Chapter 10
A vampire.
A vampire held her in his arms. Everly’s heart pounded and she felt so lightheaded she didn’t think she’d be able to stand without him holding her. But not from fear. Well, maybe just a smidge from fear. But it was more lust than anything else. “I don’t want you to go,” she repeated.
Hawke appeared to grow larger—harder—before her eyes.
Muscles, already impressive, strained his shirtsleeves.
His chest rose and fell with ragged breaths beneath her hands.
And his olive-toned skin grew pale and pulled tight across the bones of his face.
His upper lip lifted, baring fangs longer than she’d ever seen them.
And the irises of his eyes, normally a dark brown anyway, deepened and expanded until they were nearly black.
Yet they glowed with a vulnerable desperation and hunger. A hunger that echoed inside of her.
He was scary and exciting and breathtakingly beautiful.
“I don’t want you to go,” she told him again. An answering tremble ran through her when she felt him shudder beneath her hands. “And not because I’m trying to get you to help me.” She felt it was important he knew that. “That has nothing to do with this. With what’s happening now.”
“I know,” he told her. “I can feel your honesty.”
It was hard to read what he was saying with his fangs in the way. Everly wasn’t sure she’d understood him correctly. “You can feel me?”
He gave her a nod. “I can feel your emotions when they’re strong enough.”
“Can you feel everyone’s emotions?”
“Not like this.” He bent his head forward, his nose skimming the length of her throat.
Everly felt his chest rise and fall as he inhaled deep. His lips moved against her skin and words rumbled beneath her hands. Words she couldn’t hear. And then he was kissing her again.
Hawke pulled her into him until her toes were barely touching the floor, and Everly kissed him back with everything in her. The twinge of fear she’d felt was gone. She didn’t feel nervous. She didn’t feel less than because of her disability.
She felt like she was home.
He shifted his hips and the hard length of him pressed against her stomach.
Hugging her arms around his neck and lifting one leg, she wrapped it around his hip, positioning him against her core.
Her body tightened and a shudder ran through her when he moved his hips again, hitting the exact spot she needed him, and she must’ve moaned aloud for he tightened his arms around her back and hips.
Everly had had a good number of lovers. Mostly in her younger, rebellious days while she was being transferred in and out of foster homes.
But she’d never—ever—reacted like this to any of them.
She’d been ready for this before he’d ever touched her, from the moment she saw him standing outside her apartment door.
He suddenly broke off the kiss and she sucked in a breath. Pushing her sweater from her shoulders, he kissed and nipped every inch of newly exposed skin. Vibrations tickled her nape. He was saying something. She shook her head with frustration. “I can’t—”
The air cooled her skin, damp from his kisses, when he lifted his head so she could read what he was saying. “I want to see you, Everly.”
Wordlessly, she nodded.
“I want to take you to bed.”
Again, she nodded.
He didn’t smile or have that look of satisfaction men got when they knew they’d succeeded in their conquest. Instead, time froze, the world fading around them as his eyes roved over her face, blinking in an expression of near disbelief.
Sliding one hand down her arm, he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a reverent kiss to the pulse on the inside of her wrist.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The next thing she knew, they were in her room standing beside her bed with its colorful patch quilt and mismatched pillows. She didn’t even know how they’d gotten there.
Hawke gripped her hips, all of his focus on her. “Are you absolutely sure about this, Everly?”
He was giving her one last chance to back out.
She touched his face with a steady hand, running her fingertips over the bones of his cheek and down to the edge of his mouth.
She felt the harsh breath of his exhale stir her hair when they wandered too close to his fangs.
And when she lingered there, his lips twisted into a snarl even as his eyes closed in bliss.
Fearlessly, she stretched up onto her toes and kissed him.
Hawke wrapped his arms around her and took her down to the bed, then rose up on his knees and pulled off his shirt, yanking it up and over his head without unbuttoning it.
Tattoos covered his left arm and shoulder, dipping down to his left pec.
Musical notes moved as his chest muscle moved, playing a song for the rose beside them.
Timeless visions of people and places decorated his arm.
Hard abs led to the “V” above his hips. She wanted to follow the curve of muscle with her tongue.
Everly started to sit up to take off her tank top, but he grabbed her hand and stopped her.
She looked up to find him shaking his head.
“I want to do it,” he told her. “Let me do it.” With excruciating slowness, he grasped the bottom edges and lifted it up and off, like he was unwrapping a gift.
Without taking his eyes from her, he tossed it onto the floor.
At his nod, she relaxed against the mattress, her breasts tingling, and her womb clenched with anticipation.
But he surprised her again. Rather than joining her, he stayed as he was, touching her with nothing but his eyes for what seemed a very long time.
She began to feel self-conscious, but then he reached out to touch her, his hand shaking as he ever-so-carefully caressed her breast. Everly closed her eyes, her back arching into his touch as he skimmed his palm over her aching nipple.
Something warm and wet touched the opposite nipple, and Everly gasped as his mouth closed around the rigid bud, sucking it into his mouth and flicking it with his tongue.
Her hands found the muscles of his arms, tensed to keep him from crushing her with his weight.
He moved to the other nipple, giving it the same attention, scraping the tip of his fangs over the sensitive skin as he released it.
His hand between her hipbones pressed her into the bed and then went lower still, sliding between her thighs.
Everly cried out and bucked her hips. He’d barely touched her and her entire body was shaking with need. “Hawke, please.” She had no idea if he’d heard her or if she’d even said the words aloud, but a moment later and her pajama pants were joining her shirt on the floor.
He touched her face and she opened her eyes to find Hawke hovering over her.
Capturing her eyes with his and holding them, he silently commanded her to watch as he kissed his way down her stomach, nipping her here and there before soothing her with his tongue.
When he reached her hipbone, he spread her thighs wide with his hands and lowered his head, burying his nose in the tight curls.
His tongue touched her and hot pleasure shot through her womb.
Eyes still locked to hers, he smiled a devil’s smile.
Everly nearly came from that smile alone as she let her head fall back with a moan.
His mouth covered her, licking, sucking, bringing her right to the edge and then easing her gently down again.
Somewhere between the waves of pleasure she wondered how he managed not to bite her with those fangs, but the wisp of thought was there and gone again, lost in the clenching of her muscles around the finger he pushed inside of her.
He didn’t tease her. No. This was a full-on assault.
The pressure built, waves of almost painful pleasure building one upon the other, faster and harder, and Everly gripped the quilt, powerless to stop it as she rode them higher and higher.
Her body wasn’t her own anymore. It was Hawke’s to do with as he pleased, and she was powerless against his will.
The back of her neck burned. Her breasts swelled. And her nipples ached. Her breath came in pants. Every muscle strained, her body bowing uncontrollably, chasing that crest that would take her crashing down over the edge.
But she was unprepared for the intensity of it when it finally happened. With a flick of his tongue, he nipped her clit as he pressed another finger deep inside of her. Everly came with a breathless cry, her body convulsing even with the heavy arm he threw over her hips to hold her to his mouth.
And then the weight of his body was hot and heavy on top of her.
Everly pulled him to her, still riding the waves of her orgasm, and cried out again when he slid balls deep inside of her with one thrust. His mouth covered hers, swallowing her cries as he moved inside of her.
Faster. Harder. She dug her fingers into the muscles of his back, holding him as close as possible even as she pushed her hips up to meet him.
Tearing his lips from hers, his eyes were burning as he bared his fangs.
Everly knew what he wanted. What he needed. And somehow, she needed it, too. Turning her face away, she exposed her throat.
He struck almost immediately, fangs sinking deep into the side of her neck with a prick of pain.
But then he began to drink, and Everly’s eyes rolled back in her head, the pleasure so intense it was like strikes of lightening travelling from his bite to her breasts and down to her womb.
Another orgasm began to build, stronger than before.
His chest vibrated. On a moan? And then one hand slid under her rear, pulling her into each hard thrust as he drank, his hips moving faster and faster as the pleasure rose until her entire body stiffened with tension.
She was on fire. Hovering on the edge. Her body screaming for release.
Hawke lifted his head and struck again, deeper this time, and Everly burst into flames as his large body shuddered above her. He pushed as deep as he could go, fangs still embedded in her throat, and Everly lost herself to him.
As his body slowly relaxed, he disengaged from her throat and licked her wound as he continued to slide in and out with lazy strokes.
He kissed her jaw, her cheek, her lips, her nose, before he shifted his weight off of her and pulled her against him, tucking her face into his chest and holding her like she was something precious.
A gift he couldn’t believe he’d received.
Or, maybe she was being overly emotional.
When their breathing had returned somewhat to normal, Everly lifted her head. She wanted to see him. She wanted to tell him how he’d made her feel. Was this normal? If so, then she was making it a new life rule to only date vampires from now on.
His eyes blinked open as the corners of his mouth began to lift in a smile.
It froze on his face as he stared at her, his expression now carefully blank.
The teasing words died in her throat. “Hawke? What is it?”
He slowly lifted her by the shoulders up and off of him, staring at her eyes as if he could find the answers to the universe inside them. He swallowed hard, and his gaze fell to her neck.
He didn’t need to say anything. She could feel him leaving her, even though he had yet to move. “What is it?” Icy fingers of dread crawled over her skin as he continued to stare at her. “What’s wrong with me?”