Chapter 30
CASSIE
Cassie stood under the hot spray of the shower and tried very hard not to think about what had just happened in Severin’s lab.
This was difficult, since every inch of her body seemed determined to remind her.
Her lips still felt swollen from having Ravik’s enormous shaft in her mouth.
Her knees were a little sore from kneeling between his thighs on the hard lab floor.
And most of all, her pussy felt opened and used in a way it never had after sex before—probably because she’d never been with anyone the Beast Kindred’s size in her life.
Her cheeks still felt hot when she remembered the way Severin had stood there watching her, his pale blue eyes hungry and his fangs sharp, telling her in that low, controlled voice that it might work better if she sucked Ravik deeper.
For science, of course.
And then how he’d watched as Ravik’s thick cock slipped deeper and deeper into her pussy…and she’d writhed on it, actively trying to take more even though she knew she shouldn’t.
Cassie closed her eyes and tipped her head back, letting the steaming water run over her face and into her hair.
She should have felt embarrassed. Actually, she did feel embarrassed.
But the embarrassment wasn’t nearly as strong as it ought to be.
It was tangled up with something hotter and deeper—something that made her nipples tighten beneath the spray and her pussy clench with a need that was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
“Stop it,” she muttered to herself. “You just had an orgasm. A really good one. Several, maybe.”
But her body didn’t seem to care.
The orgasms she’d had as Ravik pierced had been intense enough to make her see stars. But instead of feeling satisfied or sleepy or even properly horrified by her own behavior, Cassie felt…hungry.
Not hungry for food—no, of course not—that would have been too normal.
Instead, she felt hungry for touch…for heat…
for male skin and hard hands and deep voices telling her how beautiful she was.
Her nipples ached and the place between her legs felt slick and swollen and empty, as though her body had decided that what happened earlier had only been an appetizer and now it wanted the entire damn buffet.
Which was ridiculous…wasn’t it?
Maybe this was just what happened when a woman went without good sex for years and then got thrown into a bunker with two huge, gorgeous Kindred warriors who looked at her like she was a Mature Elite Goddess incarnate.
Maybe her body had finally woken up from its perimenopausal coma and decided to make up for lost time.
That sounded plausible…mostly.
Except it didn’t explain the intensity of her feelings.
It didn’t explain why the need seemed to pulse through her blood like a second heartbeat—a desperate, rhythmic throb that echoed in her empty core.
It didn’t explain why every time she closed her eyes, she saw herself with both big Kindred again and again, in little stolen fantasies that seized her mind and left her breathless.
In the first, she was back in the giant heated bed in the Visskous mating chamber, lying naked on the coppery sheets that slid like cool water against her flushed skin.
Ravik was between her thighs, but there were no rules now, no pretense.
In the fantasy, his big, scarred hands didn’t just spread her thighs—they hooked behind her knees, bending her nearly double, opening her completely to his hungry gaze.
She imagined the heat of his breath against her damp curls, the low, approving growl that rumbled through him before his tongue found her.
He didn’t just take a tentative taste, but a long, flat, possessive lick from her pussy mouth to her throbbing clit that made her back arch off the bed as she moaned his name.
He feasted on her, his tongue plunging deep, then circling her swollen bud with ruthless precision, while Severin lay beside her, propped on one elbow.
The Blood Kindred’s elegant, clever fingers would pluck and tease her nipples to stiff, aching peaks, his cool voice a decadent counterpoint to Ravik’s wet, hungry sounds.
“There, Ravik. Just there. You can feel how she tightens. Make her come on your tongue. Let me watch her fall apart while you taste her sweet little pussy.”
Cassie’s breath hitched, a sharp gasp in the steamy shower air, and she opened her eyes quickly, staring at the tiled wall as if she could drive the desire away by will alone.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “Nope. Not thinking about that right now.”
Except she was. Her traitorous pussy was already slick with need—her inner muscles clenching helplessly with desire.
Because in the second fantasy, Severin wasn’t just watching. He was behind her, his lean, hard body molded to her back, his thick cock a firm pressure against her spine as he bent her over. His lips brushed the shell of her ear, his breath hot against her skin.
“Steady, Cassandra. Just hold still for us,” he murmured.
Ravik was in front of her, his huge hands cradling her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. The broad head of his shaft nudged her lips, and she opened for him, taking him into her mouth, tasting the salty-sweet flavor of his precum again.
Severin whispered praise that poured over her like honey.
“You’re doing beautifully, sweetheart. Your body is so responsive, producing exactly what we need. The cure requires pleasure, and you are being so very good for us. Remember—we’re doing this for science.”
Then his hand slid between her thighs from behind, his long fingers finding her soaked and aching.
He didn’t just stroke her—he fucked her with his fingers, two plunging deep while his thumb pressed tight circles on her clit, building her pleasure until she was moaning around Ravik’s thick length, her body shaking between them.
The hot water beat down on her shoulders, and Cassie realized with a jolt that she had one hand splayed low on her belly, her fingers curled inward, almost touching the aching heat between her legs.
She wasn’t touching herself—not quite. But it was close enough that she snatched her hand away as if burned, her skin tingling.
“This is not normal,” she muttered to the streaming water. “I should not be feeling this way.” Especially after coming so hard just a few minutes ago on Ravik’s thick cock.
But she was. Her body was aching—her pussy begging to be filled just as though she hadn’t just had the thickest cock she’d ever encountered buried halfway inside her.
And her nipples were so tight they hurt.
The water running over them felt like fingers—too much and not enough.
Between her thighs, she could feel wetness that had nothing to do with the shower.
Her pussy was slick and pulsing, and there was a strange ache inside her that wasn’t exactly pain but wasn’t ordinary arousal either.
It felt like need—no more that need. It was like her body was demanding something—demanding to be filled. And it didn’t care how embarrassing or inconvenient or completely insane that was.
Cassie turned the water a little cooler and forced herself to take slow breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
She had done that during hot flashes before, especially the awful ones that woke her up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and wanting to tear the sheets off the bed.
But this wasn’t like a normal hot flash.
Her skin was hot, yes, but the heat was concentrated low in her belly and between her legs.
It made her feel restless and empty and raw.
Like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin…but what did she need?
She thought of Ravik’s heat—his sheer sized and impossible girth. Thought of Severin’s cool, sharp scent—his elegant, talented hands and sharp fangs. Thought of all the things she had absolutely no business craving while she had a zombie virus in her bloodstream.
The thought made her go still.
The Hunger Virus…it was inside her. Severin had said her blood was fighting it, but what did that really mean?
A chill slid down her spine despite the hot water.
What if this wasn’t just desire? What if it wasn’t just perimenopause or finally being wanted by two males after years of bad sex and two terrible marriages? What if the virus was doing something to her?
It didn’t make her want to eat anyone, thank God. She didn’t look at Severin or Ravik and think, Mmm, tasty forearm or Wish I could get a bite of that thigh!
She wasn’t craving flesh or blood or whatever horrible thing the Infected craved when they went howling through the Dead Zone with white eyes and snapping teeth.
But she was craving something.
Sex…seed…touch.
The words made her cheeks burn hotter than the shower because yes, they were all exactly what she was craving and her body refused to stop.
“Perfect—just perfect,” she muttered. “Of course I don’t get the normal zombie symptoms. I get horny zombie symptoms. Because why wouldn’t I?”
The sarcasm helped for about three seconds…then the fear came back.
Because funny or not, something was wrong.
She knew it now. She could feel it in the way her body pulsed and ached, in the way her mind kept circling back to Ravik’s mouth and Severin’s hands…
in the way she wanted to go to them instead of away from them, even after what had just happened with the big Beast Kindred.
Cassie had always liked spicy books and private fantasies, but she had never felt like this—as though her body was a live wire and every thought of the two Kindred sent sparks racing through her blood.
Maybe Severin was right. Maybe there was something unique about the way the virus was moving through her system. Maybe swallowing Ravik’s seed had triggered some kind of reaction. Maybe her body was trying to fight the infection by demanding more of whatever had helped it in the first place.