Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Well that certainly explained some things — like why she was so adamant that she wasn’t what he was looking for, and that he wasn’t interested in anything serious.
The last time he’d been to Georgio’s was when he took Caitlin, his last regular partner, out to dinner.
Breaking things off with her was long overdue for multiple reasons, not least of which was she’d become far too attached to him and begun asking when he’d bite her.
Seeing as he’d been clear with his boundaries from the beginning, she had no reason to think that was ever forthcoming.
From what he could recall, the evening was a fine one. He’d been determined to treat her well all the way up until the end, figuring a break-up deserved as good of an impression as a first date. His mothers had taught him just as much.
They’d laughed and teased each other and at some point she’d crawled into his lap for some tipsy kisses, totally unconcerned with the fact that they were in a full restaurant. He hadn’t been able to truly enjoy it, though, because his mind was stuck on a woman with big brown eyes and a shy smile.
And then things took a turn.
Breaking up with someone rarely went exactly as planned.
He liked to think he was fairly good at it, seeing as he had plenty of practice, but there really was no telling how or where things would go wrong.
On that particular night, he’d explained that he wasn’t interested in permanent relationships with her or anyone, which Caitlin hadn’t taken well.
By the time he left, he’d been doused in wine and owed Georgio’s a hefty sum for both the damage and disturbance.
And Frankie saw it all.
Luis let out a slow exhale. Working through the problem in his mind, he slowly began to tear a line down the center of her uniform with his claws. Ignoring her squawk, he said, “You saw me with Caitlin, then.”
“I heard what you said to her,” she admitted, squirming. “Do you have any idea what I’ll owe to my boss to replace this shirt?”
Praising the gods over the fact that his girl appeared to prefer front clasp bras, he deftly flicked it open. Her breasts spilled out as the cups fell to the side, giving him a delicious view of her honey skin and dark, pert nipples.
In a rougher voice he reminded her, “My money’s your money.”
“Is that what you told Caitlin just before you broke her heart in public?”
He moved down her body to unbutton her slacks. Hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her panties, he dragged both garments down her legs until he hit her sensible black work shoes.
“For the record,” he began, plucking at the laces of her shoes, “I never promised her anything. We were a strictly casual sexual relationship.”
“Sure didn’t look like that when she started bawling.”
Dropping one shoe, then the other, he replied, “She got attached to a man that doesn’t really exist. It was only a matter of time before I broke her heart, intentionally or not. The kindest way to do it was to end it myself.”
When she was as nude as he could make her in the current position, he slowly ran his hands up her legs, spreading them and bending her knees until she was open to his hungry gaze.
It was a mark of just how much she did trust him that despite the vulnerable position he’d put her in, she continued, “And what makes me different from Caitlin, huh? My blood type?”
Luis pulled another new purchase out of his other pocket.
He had plenty more like it back at the penthouse, as well as a vast collection of ropes, paddles, cuffs, spreaders, and more, but none of it was suitable for her.
The raw possessive instinct in him demanded everything be new, unsullied by the scent of another, which meant he’d have to build his collection all over again.
Not that it was a hardship. The thought of shopping for new toys specifically for her made his cock jerk. And the contract did require gifts…
Placing the little rubber toy directly on her clitoris, he told her, “You’re different because I love you. And because I love you, I’m going to give you the punishment you need.”
Francesca’s head popped up. Staring down the length of her body and between her spread legs, she goggled at him with pure disbelief. “You love m— Ah!”
He pressed the rubbery little button on the toy. It sprang to life with a cheerful hum. Normally, he preferred a vibrator he could strap into place so he could multi-task or, in cases of severe punishment, leave her there to writhe by herself, but this would do for now.
Almost immediately Francesca began to shudder, the muscles of her stomach rippling and her thighs attempting to snap closed around his arm. Using his free hand, he held one soft thigh in an iron grip, never allowing her any relief from the relentless vibration.
“You’re going to listen very carefully, kitten, because I’m going to explain how things will work from now on,” he ordered, eyes locked on the pink jewel of her dripping, twitching cunt.
“You’re my anchor. You will take my bite when you finally accept that.
You’ll take the Amauri name because it protects you.
You’ll live well and comfortably and trust me with all your worries.
You’ll laugh every day for the rest of our lives and you won’t have to think about your parents going without ever again.
Whatever burden you’re carrying that you won’t talk about, I’ll carry it with you. ”
Sweat glistened on her body as she strained against the ropes. Just as her first orgasm began to crest, he tapped the button again. Her whole body jerked with the uptick in intensity.
“Luis,” she moaned. Her stomach and the muscles of her inner thigh contracted sharply as she attempted to curl her body in a vain attempt to escape the stimulation. “It’s too much. It’s— it’s— Ah, gods!”
“You can take it,” he promised her. “Let yourself go, kitten. Let someone take care of you for once. I’m not going anywhere.”
When the first wave of her orgasm ended, she lay there sweating and her limbs twitching. “You call this care?”
He smiled. “Yes. You never allow yourself to turn your brain off. You think you need to do everything by yourself. You work yourself to the bone and you lock yourself away because you can’t trust anyone.
That ends now. When we’re together, you trust me — with your secrets, your safety, and your pleasure. Are we clear?”
Her inner thigh shook in his grip. The silk rope, braided for strength and yet exquisitely soft against her fragile skin, creaked in protest as she strained against it. The perfect curve of her back bowed off the bed a moment before the second orgasm electrified her.
Leaning over her a bit, and adding a touch of extra pressure to her already abused cunt, he gently scolded her, “I didn’t hear an answer, kitten.”
“What about what I want?” she cried out between strained, panting breaths.
He tsked. “Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”
“I want you to turn off the fucking vibrator!”
“All you have to tell me is stop,” he reminded her in that same patient voice. “That’s all you ever have to say.”
He waited, expression clear of any real feeling.
It was important he never influence her to go one way or another.
She had to know that ultimately giving her trust to him meant she actually held all the power.
That power couldn’t be undermined by fear of his reaction or even the desire to please him.
If ever it became too much for her, there would never be any judgment or disappointment — only the joy that came with knowing she understood how much power she had.
Francesca didn’t tell him to stop. She let loose a terrific impression of a vampire’s growl and threw her head back into the pillows.
“That’s my good girl,” he praised, hitting the button again.
Even a swallowed scream seemed loud in the tiny apartment. Francesca contorted her upper body until she could press her face into a pillow. Another scream erupted, slightly more muffled than the first, as she bit down hard.
“Tell me what you want and I’ll turn the intensity down one level,” he promised.
Speaking into the pillow, she said, “I want a—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I want to look in your eyes.”
Francesca groaned. Releasing the pillow, she peered at him with eyes gone big and liquid with reflexive tears.
“I want to know you better. The real you. Not this playboy joker act you put on for everyone else, and— ah! Not the weird domesticated version of you that you’ve tried feeding me. I want Luis. All of him.”
He released her thigh. Unzipping the torture device that was his fly, he warned her, “You already have all of me, kitten. You’ve just got to let me in.” His other hand pressed the button twice in a row, lowering the intensity. “Now tell me what else.”
Francesca’s throat moved with a hard swallow. The golden glow from a street lamp outside her window caught in the sweat covering her body, turning it into liquid gold.
“I think I hate the penthouse,” she admitted in a raw, scratchy voice. “I know it’s petty but I don’t like knowing you’ve slept with so many other women there.”
He bit back a hiss as he freed his heavy cock from his briefs at last. Giving it a firm squeeze at the base to take some of the edge off, he grunted, “Done. You pick our house. What else?”
He didn’t give a shit about the penthouse anyway. The only reason he kept it as long as he did was because it was where she walked into his life. And it wasn’t like he could blame her for her discomfort. He wouldn’t have taken it well if the situation were reversed.
Another short, painful orgasm ripped through her and raised her round hips off the ground.“Ah, Luis! You didn’t— You said you’d lower it!”
“Didn’t,” he denied, holding the vibrator steady despite the slippery surface and all her writhing. “That was for the first round. You want more, you’ve got to give me more.”
“You are such an asshole,” she growled, kicking out at him with one bare foot.
Luis caught her ankle. Giving the delicate bone a kiss, he warned her, “Now is not the time to be a bad girl. We haven’t even hit the highest intensity yet.”
Francesca jerked her leg back like it’d been burned. “Fine,” she whined. “I want monogamy. Only you for me and me for you.”
“That one’s easy.” He lowered the intensity down to level one. “I only need or want one anchor, Frankie, and once you’ve got my venom, there won’t be anyone else for you, either.”
She flashed him a look that made not biting her nearly impossible. “No vampire, you mean.”
Luis turned off the vibrator. Tossing it aside, he climbed over her until his cock dragged against the slick, fluttering entrance of her body. Bracing his forearms over her head, he lowered his face to hers.
“No one,” he snarled, reaching down to press his cockhead against that hungry ring of muscle. “You’re mine. Venom or no venom.”
Francesca spread her legs, welcoming him home. “What if you change your mind?”
“I guess I have twenty-nine days to prove to you I won’t,” he answered, slowly pressing forward.
Her cunt, sensitized from three consecutive orgasms, spasmed around him as he moved, inch by inch, into the hot well of her body.
She made a soft, surprised sound, her lips popping open even as her eyes closed.
It was a tight fit but she didn’t complain or tense up.
Her body was completely relaxed under his, accepting his girth like it was made for him.
When he bottomed out, her back bowed again, arching her naked breasts into him.
Luis found her lips, battered from her biting them, and gave her a deep, searching kiss.
He held himself there, sweat gathering under the collar of his shirt as he fought every base instinct — to thrust, to come, to breed, to bite.
She’s perfect, his body howled. She’s perfect and she’s mine.
When her tongue stroked his, he took that as a sign that she was comfortable enough for him to move.
Luis took it slow at first, knowing she was sensitive, but he didn’t show restraint for long.
Bracing his weight on his forearms, he thrust hard and deep, until he could feel her whole body flex every time he sheathed himself to the hilt.
And when he pulled back, her cunt contracted sharply around him, desperate to keep him there — the sweetest feeling in the fucking world.
He didn’t care about the pinch and burn of his stitches with each rolling movement of his body. All that mattered was her. Them. This.
As his orgasm approached, the urge to bite went from a throbbing pain to a sharp stab in the roof of his mouth. To distract himself, he thumbed that angry little bundle of nerves at the apex of her cunt, ruthlessly stroking until he could force another orgasm out of her.
Francesca tore her lips away from his with a cry that came from deep in her chest. Her legs snapped up, circling his waist as tightly as they could. Hips shuttling with more speed and force than rhythm, Luis’s chest rose and fell like bellows as the pressure released in one glorious rush.
She clenched hard around him when he buried himself deep.
At the last possible second he whipped his head to the side and buried his fangs in her pillow.
Luis came with a groan, splashing her inner walls with the ropes of his release.
It felt a bit like it took some part of his soul with him, leaving him lax and dazed on top of her for some time afterward.
An orgasm did nothing for the pent-up venom in his gland or the pain radiating throughout the top of his mouth, but it still felt fucking good.
Carefully rolling to one side, he fumbled with the knot around her wrists. As soon as she was free, he gathered her to his chest and held her tight, his fingers stroking her spine through what remained of her shirt.
She shook in his arms, but he didn’t sense distress. Francesca curled into him, seeking shelter.
“I’m pretty sure I love you, too,” she whispered into the sweaty skin of his neck. “So I guess you win this weird game we’ve been playing.”
He rubbed his bearded chin against the crown of her head. “Not yet,” he replied, breathing deep. “I’ll know I’ve won the day you admit we’re forever.”