Chapter Twenty-Nine #3
Aliz waits for me to nod, and then wraps her arms around me, pulling me close until my lips rest against her neck. I take a deep breath. “But you’ll have to keep your eyes shut,” she says, as her hands start to roam down my body again. “Can you do that for me?”
I want to see her. But I say yes all the same.
I need her more than she can possibly imagine.
More than she craves my blood. Her kisses are lighter this time, moving down to my neck.
I have a jumper-vest on, over my shirt, and if I hadn’t been wearing it, I’m pretty sure Aliz would have tried stripping me naked here in the common room.
“Are you sure no one will come?” I ask, and my breathing hitches when I feel her fingers, tracing a slow line across my underwear, but not touching where I need her to. I dig my nails into her neck, kissing her again, as though that’ll somehow make her go faster.
“Oh, you most definitely will,” she whispers.
Finally, a finger traces down my centre, sending a jolt of pleasure all the way to my toes.
I have to bite my lip just to keep my voice down.
I cling to her, biting her neck while her finger traces a slow circle over my underwear.
The warmth in my core grows, and “Fuck,” I moan against her, her fingers pressing harder and faster.
A sound comes from the other end of the hallway. The lift doors open, and someone pushes out a trolley full of cleaning supplies.
“Shit,” Aliz says. “I completely forgot about the cleaners.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” I say. She grabs my wrist, and we run from the common room. Aliz slots her key into our door and pulls me inside just as the cleaners turn around the corner.
Then she’s fighting with my clothes, asking to cross the saltward before pushing me down onto the bed, and climbing on top of me.
Just as she did up on the roof, Aliz covers my eyes with her hand again.
I want to see her, but all I can focus on are her fingers, sinking beneath my underwear.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” she says, her touch slow, as though she’s trying to memorise me.
I bite my tongue to keep myself from moaning. She pulls my underwear down my thighs, and as soon as she touches me in earnest, I find myself already ridiculously close. “Aliz—” I gasp, and she hooks one leg between mine, spreading them.
“After you come,” she starts, rubbing harder, “will you let me fuck you?”
“Yes,” I cry, and although she told me not to, I open my eyes for just a second. Her white hair is dishevelled, falling over half her face. She licks her lips, and the sight of her tongue gets me even closer.
“Eyes,” Aliz says again, and she leans down.
I feel her hot mouth on my neck, lips brushing the lines of the Familiar’s mark.
She continues to stroke me, each caress sending a new wave of pleasure through my nerves, until suddenly I can’t take another touch.
I gasp, body shuddering as ecstasy spreads to my toes.
She doesn’t stop, quickening her pace as my climax stretches. “Fuck!” I cry, her lips still on my neck.
“That was the plan, yes,” she mumbles, and suddenly I feel a finger sinking in.
My walls are still contracting from the first orgasm when she slips in another, and before I can get my breath back, she starts to move them, hard and fast. “Want to come again?” she asks, voice against my ear, I don’t have time to answer, her fingers curling up inside me until I see white.
As much as I try to say something coherent, all I manage is to cry her name. I pull hard on the bedsheets, arching my back, each nerve in my body responding to her touch. She slows the rhythm of her fingers, and I didn’t realise my ears were ringing until I hear her soft breaths.
Her free hand draws a line across my face, caressing my brow. “Was that good?” she asks, voice husky. My mind is still in a haze.
“Fuck yes,” I breathe out. I run my fingers through her soft hair, and Aliz still has too many clothes on. Just before I can climb on top of her, she stumbles up.
“I better have dinner.” She clears her throat. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll—uh—” I want to pull her back into my arms. I need more. “I’ll get changed.”
She left me with my shirt unbuttoned, my bra on, and my tights halfway down one leg.
I pull on my nightgown, knowing full well that she’ll be pulling it off me again in a few minutes.
Then I watch her as she fights with the microwave, pacing as she waits for the blood to heat up.
There’s a faint red glimmer in her eyes.
She downs her portion of blood. Nocth’s Familiar donated some more after her memories came back. Aliz’s tense muscles start to relax, and she sighs, leaning on her false window. She said she’d be right back, but I already feel myself growing impatient.
I cross the saltward and run my hand over the smooth wood of her coffin. Her gaze burns into my skin. I look at her, and she’s still holding the glass, but her attention is entirely mine. The false window behind her shows an aurora, shimmering green above the hills. “What is it?” she asks.
“The other night you said you didn’t fuck humans,” I say, leaning against her coffin.
She puts her paper cup down and licks the last speck of blood from her lips.
Then, in just a few strides, she’s right in front of me, trapping me against her coffin.
Despite all her worries of our eyes meeting, she tilts my chin and forces me to look at her.
“Say that again.” Her voice is as dark as her eyes.
Just as I open my mouth, she tugs my hair, and a kiss, harder than all which have come before, knocks the air out of my lungs. The wood of her coffin digs into my back. Just as I find her tongue, she draws back an inch. Then, with her grip on my hips, she lifts me up onto the wooden coffin.
“Say that again, Cassie.”
I need her to touch me. But if I can get under her skin in the process, even better.
“You said you didn’t fuck humans,” I say.
I try to kiss her again, draw her closer, but she ignores my attempts.
Her fingers hook beneath the thin straps of my nightgown, pulling the fabric down, achingly slow, until my chest is bare.
She stares brazenly, lips parting. Then she kisses the mark, before slowly following the lines down.
“What else did I say?” she asks, as her fingers brush over my nipples. I choke down a sound, while I try to close my legs. As a response, she pushes them open, keeping herself between them. Her tongue replaces her fingers, and I knock my head back, warmth tightening my nerves. “Answer me.”
Aliz is still fully clothed, but when I try to undo the buttons of her shirt, she tuts, holding my wrists at my sides. “I don’t fuck humans,” she says. “But what else did I say, Cassie?” One hand moves to my thigh.
“You asked—” I start, a tremor in my voice. Her fingers inch closer, taunting me with their proximity. “If I wanted to be an exception.”
“And do you?” she asks, lips on my neck, sending a shiver across the thorned lines. Her fingers finally brush over my folds, but far too light. “C’mon,” she says, and I pull her up for a kiss, hoping she’ll hurry already.
I grab her shoulder as her thumb presses against my clit. I bite her neck, and I finally get a small victory from her, a sound caught in her throat. She digs her blunt nails into my thigh.
“You’ve already fucked me,” I say, trying to remain in control, not arch into her touch. Her free hand grabs a fistful of my hair and gives a light tug.
“But you need it again, don’t you?” she asks, lips on mine. God yes.
If I wasn’t so twisted by her, I may have clung to my pride. But Aliz is right. I need it again.
“Yes,” I say, breathless.
She draws her fingers away, pulling back until our eyes are at level. “Beg for it.”
Whatever expression I just made makes her laugh.
“You—” I don’t finish the insult I was trying to conjure.
She kisses me again, but her fingers draw further away.
In our shared dreams, Aliz was like a wild animal.
Now, she’s so in control it’s killing me.
I need her. I tug at the buttons of her shirt, biting my lip when I see the hardened tips of her nipples against her vest.
“Be nice, Cassie,” she whispers, lips on my neck.
Her tongue runs over the Familiar’s mark, and pleasure spreads through each individual line, until I can think of only one thing.
She kisses her way down my torso, following the mark’s path.
I arch my back, needing more. “I’m not asking for much.
” She grabs my right leg, hoisting it over her shoulder.
“Beg.” I feel her breath between my thighs, and I thread my fingers through her hair.
“Please.”
Based on the cockiness in her voice, that flimsy cruelty, I was expecting she’d make me work for it.
But instead, Aliz proves she’s just as impatient as I am, moaning when she finally spreads my lips and runs her tongue over my entrance and up to my clit.
I try to bite down a sound, tugging her hair as I struggle to remain upright.
“Fuck!” I cry. She slides three fingers into me, not giving me a second to breathe before working them fast and hard.
At some point we make it back onto the bed, and “It’s my turn,” I say, running a hand down her back. I find the hem of her shirt and slip my fingers inside. “How can I repay you?” Her skin is smooth and warm, and although I want to touch her the way she just touched me, I wait.
“I guess you could proofread an essay I was supposed to hand in tonight,” she says, sounding a tad more nervous than I was expecting. I draw my hand back out and look up at her. “How does that sound?”
“Or I could go down on you,” I say, fixing her with my gaze. Aliz lets out a short breath, before clearing her throat.
“I’d love that. But…” She hesitates. “I don’t think I’d be able to control myself.” Her gaze drops to my neck, to the Familiar’s mark which is so stark against my skin. “But thanks.”
“Maybe once the mark is gone,” I say.
“Right,” Aliz replies.
Our legs are still tangled together, my hand is still rubbing her back, but we both tense as we realise what I just said. This won’t happen again once the mark is gone.
Once Aliz’s feelings fade, things will go back to normal.
The only reason I was able to admit that I loved her, that I told a lie, knowing she’d recognize the truth, was because she thinks it’s because of the mark.
But as much as I wish it wasn’t true, I know that what I’m feeling right now didn’t bloom into my chest through the thorny vines of our blood contract.
I cannot continue to delude myself, because I know now, as well as I know the weight of a dagger between my fingers, that I love her, and I also know this is ridiculous, but what about my life isn’t? What second in the last four years has been anything but that?
My love for Aliz isn’t a curse or an enchantment. It’s as real as it can get.
But I’m glad that Aliz’s isn’t. Because she’s right about one thing.
She can’t love a human, and she most certainly can’t love a vampire hunter.