18. Chapter 18
18
I woke to the delicious taste of blackberries and pine coating my tongue and a wrist pressed against my mouth. Hot water rained down on me, and strong arms held me close against a solid, warm body.
I tried to lift my eyelids, but the blurry sliver of the world spun, so I squeezed them shut and instead focused on the intoxicating blood trickling into my mouth. Bastian’s blood, I realized in a moment of coherency. I gripped his hand and forearm, pressing his wrist more firmly against my mouth, and sucked harder. With each pull of blood, the world steadied, and my awareness solidified.
As the dizziness receded, need throbbed between my legs, and I rocked my hips in an attempt to rub myself against the solid length of Bastian’s thigh, which was flush against my bare ass.
“Not this time, Soph,” Bastian murmured. “I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have.”
I whimpered, rubbing my rump against his thigh again, even as I continued to draw his blood into my mouth.
Bastian sighed, and his free hand slid along my inner thigh, moving closer to the place where I needed him. I rocked my hips eagerly.
At the first touch of his fingertip to my aching clit, I moaned and sucked harder on his wrist. He stroked me gently, making slow circles around that tender, swollen bundle of nerves. I could feel his hard erection pressed against my side, and I wedged my hand between our bodies to stroke him in return.
“Fuck,” he groaned, and I smiled against his wrist.
The pleasure built quickly within me, despite Bastian’s light touch between my legs. It crested suddenly, sending a blissful wash of tingling warmth spreading out from my core in waves that waxed and waned in time with my swallows. I shuddered on the floor of the shower, cradled against Bastian’s body, as the combination of his blood on my tongue and his relentlessly tender touch coaxed the orgasm on and on into infinity.
Bastian groaned, and his body stiffened. He pulsed his release out onto my hand, then relaxed. But through it all, he continued to stroke me. To stoke my pleasure onward, keeping me drifting along over those gently cascading waves of the sweetest extended climax.
I pulled my mouth away from his wrist and opened my eyes, gazing up into his eyes, the golden sunbursts barely visible around his pupils. I tilted my face up toward his, offering him my lips. He finally ceased his stroking between my legs and bowed his neck to claim my kiss.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathed, breaking the kiss and resting his forehead against mine. “I shouldn’t have done it, but apparently, I really am a selfish bastard.”
My brow furrowed, and as the haze of desire faded, clarity returned to my mind. I blinked and looked around, totally confused as to why, exactly, I was slumped on the shower floor, cradled between Bastian’s legs. “What happened?”
“You offered me the blood bond,” Bastian said, raising his head and leaning it back against the tiled shower wall.
Without his head to shield me, water sprayed on my face. I raised one hand to block the spray while I turned my face away from the showerhead. Memories flashed through my mind like still frames from a movie. Me, biting my own lip until I bled. Offering Bastian my kiss, and with it, an eternal bond. Bastian claiming my lips, accepting my bond.
Bastian reached out one arm, leaning forward slightly to turn off the water. “And like an idiot, I accepted.”
My breath caught, and my stare locked onto the glowing silver bonding sigil encircling his wrist. It was just like Gavin’s with the phases of the moon. “You don’t want it?” I whispered, my heart sinking into my stomach.
“What? No, Soph—” Bastian pressed his fingers against the side of my jaw and angled my face toward his once more. “That’s not what I meant.” His eyes searched mine, his dark brows bunching together. “I bound my life to yours the second I attacked that wolf shifter. This—” He glanced at his wrist. “This just makes it official.”
“Then, what?” I shook my head.
“I shouldn’t have accepted the blood bond right now ,” he said. “Gavin warned me. He warned me not to do it. He knew you weren’t ready. But I did it anyway because I’m selfish and I didn’t want to risk losing you, and—” Again, Bastian rested his head back against the shower wall. “Fuck, he’s going to kill me.”
“He won’t kill you,” I vowed. “I won’t let him.”
Bastian’s eyes shifted to the doorway, fear flaring in his eyes.
“What?” I searched his face. “What is it?”
“He’s back.” Bastian awkwardly rose to his feet, helping me up with him.
“Indeed I am,” Gavin said, darkening the doorway from the bedroom.