your parents, or are you a mixture of both?”
“I’m built like my dad and have his coloring. My mom’s blonde, but I have her eyes.”
“Blonde hair and brown eyes?” Rosemary said with a grin. She whistled softly. “That’s a good combo. When I was little, I always thought that brown eyes and blonde hair were so cool. Or brown hair with blue eyes.”
I let out a breath of laughter. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “Very unique.” She snorted.
“Are you fucking with me?”
“I’m not,” she wheezed as she laughed. “I really thought that. I was a teenager when I realized that my green eyes were way more unique than Jacy Herbert’s brown hair and blue eyes.”
“Ah. Jacy Herbert, huh?”
“Mean girl extraordinaire.” Rosemary grimaced, pulling the blankets up around her neck.
“She wanted all of us to believe she was some special species, but in reality, she was just a little asshole because her mom was an asshole and probably her grandma too. Just passing down the assholery willy-nilly and making the rest of us pay for it.”
“What assholes,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face.
“I know, right?” she said, widening her eyes at me. “But it all worked out in the end. Last I heard, Jacy’s husband is a philandering douche, while I have a mate who literally can’t touch any other women. I win.”
I smiled and found her in the bedding, sliding my hand over the bare skin at her waist where her T-shirt had ridden up.
“Now I sound like an asshole,” she complained, blowing a little piece of hair off her face.
“But to be fair, I hoped for a redemption arc for Jacy. She just never had one. She’s still just as bitchy as the day in third grade that she called me an ogre and made the rest of the class do it too.
No one talked to me for a week. Literally. They pretended like I wasn’t there.”
“Cunt,” I replied. “Fuck Jacy Herbert.”
“Exactly.” She grinned at me, the little dimple in her cheek winking in and out of sight. She yawned, one of her hands sliding out of the blankets to cover her mouth.
“We should get some sleep.” I stretched out my legs and remembered too late that there wasn’t enough room. My feet hit the footboard with a thump that startled me and made Rosemary giggle. My lips tipped up at the sound, even though I knew I was going to have an epically shitty night of sleep.
“I’ll teach you the trick,” Rosemary announced. Without warning, she yanked the pillow out from under my head and scooted across the bed. “Come on.”
I followed her toward the edge and watched as she carefully set our pillows side-by-side but slightly overlapping to fit in the corner.
“We’ll have to sleep close, but if you lie diagonally, there should be more leg room.” Lying down, she patted my pillow. “Try it.”
Moving in next to her, I lay down on my side and stretched my legs out. The bed still wasn’t quite long enough, but by shifting a little—
“Yep, see? Even if it’s still a little short, you can at least hang your feet off the edge. Better?”
“Much,” I agreed, wrapping my arm around her waist.
Rosemary turned over so her back was to me and scooted until her ass was tucked into my lap. Lifting her top leg, she cocked her knee out, and I immediately filled the space behind it with my own.
“Okay?” I asked, the scent of her hair making my chest clench. The heat had mellowed to a bearable simmer, but I knew it was a temporary reprieve.
“Yep,” she replied, her voice already a little groggy.
I lay there thinking about the events that had led us together, and beyond that, the lives that had prepared us for the moment we met.
Outside factors meant that the beginning of our life together wouldn’t be easy.
Always in the back of my mind was the knowledge that somewhere out there were humans searching for my mate—but inside that room?
Our relationship was progressing in a way that I’d never have imagined in a hundred lifetimes.
Rosemary wasn’t afraid of this thing between us that was completely out of our control.
She didn’t shy away from it. She didn’t question it.
She accepted it. Accepted me, just like that.
I’d heard the stories, and I’d watched my brothers as they’d struggled to find a way forward with their mates.
Beau and Reese had cemented the bond very quickly, but had barely tolerated each other.
Ambrose and Lucy had felt the attraction from the beginning, but she’d been pretty reluctant for what felt like a long time about tying her immortal life to a Vampire she’d just met.
Because that’s what Rosemary would get from me.
Beyond our relationship and the children we made together, she also received immortality.
Well, both of us did. As it stood now, I was set to live a very long life—had lived a very long life—and it was very hard to kill me.
But once we’d cemented the bond? Only beheading would end either of our lives.
We needed to complete the bond, and we needed to do it quickly. I wanted to make it special. Memorable. But with every second that passed—especially in the quiet of the night when Rosemary let out a quiet snuffle and her hand found mine—silent panic seemed to build in my chest.
Because until we completed the bond, my mate was vulnerable.