Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sunset was only hours away. Elena sensed the time in her body, in the blood flowing to her muscles, filling her with more energy by the second. She leapt out of bed, ready to pull on clothes and get back to her territory. The sun wasn’t nearly as strong in the spring; she’d be fine in the car if she took precautions.
“Where are you going?” Zuri’s voice was low and alluring, but Elena didn’t let it seep into her bones where it would obscure her judgment. “We can’t leave until sunset,” she added as if it was Elena’s first day on Earth.
Without looking back at her, Elena opened a dresser drawer, on the hunt for something clean. She couldn’t trust herself not to be tempted by the two nude bodies strewn over each other on Zuri’s bed. She had too much to get back to. Too much to figure out. To avenge.
She had to go.
“Maybe you should get some rest before we leave,” Marisol suggested, tone sweet but voice hoarse. An addictive combination.
No. She had to focus. She’d already lost so much time. Had it been a few days? A week? Time had always been harder to track when she was in Zuri’s home.
The mattress squeaked under shifting weight and Elena’s traitorous body wanted to look. To see.
“She doesn’t want to sleep,” Zuri whispered, and Elena was sure the soft words had landed on the column of Marisol’s neck. “Lying down too long makes her feel like she’s dead.”
Lips grazed hot skin and a spike of norepinephrine and serotonin filled the room. Elena stopped rummaging in the drawer.
“Shall we make her feel so very alive?” Zuri teased and Marisol sighed and Elena couldn’t talk herself out of turning her attention back to them.
Zuri was lying behind Marisol, her hand was wandering over Marisol’s trembling belly. Holding her like the painting Elena had in her Venice estate: Cleopatra biting a lover. Zuri knew exactly what the pose would do to her.
Zuri’s teeth scraped over Marisol’s neck and Elena felt the artery as if it was beating against her own tongue. Fuck. Why did she always play so dirty?
Palm gliding up her chest, Zuri hovered over Marisol’s already hardening nipple. She teased her with the promise of her touch, Marisol arching into her, eyes half-lidded and silently asking for more.
Elena’s doubts about Marisol’s ability to keep up had been obliterated the night before, but she was still pleasantly surprised at how well she kept pace with them. One thing she and Zuri had never failed at was unquenchable passion. She’d never expected to find a partner that could match them. Especially not one with such a deceptively sweet exterior. She hated how cliché it was to like that, but there she was.
As the tip of her tongue ran along the shell of Marisol’s ear, Zuri teased Marisol’s nipple with nothing but her fingertip. A ripple of heat pulled at Elena just as Marisol moaned, her cute ass rolling backward into Zuri.
Balling her fists like she might challenge her lust to take it outside, Elena resisted the urge to dive in between them. She couldn’t let herself be distracted, but she couldn’t find the will to leave.
“Can I mark you?” Zuri whispered so low it was little more than a movement of lips, but Elena heard it through a loudspeaker. Heard it in the heat spreading low in her belly. In her growing arousal.
Damn it, Zuri.
“Please,” Marisol moaned her response because they’d decided to work in concert to break her. “Mark me, baby,” she begged, breath already ragged. “I’m yours.”
Zuri glanced up at Elena, eyes dark and sinful, mouth in a grin. When she bit into Marisol’s neck with enough force to bruise, Elena felt the skin give under her fangs. Fangs that had extended of their own accord while she watched Zuri generate pressure with her mouth. She watched her roll Marisol’s nipple between her fingers. Watched Marisol moan while grinding her ass harder into Zuri.
When Zuri released Marisol’s tortured skin, blood already rushing to the surface and forming an unsightly bruise, Elena pressed her toes to the floor. She forced herself not to move. Not to give in. But she couldn’t exactly remember why she wanted to leave.
“Tell me what you want,” Zuri whispered against Marisol’s neck, gaze on Elena unflinching, hand ghosting over Marisol’s skin.
In anticipation, Marisol parted her thighs. As soon as Zuri’s deft fingers disappeared between them, Marisol gasped as if she’d never been touched before.
“I want you on top of me,” Marisol moaned, already panting. Already wet, Elena knew with the same certainty that she knew her own name. She’d turned out to be surprisingly insatiable for someone so inexperienced.
As a reward, Zuri grabbed her jaw and turned her head back toward her. When she kissed her deep and slow, Marisol’s athletic body trembled.
Fuck .
And then Marisol was flat on her back, and Zuri was straddling her. Zuri glanced over her shoulder at Elena, knowing that she couldn’t stop herself from watching her ass when she started rolling her hips.
“You can leave,” Zuri said in a theatrical half-moan. “If you’re in such a hurry. We’ll find a way to entertain ourselves.”
When she turned back to a flushed Marisol, she guided one of her hands on her hips over her chest and up to her neck. Understanding immediately, Marisol followed Zuri’s silent command.
Gripping Zuri’s throat with authority, Marisol cursed. She did it so rarely, it sent a rush of new desire pulsing through Elena’s body. With her other hand, Marisol urged Zuri to rock her hips faster.
“I thought you liked it gentle and slow,” Elena said, arms across her chest as if that would stop her body from catching fire with desire.
Squeezing Zuri’s throat harder, Marisol glanced at her, hazel eyes dark with contagious lust. “You asked me how I like to get it,” she replied, voice husky. “Not how I like to give it.”
“Don’t stop,” Zuri managed, voice thin and revealing just how tightly Marisol was choking her. Slipping her hand between her own thighs like she’d forgotten her ploy to tempt Elena back to bed, Zuri groaned.
“Fuck, that’s so hot,” Marisol panted, attention fixed on Zuri’s fingers. On how they must be moving over her clit. It was too much.
Defeated, Elena rushed in behind Zuri. With one hand on her abdomen and the other pushing her hand away, Elena found her dripping wet. Gods .
Sitting up, Marisol rested her weight on one hand stretched out behind her and begged Zuri not to stop grinding against her. Dropping the hand Elena held against Zuri’s belly, she slipped it between them, reaching under Zuri and finding Marisol open and soaked.
With a groan, Marisol rocked against her, begging for more with her body and moans and pleas. Elena crumbled, convinced that she’d never be able to deny either of these women a damn thing.
Slipping easily into Marisol’s wet entrance, Elena moved deep and slow, exactly how she liked it. Without losing her quick tempo over Zuri’s clit, she closed her eyes and drowned in the unique pleasure of making them both unravel at once.
They were hers, and she couldn’t let either of them forget it. Not when she didn’t know what came next. Not when this felt like a karmic gift. Like just recompense for the horrors she’d survived. But after having lost so much, she couldn’t take the chance that they’d slip away.
Trembling, Marisol was already on the edge, but Zuri was holding back. Elena was about to tell her to let go, when Zuri groaned a pained, “Bite me.”
Eyes snapping open, Elena wasn’t sure she’d heard her. But then Marisol released her throat and Zuri tossed her hair to one side, giving her the neck she hadn’t tasted in years. The only one she’d wanted for so long.
Wrapping her legs around Marisol who’d sat up and gotten away from Elena’s touch, Zuri leaned back into Elena’s chest while sitting more firmly in Marisol’s lap. Still unsure she’d understood, Elena watched Zuri roll her hips, pressing herself and Elena’s still fingers against Marisol’s tense belly.
“Now,” Zuri growled, muscles trembling against Elena’s body.
Making a fist in her hair with her free hand, Elena held her tight before sinking her fangs into her. Darkness unfurled around her, and Marisol’s eyes widened at the sight of Elena’s shadow surrounding them.
Zuri’s arousal made her blood sweet and hot and intoxicating. It was a jolt of lightning, a surge of pure, untamed power that coursed through Elena’s veins, igniting every cell in her body.
It was a primal connection that elicited a primal response. Gripping Zuri’s hips with both hands while Marisol held her parted thighs, Elena didn’t need to touch her to give her what she wanted. Her bite was laced with ecstasy, designed to fill her prey with unparalleled euphoria. To give Elena permission to feast. To beg her for it.
Elena groaned, pushing Zuri harder against Marisol, thighs trembling when Marisol dug her blunt nails into Elena’s hips and urged her to go faster. She tasted Zuri’s orgasm a second before her body stiffened and a flash of light forced her eyes open.
Around her small shadow circle, Marisol’s gorgeous spectral wings opened wide before curling around both of them. Zuri’s movements slowed, panting and dropping in Elena’s arms. Elena eased out of her bite, chest alive with the excitement of Marisol’s display.
Marisol opened her mouth and caught the two small streams of blood flowing down Zuri’s chest with her tongue. Desire roared hard in Elena’s body as she watched Marisol run her tongue over the puncture wounds before she pressed her lips to them so softly.
When she pulled back, Zuri’s skin was devoid of any evidence of her bite.
Cursing, Zuri rested her arms around Marisol’s neck and leaned against Elena’s heaving chest. They watched breathlessly as the luminous wings disappeared into stardust. It was only when they were gone that Elena realized she should have asked Marisol to finish healing her.
“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Zuri whispered, turning back to Elena to kiss the blood off her lips. “When you’re fully healed,” she added, and nothing had ever sounded more sensible than staying in bed with them. With what was hers.