17. Chapter 17 #3
“And I want to feed from you while we’re together.” Her gaze flicked to my throat, then back. “And I want you to feed from me. Is that allowed?”
Allowed.
As if desire required permission from anyone beyond the two of us.
I moved then.
Not quickly enough to startle her, but without the pretense that remaining on my side of the bed was still possible. I turned toward her and slid one arm beneath her shoulders, drawing her into me.
She came. No hesitation.
Her body fit against mine with a trust so new it still trembled. I cupped the back of her head and lowered my mouth to hers.
The kiss began carefully. It did not remain careful for long.
Grace opened beneath me with a sound that went straight into my blood.
Her hands came up to my shoulders, then my neck, fingers digging in as if she had been waiting all evening to find out whether wanting could have weight.
I kissed her deeper, tasting blood wine, warmth, the faint sweetness of her mouth, and something bright that belonged only to her.
The bond flared. Not snapped. It had already done that in an alley with death crouched beside her. This was different. It filled. Rich. Full. Terrifying in its generosity.
The room altered around us. Not in shape, but in meaning. The fire faded beneath the sudden rush of scent and memory that was not mine and yet entered me as if my soul had opened a door.
Mountain laurel in bloom. Honeysuckle thick in summer air. Rain-damp earth beneath bare feet. Cedar and pine rising dark around a narrow road. Cold water over stone, clear enough to numb the ankles of a laughing girl who had once believed the world, while difficult, was not yet monstrous.
Grace, as she had been. Grace as she still was, beneath everything they had done and failed to destroy. I pulled back because I had to see her face.
Her eyes had gone wide and dark. Her lips were swollen from my mouth. Wonder moved through her expression before vulnerability overtook it.
“You felt that,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“You,” I said. “Before.”
Her eyes shone. I brushed my thumb along her cheekbone.
“You are precious to me.”
The words were too small. All words were too small.
“I am going to make you feel... everything,” I told her. “Beyond anything the feeding alone has given you. But you will tell me if something does not feel right. No pleasing me by enduring. No silence to spare my pride. Do you understand?”
She nodded. I waited.
Her mouth curved faintly. “Words. Yes.”
“Good girl.”
The words slipped out, low and instinctive. Her breath hitched. I felt the reaction move through her body. Not fear. Heat.
I stored that knowledge carefully.
“May I remove your nightdress?”
“Yes.”
I took the hem in both hands and lifted slowly, giving her time to change her mind with every inch. She raised her arms. The soft gray cotton passed over her head and fell from my hand to the floor.
For a moment, I could not move.
My blood had restored what starvation stole.
Not perfectly, not into some false innocence untouched by history, but into the living abundance of her own body.
Full breasts, heavy and soft, tipped with nipples already tightening in the cool air.
A round stomach that moved with each breath.
Wide hips. Strong thighs. Skin pale where the nightdress had covered her, flushed where desire had begun to wake.
Scars remained in faint traces here and there, silvered memories no healing had fully erased.
Beautiful. Not despite survival. Through it. After it. With it.
I placed both hands on her shoulders.
Her eyes started to lower.
“Look at me,” I said.
She obeyed. The trust in that obedience nearly brought me to my knees.
I ran my hands slowly down her arms. “These hands survived chains and still chose to touch me.”
Her lips parted.
I moved my palms back to her shoulders, then down over her collarbones, careful of old marks, reverent with new skin. “This throat carried screams and arguments and testimony, and tonight it said what it wanted.”
My hands slid lower, cupping her breasts. Their weight filled my palms.
She made a small sound.
“These,” I said, brushing my thumbs over her nipples until they peaked harder, “are perfect.”
“That’s generous.”
“No.” I lowered my head and kissed the top of one breast. “That is accurate.”
I drew one nipple into my mouth.
Grace inhaled sharply. Her back arched off the mattress.
“Still,” I murmured against her skin. “Let me.”
She forced herself down again, fingers gripping the sheet.
I sucked gently at first, then harder when her body told me she wanted it.
My tongue circled the tight peak. I tugged with my lips until her breath broke.
Her nipple reached for my tongue each time I drew back, and the sight of it, wet and tight and wanting, made my cock throb hard against the silk.
I gave the other breast the same attention. Not because symmetry mattered. Because she did.
My hand explored while my mouth worked: the curve of her ribs, the softness beneath her breast, the warm rise of her stomach. I kissed down the center of her body, pausing at every place where breath changed. Under her breast. Over her ribs. The round fullness of her belly.
“Beautiful,” I said. “Every inch.”
She swallowed. “Maksym.”
“I know.”
I lifted my head. “We use colors tonight. Green means continue. Yellow means slow or change something. Red means everything stops at once. I do not plan to hurt you. But discomfort is enough. Uncertainty is enough. A memory is enough. Do you understand?”
She nodded again, then caught herself.
“Yes.”
“Your color now?”
Her eyes held mine. “Green.”
The word entered me like a vow.
I kissed lower.
Her thighs tensed when I reached the bare skin between them. I paused immediately, one hand resting on the outside of her hip.
She exhaled a nervous laugh. “Years before captivity, I had it lasered. I don’t know why I feel like I need to explain that.”
“You do not need to explain anything.” I kissed the inside of one thigh. “You are gorgeous any way you come to me.”
Her hand covered her face.
“Do not hide.”
She dragged her hand down, embarrassed and aroused and brave enough to show me both.
I settled between her legs.
The scent of her there nearly undid me.
Warm. Slick. Alive. Arousal rich enough that my mouth watered. I ran two fingers gently through her folds, and she jerked beneath the touch. She was drenched. Open for me already, though uncertainty still fluttered at the edges of the bond.
I lifted my wet fingers and showed her.
“Do you see how much your body wants this?”
Her eyes fixed on my hand.
The blush that moved through her was magnificent.
“It pleases me,” I said. “More than you know.”
My nose nudged one thigh wider. Then the other. I held myself there, mouth inches from her.
“May I taste you?”
She stared down at me, breathing too fast.
Then she whispered, “Please.”
I put my mouth on her.
The first stroke of my tongue through her core drew a cry out of her that she tried to smother with her hand and failed.
I groaned against her, dragging my tongue up slowly, tasting the slick heat of her, the salt, the sweetness, the sharp electric edge of new vampire desire made more intense by the bond.
She was exquisite.
I lapped at her again, slower, opening her with my tongue, learning the shape of her response. Her thighs trembled beside my face. I slid one arm under her hip and held her down when she tried to twist away from the sensation.
“Still,” I reminded her.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
I kissed her clit. Her whole body jolted. There. I smiled against her and did it again.
“Maksym—”
I sucked the small, swollen bud into my mouth and flicked it lightly with my tongue. She cursed, sharp and southern and legally inadmissible in several courts.
The sound delighted me.
I worked her slowly because she had asked for slow.
Long licks through her wetness. Softly sucking at her clit.
Little nips at the inside of her thigh to see whether surprise sharpened pleasure or pulled her away.
It sharpened. Her hands found my hair and then released it as if she worried she had done wrong.
“You may touch me,” I said against her.
Her fingers slid back into my hair and held. I rewarded her with my mouth.
She writhed beneath me, voice filling the room. My name. God. A breathless fuck that made me smile so deeply she felt it and gasped. I pushed one finger inside her, slowly, and she clenched around it with a stunned little sound.
“Green?” I asked.
“Green. Yes. Don’t stop.”
I did not.
I added another finger when her body allowed it, curling them gently, searching. When I found the place inside her that made her hips buck, she nearly came off the bed.
“Oh my God.”
“There?”
“Yes. There. Please.”
I sucked her clit harder and stroked that place inside her in a steady rhythm.
Her body gathered.
I felt it before she named it: tension pulling through thighs, stomach, hands in my hair. Breath breaking apart. Pleasure rising through the bond like weather over mountains.
“I’m going to—” she gasped. “Maksym, I’m going to—”
“Come,” I said.
She did.
Her orgasm tore through her with a cry that would have brought every guard in the house running if my wards had not sealed the room the moment I entered it.
Her pussy clenched around my fingers. Slick heat flooded my tongue.
I held her through it, lapping at her gently while she shook, catching every pulse, every sound, every piece of pleasure she had been owed by the universe and denied by lesser men.
When she sagged back, trembling, I kissed my way up her body. Stomach. Ribs. Breast. Throat.
Her eyes were unfocused when I reached her mouth. I kissed her hard enough that she tasted herself on me.
She moaned into it. I nearly lost control. Instead, I drew back and pressed my forehead to hers.
“I want you to bite my neck this time,” I said.
Her eyes cleared by degrees. “Your neck?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if I’ll do it right.”