Chapter 18 #2
The memory of her skin against my tongue slammed into me. Her taste. The way she’d trembled. The way she’d said my name like it was a secret.
My hand slipped from the doorframe, reaching before my mind caught up. I stopped it just in time, curling my fingers back into the wood. Splinters dug into my palm. Good. Pain was useful.
This is not who I am. I do not hover at doorways. I do not yearn. I do not fall to my knees for a mortal woman who laughs at my inability to operate a toaster.
And yet.
What if this need was not a weakness? What if loving her did not destroy, but restored?
She accepted me. Even when I failed to understand her world. Even when I snarled at machines that hum. She let me learn. Not once had she asked me to change. Adapt, yes, but not change.
Maybe this was not the loss of power. Of freedom. Maybe this was the source of it.
I thought of Cassian, of betrayal, of the dagger that pinned me to centuries of silence. The memory made me flinch half a step back.
But Nadia is not Cassian or the Sovereign Court. She doesn’t want my power or what I can do for her. She only wants me. I think. I hope.
Her breathing was steady. She shifted in her sleep, murmuring something I couldn’t catch.
I stood there, caught between hunger and reverence.
If I love her, I’ll never survive losing her. If I let her in, if I allow this, and she leaves, it will undo me. It’s not just the bond. It’s her.
I swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet.
I would burn the world if she left. And that is not love. That is ruin.
Slowly, I stepped back. I didn’t cross the threshold. Didn’t wake her.
My hand stayed pressed to the frame until the wood cracked under my grip.
I turned from the doorway, chest heavy, pulse drumming.
The mansion slept. Moonlight cut across the floorboards and made everything too sharp. I lay still and watched the ceiling as if it might offer instructions. It did not.
The bond grasped at my chest. Not pain. Something older.
Primal. It pulled at me like a hand on a sleeve until I could no longer ignore it, and I knew she was awake.
I felt her presence arrive before I heard her outside my door.
It was warmth at the edge of the room, a pull that made every molecule of me lean in.
The door creaked. A sliver of hall light outlined her silhouette. She walked in like a small apology and a declaration at once. She was still in my shirt. It hung loose on her shoulder. Messy hair. Vulnerable posture. Determined.
She whispered, low and raw, “Can you pretend you want me… really want me… just for tonight?”
I wanted to tell her there was no pretending, but my entire body answered before my mouth did. Every ragged part of me wanted her. She came closer. Her hand found my sternum. I felt her fingers press through centuries of habit and armor. When she kissed me, whatever pretense I had left fractured.
I rose for her like a tide. There was no hurry in it. My hands were careful, as if she was a deity made real before me. I pressed her back into the mattress as if keeping her there would anchor both of us. She fit under me with a trust that made something in me break open.
I let my mouth move over her, a mapping, a catalog of soft and honest things. Each touch was a quiet vow. I told her what I wanted without saying it all at once.
“Tell me what you need,” I murmured.
“Look at me while you touch me,” she whispered. The order was small and brave, and it made me laugh against her collarbone.
She unabashedly grazed her finger down the hard length of me as I hovered over her, sending need through every cell in my body unlike anything I had known.
Clothes. They had to go. I removed my shirt, tossing it aside, and she ran her hands over my chest like she was memorizing every inch.
I ran my hands up her bare thighs until I reached the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head.
Her body was going to be the end of me. I needed to ravish every inch.
“You undo every piece of control I have.”
I pressed my lips to hers with a fervor that took her by surprise, yet she matched my intensity, sucking and nibbling on my lower lip.
My hands roamed over the smooth skin of her back, tracing the delicate lines of her spine as I pulled her closer to me.
One hand slipped under her panties and palmed her wetness, feeling the heat radiating off her.
She moaned into my mouth, urging me on as I continued to explore every inch of her neck with my mouth and teeth.
I slipped her panties from her body, and she made quick work of my trousers and underwear.
“Are you sure this is what you want, Nadia?”
She pulled me closer. “I want you. All of you. I am not scared.”
I kissed down her body. Slowly. Savoring.
The scent of her skin filled my head. It was warmth and trust. Want rose fast and sharp. I lowered myself between her thighs, letting my hands guide her open with care. I felt the small tremor that moved through her. Not fear. Invitation.
I leaned down. Her inner thigh was warm under my lips. I let my tongue trace along her opening, and the arousal I tasted there sent a bolt of desire so deep through me that I could not tame it.
“Cristian,” she whispered. Her voice was unsteady but sure. “I want you to feed from me. Please.”
I looked up at her. Her eyes held mine with a confidence that shook something loose inside me.
Her trust hit me with the force of a memory I did not want to examine.
Years of refusal. Years of control. Years of hunger denied.
None of that lived here. She was offering herself because she wanted me.
Not because she was bound. Not because she was afraid.
Because she chose this moment. She chose me.
I lowered my mouth to her again. My lips pressed to the soft skin of her inner thigh. Her pulse beat steady against my tongue. Instinct moved through me. My fangs slipped through her skin with slow, deliberate care.
She gasped, her fingers sliding into my hair, holding me there. Not forcing. Allowing. Asking for more. The sound she made tore through every line of discipline I had held for centuries. I pressed two fingers into her while I drank, and she clenched tightly around them.
Her taste hit me. Sweet and warm. Alive and real. I had never experienced something like this. Not in battle. Not in hunger. Not in the years of captivity. This was different. This was connection. This was trust I did not deserve but could not refuse.
“Cristian,” she whispered breathlessly. “Don’t stop. Please.”
I drank only until the bond pushed against my restraint, my fingers never stopping their ministrations.
Her body arched under my mouth, her hand tightening in my hair as if she felt every thought I struggled to contain.
I forced myself to pull back before instinct took over. A line I could not cross. Not with her.
She looked down at me, her cheeks flushed, eyes heavy-lidded. The softness in her gaze ripped through me.
I brushed my lips over the mark I had left on her thigh. A mark that was hers to claim or hide. A secret that belonged only to the two of us.
“You wreck me,” I whispered against her skin. “And you do not even try.”
I rose and entered her slowly, carefully, in one smooth thrust, feeling her walls grip around me like velvet. She clung to me like she was drowning, and I held her like she was the only thing keeping me afloat.
She gasped, eyes wide, as her back bowed off the bed in response. “Fuck, Cristian, you’re so big.”
“And you are the embodiment of perfection.”
Our breathing grew ragged as I started to move inside of her.
She arched into each thrust, meeting my gaze with a mix of total surrender and longing that made my heart both ache and soar.
With every drive deeper inside of her, I grew more lost in her, pulling her soft legs up around my waist to draw her closer still.
I couldn’t get enough of the taste of her skin, the sounds she made.
“You have no idea how irresistible you are to me.”
Her nails raked down my back, leaving trails of heat in their wake. She pleaded with me through gritted teeth as she urged me on, digging her heels into my back. “Don’t stop. Whatever you are doing, do not stop.”
She clenched around me, and it took every ounce of restraint inside me not to follow her. “Oh, Cristian. Oh my god, Cristian.” Her nails dug into my skin as she threw her head back.
I stared at her in awe. “That’s it, Nadia, let go for me.”
When she came back down, she rolled her body on top of mine and slid her trembling body down on top of me.
That one movement almost did me in, but when she sat up and began to fondle her own breasts as she rode me, I thought I might leave my body.
Centuries of immortality and this mortal woman would be what did me in.
I reached around her, palming her glorious ass with both hands as she moved on top of me like she belonged there.
The muscles in my stomach clenched and released with every sensation that ran through me.
She leaned down and captured my lip, teeth scraping against it.
A shiver coursed down my spine as she moved her hips against me.
Her other hand trailed up my chest to the side of my face, her eyes never leaving mine.
I looked at her, raw and exposed in a way I had never been before.
“Show me what I do to you,” she whispered softly, her voice husky from her pleasure.
My entire body shuddered as I started to release, my grip on her tightening almost painfully.
“You make me lose control,” I growled against her lips as she rode me harder and harder, her walls clenching around me with every thrust. My hips bucked up into her, a silent plea for release. She met each one with a moan until we were both shaking, both of us losing ourselves in each other.
Finally, she collapsed on top of me, panting heavily as her body trembled with aftershocks of pleasure. She laid her head on my chest and sighed contently, her heartbeat slowing down. “That was… incredible.”
I ran my fingers through her hair and chuckled softly. “You shouldn’t tempt an immortal like me.” I pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead before pulling her in closer, the heat from her body soothing mine as I held her tight.
I said the things I could not keep inside. I praised the right parts of her. I told her she was perfect, and I meant every syllable like a prayer.
I whispered, “I will not survive this,” and the confession was not an exaggeration. It was a promise and a warning.
She curled around me and dozed, and it made the rest of the centuries fall away. I did not sleep. I held her until the room lost the moon, and the house remembered how to breathe without us. If love was a curse, then let it be hers. I would take that curse and wear it like armor.