17. Chapter 17 #4
“You will.” I brushed her hair away from her face. “Release your venom when you bite. Let instinct help you.”
Her gaze dropped to my throat. Hunger answered desire in her so beautifully; my own fangs ached.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You will not.”
“That seems optimistic.”
“Grace.” I turned my head, offering the side of my neck. “Feed.”
Her breath left her. Then her fangs descended.
The sight of them—small, sharp, mine in the most dangerous way—sent a violent pulse of pleasure through me. She leaned forward, uncertain until her lips touched my skin. Then instinct found her.
She bit on a moan.
Pain flashed, bright and perfect, followed by the cool burn of her venom. I groaned, deep and helpless, one hand locking around her hip. Her mouth sealed to my throat and pulled. My blood entered her, and the bond surged so hard the room seemed to tilt.
I slid my hand between her thighs.
She was wet again, impossibly, beautifully.
I thrust two fingers into her while she drank.
Her cry vibrated against my neck. Her hips rolled into my palm, clit circling against the heel of my hand with each movement.
I pressed harder, giving her something to ride while I pumped my fingers inside her.
“That’s it,” I said, voice rough. “Take what you need.”
She sucked harder. My cock throbbed, trapped and aching beneath silk.
Her body began to tremble again. Faster this time. Less surprised by pleasure, more willing to chase it. She rode my hand while feeding from my neck, hips moving with increasing confidence, little sounds breaking from her throat between swallows.
Then she came again.
A gasped release, sharper and wetter than the first. Her pussy clamped around my fingers. Her body bowed against mine, and for one suspended moment she was all hunger, pleasure, and trust.
She withdrew carefully. Too carefully. The lawyer still present even in ruin. Her tongue passed over the punctures, sealing them closed.
I shuddered.
By then, I had shed the pajama pants. I did not remember doing it, only that silk no longer restrained me and my cock stood hard between us, slick at the tip, heavy in my own hand.
Grace looked down.
Her lips parted.
A smear of my blood remained on her lower lip. She licked it away slowly, not as seduction, I thought, but instinct.
It was the most erotic thing I had ever seen.
I leaned in and licked the last trace from her mouth myself. She made a soft sound as my tongue passed over her lip. I kissed her once. Twice. Then looked into her eyes.
“Are you ready for me, my queen?”
Her hands came to my shoulders. Not trembling now. Holding.
“Now, Maksym.”
There was no force on earth that could have made me refuse her.
I settled between her thighs and lined myself up at her entrance. She was slick, open, still pulsing faintly from orgasm. I pushed the head of my cock inside her and stopped.
Her nails dug into my shoulders.
“Color?”
“Green,” she said immediately. “More.”
I drove in.
Not halfway. Not cautiously enough to insult what she had asked for. I entered her in one deep thrust, and she took me with a cry that broke my name into pieces.
Heat closed around me. Tight. Wet. Alive.
I froze, buried inside her, every muscle locked.
She stared up at me, stunned, then rolled her hips.
My control nearly shattered.
“Grace.”
“Move,” she demanded.
So I moved.
Slowly at first, withdrawing until only the head of my cock remained inside her, then thrusting back deep. Her body met me. Not passively. Not as something acted upon. She lifted into every stroke with full strength, hips rising, thighs gripping my sides, nails dragging down my back.
New vampire power surged through her. Through us.
She staggered me.
I laughed once, breathless and amazed, then thrust harder.
“That’s it,” I said. “Take me.”
She did.
The bed shifted beneath us. The headboard struck the wall once before the house wards cushioned the sound. Grace’s body moved with mine as if some part of her had known this rhythm before either of us existed and had merely been waiting for us to catch up.
I lowered my mouth to her ear.
“I am going to feed from you.”
Her eyes opened. No fear. She tipped her neck to me. The offering nearly ended me.
My fangs descended. Venom flooded my mouth. I kissed her throat first, the old marks, the new skin, the pulse that had once nearly stopped beneath my hand outside Amethyst.
Then I bit. Her blood hit my tongue. Definition failed.
Royal reserve, ancient vintages, bloodlines curated over centuries—ashes and dust compared to this.
Grace’s blood carried mountain rain and terror survived, honeysuckle and courtroom steel, grief, hunger, fury, law, lonely scholarship, grandmother’s hands, chains broken, and the impossible sweetness of a mate who had chosen my mouth at her throat.
My venom entered her. She came apart beneath me.
Her orgasm began as a cry and became something too vast for sound.
Her body seized around my cock, clenching in endless waves.
The bond flooded open, oceans of sensation pouring through us: her pleasure, mine, hunger feeding hunger, my release dragged from me with such force that I buried myself deep and spilled inside her at once.
I groaned against her throat.
Still, she pulsed around me. Still, I drank.
Not too much. Never too much. But enough that the bond burned white-hot, enough that my shadows rose along the walls like wings before I forced them down.
I released her neck and sealed the wounds with my tongue.
Then I remained above her, trembling.
I, who had stood against armies without shaking.
Grace’s hands moved slowly over my back. Wonderingly. As if she were confirming I was real, too.
I withdrew with care, swallowing a groan at the way her body tried to keep me.
Then I gathered her against my chest and rolled us gently to our sides beneath the coverlet.
Her head tucked under my chin. One of her legs slid between mine.
She was warm, limp, shaking in small aftershocks that moved through the bond like fading thunder.
I stroked her back. No words came at first.
Words would have been vulgar things just then, little tools clattering onto cathedral stone.
At last, Grace tilted her face up to mine.
Her eyes were dark and bright, and no longer guarded in quite the same way.
“You are everywhere inside me,” she whispered.
I kissed her forehead. Then her mouth.
“Yes, my love,” I said. “And you are in me.”