Twenty-Four
I do not remember driving to the large house on the hill. I had the distinct understanding of being carried into a vehicle, but my thoughts were otherwise engaged on the man before me.
He whispered his promises to me, his breath tickling my ear deliciously, his tongue reaching out to stroke my neck. It was maddening, the way he consumed me. I wanted him to devour me. I wanted to devour him. We could feed off each other forever this way, in an endless cycle of lust, and I would never tire.
I felt wetness still at my eyes, tears that had not yet fallen.
I straddled his hips, my slip bunching up at my waist. His hands trailed along my hips, gripping the flesh there, pulling my core as close to him as possible.
“It is unfair that you are practically naked, and I am fully clothed,” he muttered, before his lips met mine. He ran his tongue along my lip, sucking, sharp teeth teasing .
I pulled away. “That is fixable.”
His head fell back against the seat with a groan. “We should wait—”
But the words were cut off when I captured his lips with mine. I missed him. I needed him. I wanted him, more than I ever wanted anything. I ached for him.
I didn’t want to think about my family or the heir who thought he had a claim on me. My mind was frenzied with the need to distract myself, to fall into Adam, no thoughts of anything else.
I held his strong jaw in both hands, directing his face to mine. There was a slight stubble along his jawbone, a dusting of dark hair that drove me mad. He exhaled a sound of approval, of acquiescence, and kissed me just as hungrily.
His arousal pressed against me, and all my thoughts fell to nothing. I did not care that we were not in the privacy of a bedroom; the feel of him sent jolts of anticipation up my spine and through my fingertips. I was absolutely electric and wondered if he felt it, too. Where we met, there was lightning. All my nerve endings were charged with an urgency to feel him, skin to skin, to get lost in his body. To give over to him. To take him into me, to become one. To let him get so deep within me that he was in my skin, forever in the cells of my body.
He rocked my hips against him, first slowly and then with such ferocity, sliding my core against the ridge of his arousal. My thighs quaked, tightening on either side of his hips, his legs spread so wide to accommodate his size, that he pushed my thighs nearly as far apart as they could go.
“Adam,” I breathed, pulling away from his lips, if only to order my thoughts .
But he nipped at my breasts through my slip, his tongue massaging my nipples through the cloth. I melted.
“Vince,” he breathed against me, teeth sinking into my breast. “Call me Vince.”
Crying out, I clutched him tightly to me, and suddenly, his hands were lifting me off of his lap, only long enough to swiftly undo the fly of his pants, and then I was sinking on to him. I took him slowly, his size stretching me to the point of pain.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head.
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” he growled, palming my ass, pushing me down until our hips met.
My muscles clenched in protest at the intrusion, a delicious burn settling in my core. My face fell to the crook of his neck, my breaths coming in short pants against his throat. God, I had forgotten what it was to have him inside of me. I thought I remembered, and had thought of that night often, but memories were only so reliable.
The truth was that he was made for me, filling me so wonderfully I didn’t think I could move. I could finish just like that, with him stretching me and nudging that spot deep within me that turned me into a mewling puddle.
If I moved, I would shatter.
He knew this, his hands guiding me, pushing me and pulling me along his cock. It quickly turned to a frenzy, the slick spot between my thighs growing ever wetter, my heat hungrily taking him in, only to feel empty in the brief moments he retreated. Delicious friction turned to pleasure at the apex of my thighs as I rubbed against him .
“I want to be dripping down your thighs when you finally come home,” he grunted, his voice pinched as if he were in pain. His dark auburn hair hung over his eyes, unkempt, and he looked at me with a frenzy that matched my own, his pupils pin-point. His sharp teeth poked at his lip, peeking out from inside his mouth. He watched me move over him, his hands gripping so tightly on my hips, his nails digging into nearly the same spot as they had when we’d found each other again.
“Yes,” I sighed.
In that moment, I wanted everyone to know, if they saw me, how ruined I was for him.
His words sent a flood of heat to where we joined, and my muscles involuntarily clenched, the electricity between us building even higher. I wanted to crest that hill so badly, but I didn’t want this to end.
His fist tangled in the hair at the base of my skull, wrenching my face away from him. I cried out, his thrusts brutally strong and deep, his hold on my hair so vise-like I couldn’t move. He roughly returned his own mouth to my throat, my only view that of the ceiling of the car. My back was forced into an arch that brought him even deeper into me. Tears burned at my eyes, the pleasure so intense it bordered on agony.
He bit softly into my neck, and the strange sensation of his teeth pressing into my skin sent a bolt of fear through me. I was completely bared to him, completely at his mercy. But he didn’t puncture the skin, just held his teeth there, like he couldn’t resist a taste, but was fighting the monster within him. His tongue flicked in between the two knife-like teeth, my pulse beating erratically between his lips .
I almost said it aloud, that I wanted him to do it, to pass that threshold, to stop being gentle with me, but he moved me roughly, in a way the both of us needed, my body his, and his now mine.
My hands fisted in his shirt, my fingers trailing to his collar, where his throat met his shoulders. A sheen of sweat coated his skin, his flesh cold, but a heat beginning to sear through the ice.
He pumped into me furiously, my hips slamming against his.
“Come, my darling,” he hissed, the hand at my hip gripping me so tightly, his fingers bruised against the still-healing marks from before.
Hot tears escaped, streaming down my cheeks, and I screamed. The walls of my heat spasmed as he rutted into me, the head of his cock pounding against that deepest part of me. There was nowhere else for him to go, but he rocked into me, forcing himself to reach that most sensitive spot that sent me careening.
The electricity of our joining shot through my limbs, my inner muscles milking his cock as he slammed me down one final time. My orgasm came seconds before his. He groaned into my neck, inadvertently forcing my head back, his fists tightening in my hair, pulling so sharply it brought more tears to my eyes.
I gasped, feeling him pulse within me. His breathing turned jagged as he shot his seed into me, coating every inch inside me.
“Fuck,” he breathed, thrusting once, twice, as if to make sure the imprint of him within me was permanent.
I wanted it to be.
I didn’t want anyone else.
I fell limp in his arms as he released my hair, turning into a rag doll draped over him. My blood still hummed with energy, the heaviness in my chest dissipating as pleasure took over. Though we did not move, my walls still clenched around him, as though that part of me wanted more.
And God, did I want more.
He clutched me to him, his own breathing slowing, one hand still glued to my waist, the other bracing my neck. I looked up at him, my vision still a little blurry, and for a brief moment, I felt I wanted to cry, overcome with the experience of joining with him again. Of finding him again.
His gray eyes shone in the darkness, reflective like a cat’s. Studying me. His dark hair was ruined, the pomade made obsolete.
He twitched within me, and it sent shivers through my stomach. A slow, languid thrust.
“You are exquisite,” he whispered, his own energy spent, his head once more falling to the seat behind him. He tightened his grip on me briefly before brushing my undone hair out of my face.
My slip clung to my skin, damp with the sweat of our passion, the cloth over my breast still wet from his mouth. I wanted to tear it off of me, and tear his clothes off, and fall into a world where we had no obligations save to love each other.
Maybe we could. Maybe that’s what life with him was.
I only smiled languidly in response.
His gaze was suddenly drawn to the window, and there was a flash of recognition in his eyes. “We are here,” he said.
But I didn’t want to leave the warmth of his lap. I tried to get my knees under me, to gain my balance, and my walls squeezed him once more. Though my energy was spent, an ache already growing in between my legs, the feel of him still stretching my muscles sent pleasure through me.
He braced my hips, helping me move. As I climbed off of him, I immediately felt the absence of him, and a small part within me cried in frustration. The spot between my thighs was slick, and that wetness was already seeping out of me. I pressed my thighs together, my pulse jumping at the thought of the aftermath of him within me.
There was no party this evening. The lawns were completely empty, save for the trees, the fountain. The car continued up the drive until we were before the massive front doors. Every electric light inside was on, the manor shining bright, maybe even visible from the atmosphere.
He tucked himself back into his pants, his dick not yet completely soft.
It felt sinful, what we just did. I had had many affairs with young men, but something about this evening sent a jolt of excitement through me, as though I was breaking the law. As though I was a heathen, perhaps really the whore my brother said I was. He would certainly think so. Lord Highsmith, too.
Adam and I were not married.
I wasn’t sure if we ever would be. I wasn’t sure what the coming days would look like.
He had insisted I call him Vince. It wasn’t his legal name, at least, not the name of the boy I knew before. He was Adam Vering, and that was it. A printer’s apprentice who had fallen in love with a girl, before being threatened with death by her brother, sent away to the war.
But Vince Thornton had been the man to come back .
“Are you ready, darling?” He grabbed my hand, his fingers warm and strong in mine, and I tamped down the thought of them touching me, spreading me wide.
I nodded, swallowing the small lump in my throat.
He knocked on the divider separating us and the driver—a foresight I am glad occurred to him—and in moments the driver was opening the carriage door to let us out. Even though the driver did not look at us, a blush bloomed on my cheeks. How much of that had he heard? I hadn’t exactly been silent.
God, I should be mortified. A proper lady would.
The wife of a baron would.
Adam—Vince—turned to exit, but I pulled on his hand. “Wait.”
Immediately, he retreated once more to the seat next to me. “What is it?”
Glancing outside, the front door was being opened by another servant, and the interior light spilled out onto the driveway. Another set of footmen stood by the door, waiting.
I knew there were plenty of servants here—there never seemed to be a shortage of them. All watching, observing.
“I’m—” I looked down at myself, my breasts clearly visible through my slip, especially since my skin was yet damp with perspiration. An exhaled laugh. “I can’t walk into the house like this.”
I did not mind exposing myself to him. But I did not want these strangers looking at me. Though they showed no emotion, no recognition at all, almost like automatons, I couldn’t bear the thought of them seeing everything .
“Ah. Apologies.”
He looked around for his discarded jacket, crumpled on the floor, and pulled it over my shoulders. His figure was so broad that his jacket fell around me like a blanket, swallowing me up.
“Better?”
I nodded, and he slipped his fingers through mine. When my feet met solid ground, I nearly felt my knees buckle underneath me. My muscles jelly, used and tired.
He quickly wrapped his arm around me, steadying me.
The servants continued to look forward, not acknowledging me. I knew they’d seen worse. They must know of the strange parties that went on upstairs, the bloodletting, the amount of relations that must have happened on the grounds every time there was a party. Human and monster alike.
Vince ushered me inside, and the roof of the devilish foyer seemed so much higher when it was just the two of us in the room. Like we were ants at the Vatican. The grand staircase was vacant, the large ballroom empty, our footsteps echoing against the marble floors. No ribbons decorated the space. It was as if the parties never happened.
How could one live in such a big house alone?
Especially with the demons and angels watching every move.
It was like a dream as he led me up the stairs, nearly sweeping me off my feet, showing me the manor, the near castle he lived in. I hadn’t noticed so much detail in the wainscoting, in the portraits on the walls, in the wallpaper and gilded sconces that lined the halls. It was a modern house, though whoever had fitted the church into a residence had kept many of the gothic features.
He grinned at me, but I saw the emotion clouding his eyes .
“This was all for you,” he said, pulling me to a stop amidst the maze of halls, in front of a set of mahogany doors. The carvings in these doors were that of sentinels standing at guard.
His words made me dizzy. “You’re lying.” I let a laugh slip out, but I knew he was not a liar, never had been before.
But he had been waiting for me, looking for me.
He held me in his arms, his hair still messy, his shirt absolutely untucked, sleeves pushed up to his forearms. He cradled me, his other hand caressing my cheek. I leaned into the feeling before his lips met mine.
It was a chaste kiss, quick. But it was disorienting all the same.
“You wanted me to call you Vince,” I said, looking up into his eyes. My voice was breathy.
“That’s who I am,” he replied. “Adam Vering died. Vince Thornton lived.”
And before I could say anything else, he pushed open his bedroom doors and shut them behind us, and though it was dark, I knew I was at the heart of this den of blood-sucking creatures, his eyes reflecting whatever light they picked up in a flash, before he lunged and was upon me.