Chapter 26 #3
I should ask if she's sure. Should give her one more chance to stop this.
But I look at her face, and I see the same desperation I'm feeling. The same hunger. The same need that goes beyond want into something closer to survival.
I stop thinking.
I push into her in one long stroke, and the world whites out.
She's tight. Perfect. Her body grips me like she was made for this, made for me. I don't care about anything except the way she feels around me, the sounds she's making, the way her nails dig crescents into my shoulders as I start to move.
"God." The word tears out of her. "Maximus."
I set a brutal pace. Can't help it. Can't slow down. Every thrust drives us both higher, the headboard slamming against the wall, the bed groaning beneath us. She meets me stroke for stroke, her hips rising to take me deeper, her teeth finding my shoulder and biting down hard enough to break skin.
The pain mixes with pleasure until I can't separate them. Don't want to separate them. This is what I needed. This is what I've been denying myself. Not just sex but this. This rawness. This loss of control. This feeling of being consumed and consuming in equal measure.
"Harder," she gasps. "I won't break."
I grab her thigh, hitch it higher on my hip, and drive into her with everything I have. The new angle makes her scream. Her walls clench around me, and I feel her getting close, feel the tension building in her body.
My control is slipping. I can feel it fraying with every thrust, every sound she makes, every drag of her nails down my back.
My fangs have extended fully, aching with a hunger that has nothing to do with sustenance.
My gaze keeps dropping to her throat, to the pulse point where her blood would flow if she still had a heartbeat.
I want to taste her. Need to taste her. The urge is primal, overwhelming, tangled up with the pleasure until I can't separate them.
"Celeste." Her name comes out rough, strained. I drag my fangs along the curve of her neck, feeling her shiver beneath me. "I need… Can I?"
She understands what I'm asking. I see it in her eyes, the flash of surprise followed by something darker. Hunger of her own.
"Yes." She tilts her head back, baring her throat to me. "God, yes."
The trust in that gesture undoes me.
I lower my mouth to her neck. Press a kiss to the sensitive skin first. Then I let my fangs graze the spot, testing, giving her one last chance to change her mind.
"Do it," she breathes. "I want to feel you everywhere."
I bite.
Her blood floods my mouth, and the world fractures.
She tastes like fire. Like lightning captured in liquid form.
I feel her strength, her defiance, her stubborn refusal to break no matter what the world throws at her.
I taste her fear and her hope tangled together.
Her desire, sharp and urgent, matching my own.
The trust she's placed in me, terrifying in its completeness.
And underneath it all, something else. Something that makes my chest crack open.
She cares for me. Not just wants me, cares. Deeply. Fiercely.
The taste of it overwhelms me.
Celeste cries out beneath me, her body arching off the bed. The bite has intensified everything for her, too. I can feel it in the way her walls clench around me, the way her nails score my back, the way she's shaking apart.
"Maximus." My name tears out of her, broken and desperate. "I'm going to…"
"Let go." I seal my mouth over the wound, drinking deep, feeling her pleasure echo through her blood. "I've got you."
She shatters.
Her release rips through her with a cry she doesn't bother to muffle. Her body clamps down on mine, pulsing, pulling, and I follow her over the edge with a groan that sounds like it's been ripped from somewhere deep. I bury myself as deep as I can go and let it take me.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
Then she laughs. Soft and surprised and thoroughly wrecked.
"I think you broke something."
I lift my head to look at her. "What?"
"I don't know. My brain. My ability to form sentences." She grins up at me, and the sight of it, her hair a disaster, bite marks blooming on her throat, makes something warm bloom in my chest. "That was…"
"Not enough."
Her grin widens. "Not even close."
I'm still inside her. Still hard, or hard again. Vampire stamina has its benefits.
I pull out slowly, watching her face, the way her eyes flutter, the way she bites her lip. Then I flip her onto her stomach.
"Maximus, what…"
I pull her hips up, positioning her on her hands and knees. She looks back at me over her shoulder, eyes dark with renewed hunger.
"We have all night," I say. "I intend to use every second of it."
I push back into her and start again.
The second time is slower. Deeper. I grip her hips hard enough to bruise, watching myself disappear into her body, watching the way her back arches, listening to the sounds she makes with each thrust. She drops to her elbows, changing the angle, and we both groan at the difference.
I lean over her, my chest against her back, my mouth at her ear. "You're mine," I tell her. "Say it."
"I'm yours."
"Again."
"I'm yours." She pushes back against me, taking me deeper. "I'm yours, Maximus."
The words undo me. I wrap one arm around her waist, my other hand sliding between her thighs to touch her where we're joined. She comes again, harder this time, her whole body shaking, and I follow her with a groan that echoes off the walls.
We collapse together onto the sheets. I gather her against my chest, pressing my face into her hair, breathing her in.
"We should clean up," she mumbles.
"No."
"I'm covered in blood. You're covered in blood. Your sheets are…"
"I don't care." I roll her onto her back, settling my weight between her thighs again. She blinks up at me, surprised. "I told you. All night."
"We just…"
"And we're going to again." I lower my mouth to her breast, swirling my tongue around her nipple until she gasps. "And again. Until neither of us can move."
Her laugh dissolves into a moan as I work my way down her body.
I take my time now. The desperate edge has dulled, replaced by something deeper. Something that wants to learn her. Memorize her. Every curve. Every scar. Every spot that makes her gasp or shiver or moan my name.
I kiss the bruises on her hips, already fading. Press my lips to the scar on her thigh from some long-ago fight. Trace the line of her hip bone with my tongue.
"Maximus." Her voice is strained. "What are you…"
"Shh." I spread her thighs wider, settling between them. "Let me."
I lower my mouth to her center and taste her.
She cries out, her hands flying to my hair, gripping hard. I don't mind the sting. I want her holding onto me. Want her anchored to me while I take her apart.
I work her with my tongue, slow and thorough, learning what makes her gasp, what makes her moan, what makes her thighs tremble around my head. She tastes incredible. Sweet and salt and something darker underneath, something that's purely her.
"Please," she whimpers. "I can't, I need…"
I slide two fingers inside her, curling them just right, and suck hard on the bundle of nerves at her apex.
She comes with a scream that probably wakes half the compound. I don't stop. Keep working her through it, drawing out the pleasure until she's shaking, until she's pulling at my hair, trying to push me away.
"Too much," she gasps. "It's too much, I can't…"
"You can." I climb up her body, positioning myself at her entrance again. "One more. Give me one more."
I push inside her.
She's so sensitive now that she cries out at the first thrust. Her walls flutter around me, still pulsing from her last orgasm, and the sensation nearly undoes me.
This time I go slow. Rolling my hips instead of thrusting, grinding deep, keeping constant pressure on the spot inside her that makes her eyes roll back. Her legs wrap around my waist, her heels digging into my lower back, urging me deeper.
"Look at me," I say.
Her eyes open. Dark and dazed and full of something that makes my chest ache.
I brush the hair back from her face, still moving inside her, slow and deep. I want to tell her what I'm feeling. The words are right there, pressing against my teeth. Three words I haven't said to anyone in centuries.
But I'm not ready. Not yet. So I show her instead.
I lower my forehead to hers and let my body say what my mouth can't.
Her hands come up to frame my face, holding me there, her eyes locked on mine as we move together.
It builds slowly this time, a wave rather than a crash, rising and rising until we're both trembling with it.
"Together," she whispers. "I want to feel you."
"Together."
We shatter at the same moment. Her cry and my groan tangling in the air between us, her body clenching around mine as I spill into her. The pleasure whites out everything else, and for a long suspended moment, there's nothing but sensation and her.
We lie tangled together afterward, breathing hard out of habit rather than need. Her body is draped across mine, one leg thrown over my hips, her head on my chest. I trace lazy patterns on her bare back, feeling the smooth skin, the curve of her spine.
"My shoulder hurts," she admits after a while.
"I know. I've been avoiding it."
She laughs softly. "You were being careful. Even when you were being rough, you were being careful."
"Of course I was." I tilt her chin up so she meets my eyes. "You're mine now. That means your pain is mine to avoid making worse."
"That's very sweet for someone who just had me screaming loud enough to wake the compound."
"Three times."
"Four. You lost count."
I smile against her hair. "Your shoulder needs blood to heal properly."
"Later."
"Celeste."
"Later." She presses a kiss to my chest. "Right now, I just want to stay here. Like this."
I tighten my arms around her. "Then stay."
Silence settles over us. Comfortable. Full.
Outside the window, the first gray hints of dawn are beginning to lighten the sky. The pull of dormancy tugs at my consciousness.
"We should sleep," I say reluctantly.
"Probably." But she doesn't move. Her fingers trace idle patterns on my chest. "Maximus?"
"Yes?"
"When we wake up tonight…" She hesitates. "Will this still be real? Or will you go back to being the cold, distant lord who pretends he doesn't feel anything?"
The question cuts deeper than she knows.
"I spent centuries building walls," I admit.
"It won't be easy to tear them down completely.
There may be moments when I retreat. When old habits take over.
" I tilt her chin up so she's looking at me.
"But I will never pretend this isn't real.
I will never pretend you don't matter. You've carved yourself a place inside me, Celeste. That doesn't disappear with sunrise."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She kisses me. Soft and sweet.
"Then I can sleep," she says.
She's asleep before I am. I can tell by the way her body relaxes against mine, the way her breathing evens out.
I stay awake a little longer. Watching her. Memorizing the way she looks in my arms, in my bed.
There are words I want to say. Words I'm not ready to say. Words that feel too big, too terrifying, too much like handing someone a weapon and hoping they won't use it.
But looking at her now, I think maybe I'll find the courage. Soon. When the time is right.
The sun pulls at me, and I let my eyes close.
The last thing I feel before dormancy takes me is her breath against my chest, steady and even.
Mine.