Chapter 45
Joindre
CLAIRE
In the heat of the moment, it took a second for me to process what he’d just said. His hands slid into my hair, holding me so tenderly.
“When a vampire takes his mate, they are married under the laws of the Blood Treaty,” Bastien said, kissing me again. “If we do this, you will be more than my mate. You’ll be… my wife.”
Married?
I’d be the wife of a man who commanded an army and lived in a snow-covered chateau in the wild mountains that separated the Unified Territories from the Lawless Lands.
A man who’d kill for me. A man who’d do anything for me.
But I thought he wasn’t allowed to do any of this with his sanguine partner. “Isn’t this forbidden?”
“Yes. Very,” he confirmed, trembling as he hovered over me. His hard length traced lines over me, a barely there movement that was impossible to ignore. “If we do this, it would have to stay a secret. There’s too much at stake now. Too much I need to do to make this world safe for you.”
He couldn’t give up his title, just as I couldn’t give up my mission. Both of us committed to other goals, but unable to deny what was right in front of us. His length stroked over me again, and I tipped my head back, circling my hips to feel more. He was so hard. So, very hard.
He pressed my hands into the bedsheets and laced our fingers together. “I know it’s hard to ignore the pull, the god’s know I’ve been fighting it, but we don’t need to do this. You don’t need to marry me.”
He sat back on his knees, dragging me up with him, relieving me of the feel of him against me and giving me a moment to think.
I knew he was right. I shouldn’t do this.
Not because I didn’t want to be with him, but because of the secrets dangling between us.
He had no idea he was asking Claire Prideaux to be his wife, not an orphan girl.
If he knew that I was sent here by the woman who killed Temperance Kemp, the catalyst of tonight’s events, would he still want this? I wanted to believe the answer was yes but I wasn’t so sure. “Bastien, there are things you don’t know about me. Things I can’t tell you.”
He pressed his forehead against mine. Our breaths tangling in a jagged embrace. “I don’t give a damn. I love you, and I trust you. If you want this, then we’ll figure everything else out.”
It wasn’t perfect. It would never be perfect. Not until Mama’s choker was removed and this war was over. I swallowed hard, staring up at him and all his haunting beauty. I should say no, but I didn’t want to.
After tonight, after nearly dying for the second time in a month, after watching that blade to his throat, I knew there was no going back for me.
“I’m already yours,” I whispered. “I’ve been yours. Even when I didn’t want to believe it. Even when I fought it. You’re the only thing that’s ever made sense.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, our bloodstones snapped together like two magnets joined by some supernatural force.
There were no rings or vows. No priestess of the moon to bind our hands and speak the sacred spells.
This was our ceremony, and I was proclaiming that I accepted his protection and love.
That I wanted him, and only him. My darkness and his, twisting together forever.
“I am yours,” he gritted out. “I will always be yours. Every single piece of me.”
I smiled a real smile. And so did he. With my heart fully open to him for the first time, my hand came to rest on the swell of his chest as I gazed into the depths of his eyes.
My thumb stroked a thick band of scar tissue that slashed across his muscle.
If he was made for war, and I was made for him, what did that say about me? About who I really was?
So many questions, but the pull of desire in my core was undeniable. I wanted to be filled. To be satisfied. To know what it truly meant to be mated to him. Body and soul. To be joined as one.
His hands slid into my hair and tilted my face to deepen our kiss.
Our tongues twining together in a seductive dance I’d never tire of.
I gasped with pleasure as a sense of surety rocked through me.
He lowered me back against the mattress and angled himself so he was pressing against me. Right there.
He kissed me once. Twice. Catching my lip and sucking gently. “We’ll start slow.”
I nodded, my breaths coming quicker as anticipation twisted inside me.
His hands shook as he eased himself in, slightly parting me.
A gasp caught in my throat as pain and pleasure rocketed through me.
He was so thick. So hard. So big. Bastien held my gaze, both of us breathing heavily, as he slid himself deeper.
Tears burned in my eyes. A strangled cry tore from my throat. More from surprise than pain. He stilled, holding himself just inside me. “Do you want me to stop?”
I bit my lip and shook my head. “No. Keep going.”
Inch by inch, he sank into me. Giving me space to breathe as his thick length went deeper. So deep. As far as he could, burying himself inside me until there was no space between us. Then slowly, tortuously, he pulled himself out.
“You’re doing so good,” he said encouragingly.
I panted. Sweat beaded down my face. Then he did it again.
Slowly in, letting me feel everything. Lights exploded behind my eyes as I cried out in the most deliciously satisfying pain I’d ever felt.
My nails sank into his skin, needing to ground myself.
My hips lifted, wanting more friction. Wanting more of him.
He opened our connection, allowing me to feel what he was feeling. The blinding passion, the lust, the pleasure, the need to take me hard and fast tempered by the fear he might hurt me. The endless love.
I felt it all.
Bastien held himself all the way inside me, grinding against that sensitive place. The one that was throbbing with desire. Needing release. It was all so new, yet I couldn’t get enough of him.
“Claire, you’re so tight around me. So tight. If I’m hurting you—”
“You’re not,” I choked out. “I want more. More.”
“Are you sure?” he asked through his teeth. His desire and need to hold back warring inside him.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
With his face buried in my neck, he dragged himself out of me, only to slide back in, harder and faster than before. This time, I screamed his name. Not from pain, but from the unexpectedness of it.
“That’s it, darling. This is just the beginning.”
My hands wrapped around his neck. My fingers tangling in his hair as I moved my hips to feel him in every way.
Our bodies sliding over one another. Sweat turning our skin slick.
Bastien held perfectly still, allowing me to explore every sensation.
Gasping when I found the place that felt so good.
Heat built inside of me, that need to chase something.
A throaty groan escaped his lips. “Look at you, already squirming on my cock. Trying to make yourself come.” He slid out slowly once again, lingering, teasing that one spot until my eyes rolled back and my throat ran dry from panting, ‘more’ over and over again.
He thrust back inside me. Filling me. Taking me.
Holding himself all the way in again. “Go ahead,” he rasped.
“Rub that tight little pussy all over my cock. Use it. Don’t hold back. Make yourself come.”
Everything inside me was trying to obey his command. To find the sweet, hot release that was building inside me. Gripping his shoulders, I worked myself up and down on him. Breath hitching and moaning his name the closer I got to oblivion. But something was holding me back.
His hands melted around my waist, and he flipped us over so I was sitting on top of him. Breathless and so needy, I stared down at him and saw the hunger in his eyes as they drank in the curves of my body. His bloodstone throbbing with my erratic pulse.
Sitting astride this vampire, covered in scars, I felt so powerful. So wanted. So… loved. And so hungry for more.
His hands cradled my hips. His fingers dug into my backside. “Go on, chérie. Fuck your husband.”
My husband. Yes. I was going to fuck my husband. Pressing my hands into his shoulders, I moved my hips up and down on him, my breath breaking on gasps and moans, until I found that place again, the warm spot that begged for release.
“I love watching you use me,” he said. “Keep going. It’s all yours. Only yours. Always yours.”
I moved faster, watching him as I slid up and down.
And oh, Diana, it was coming. My release.
I could feel it cresting like a wave. Harder and faster than I’d ever felt before.
With him inside me, it was different. Hitting places his tongue and his finger alone couldn’t.
A torrent of pleasure and deep emotions that I had only dared to dream of.
He gripped my backside and helped me, guiding me up and down until the pleasure reached a peak. Fire burned behind my eyes. The release unlike anything else. I fell forward, clutching the strands of his hair in my fists, shaking and trembling for him. Every part of me touching every part of him.
“Good girl,” he purred in my ear when I finally finished. “I nearly came watching you come on my cock.”
He smoothed back my hair with his cool hand then let it travel down my back, gliding along the furrow of my spine and over the swell of my backside until he was touching the place where we were joined.
Kissing the side of my cheek, Bastien said, “Look how wet my wife is. She’s dripping for me.” His fingers ran through my wetness, massaging me, eliciting a whole new kind of pleasure.
He thrust his hips up, making the space between us disappear once again, filling me up until I lost my breath. “I love hearing all the little sounds you make when I’m all the way in.”