Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Landon
Strawberries.
The taste hit me before I could even remove my fangs from the delicate skin of her offered wrist. Her blood tasted like fucking strawberries.
Ah hell, that was why the kitchen had smelled like a damn strawberry shortcake yesterday.
How could I have forgotten that it wouldn’t taste like a typical human?
She was a dhampir, a half vampire. Her blood would have a unique smell and taste, just like any other vampire.
Even if I had remembered, of all the possibilities, I never would have predicted strawberries. Not when everything about her was so damn fierce, so determined and capable. Not when she was the forbidden fruit, the apple dangled in front of me until I broke.
And, God, did I break.
A mournful groan fell from my lips as I took a step closer and adjusted my hold on her wrist, bringing it more fully against my mouth.
The second swallow was even more decadent than the first, and it silenced that voice shrieking in the back of my mind warning that all of this would end poorly.
That swallow only fueled a desire to drink again, and so I did, taking steady, greedy gulps as I crowded those last few inches between us.
My knee wedged between hers, and she sucked in a breath.
And then she whimpered.
Horror seized me, freezing my tongue and my throat.
Bloody hell, my fangs were still in her wrist. When was the last time I’d been so enamored with the taste of someone’s blood I’d forgotten to pull my fangs away from the punctures? Not since I was a young boy still feeding at my mother’s wrist.
I pulled away at once, ready to admit this was the exact poor decision I knew it would be.
The blizzard wouldn’t last forever. I could hold out.
Even as I thought the words, my fangs elongated and a deeper hunger ripped through my body.
I couldn’t bring myself to move more than a few inches away from the vein I’d opened in her arm.
Harlowe’s cheeks were flushed a deep crimson, the same color that spread across her neck and collarbones. Her eyebrows lowered as she bit her lip.
“Is…” Her throat rippled with a swallow. “That can’t have been enough. It’s never been that fast before.”
Jealousy ripped through me, so intense it was a miracle my skin didn’t flay right open.
How often had she offered her vein that she would know what most vampires needed from a host?
From her? Between one heartbeat and the next, the need to find that nameless prick and drive a stake through his still-beating heart overwhelmed me. Every muscle tensed in readiness.
Good God above, this was madness.
“Landon?”
Shit, she needed to stop saying my name.
I couldn’t fucking think straight with the way her lips wrapped around the syllables pinging around in my mind.
Uncertainty flashed in her eyes and pinched the corners of her mouth before she reached out to me with her free hand.
I didn’t trust myself to move, to do anything but hover above her bleeding wrist. She carefully palmed the nape of my neck, her touch light as a feather.
Her chest shuddered with another heavy breath. Thirst and need ripped through me all over again, stronger and deeper than even a moment before.
“It wasn’t enough,” she whispered.
Her voice had gone low and sultry, her body already reacting to the pleasure my bite always induced. It sent a thrill straight to my cock.
This was such dangerous territory. Another minute, another taste, and I knew I wouldn’t trust myself to make the proper choice: leave her untouched in every way that Joshua would use to justify putting a stake through my chest.
That one taste would have to be enough to get me through the next twenty-four hours until the snow slowed enough that the mountain town reopened.
I would need those swift, greedy tastes to last long enough to find a human who wouldn’t remember me the moment my fangs left their vein, just like the man last night.
As if she could read my thoughts, Harlowe’s nails pricked my skin.
Her body straightened, as if she had decided something in the stretch of silence.
I readied to drop her wrist, to allow her to back off.
Instead, she pressed the bleeding punctures to my mouth.
The wounds were still bleeding freely, dual beads slowly dripping toward her elbow.
I cautiously licked one trail, cleaning the bright red from her skin.
Her breath caught, and both of her hands fisted, the one on my neck twisting into my hair, holding me immobile. Her command wrapped around me, the single word reaching into the depths of me and ripping out the very last bit of common sense by the roots.
“Feed.”
I was lost. I settled my lips over the punctures and drank.
Each intoxicating swallow was the sweetest nectar, a balm that soothed the biting pain of the thirst more effectively than any human blood could.
In a matter of seconds, the sandpaper burn in my throat was gone entirely.
And yet I continued to drink, needing to take her deeper, needing to taste her until she was embedded in my bones.
God, it had been decades since I had allowed myself to drink from another preternatural. The memory paled in comparison to Harlowe’s sweet, delectable blood.
And with every pull and suckle of my mouth, her body strung tighter.
The aphrodisiac nature of my bite overrode her distaste of me, needling deeper the longer I kept her vein open and pulled her blood into my body.
A sick, horrid part of me slowed my swallows, forcing the feeding longer so I could keep her next to me, keep her skin against my lips, keep the pleasure growing in her body.
Her breathing grew choppy as she let her head fall back, her eyes fluttering closed.
Her fisted hand relaxed into my hair, twisting strands around her fingers.
It was a proprietary grip, holding me against her skin.
I couldn’t hold back the hum of satisfaction at proof my bite was pleasuring her.
Even if it was only biology, even if it would fade in the hour after this forced feeding ended.
In this moment, I could pretend it was her arousal in truth, that every subtle adjustment of her legs and and scratch of her nails was fueled by her wanting me and not the base response to a vampire’s bite.
Just like her blood, I drowned in the fantasy.
It wasn’t until her grip on my hair slackened that I pulled away with a rueful sigh.
I swiped my tongue over both punctures, making damn sure they were fully sealed.
No way was I going to leave her with a mess like that dumbass prick.
Her hand slipped out of my hair as I straightened, coasting down my arm.
Her eyes were half-lidded, hazy with desire. Her lips parted, and her cheeks flushed even darker than before. I couldn’t look away as I licked the last drop of her blood from my lip, not ready to lose the strawberry taste. Her nails dug into my forearm, and then her wrist twisted out of my hold.
I had one heartbeat to hate myself, to reel in disgust at my assumption she would let my bite sway her toward wanting me.
One heartbeat, and then she had my palm against her lips, her eyes still locked on mine.
A small flick of her tongue, and I groaned.
I let myself trace her lip with my thumb and palm her cheek.
A small smile tilted her lips, and her eyes closed entirely.
No, I couldn’t let this happen.
It was just her natural reaction to me feeding from her. The last thing I wanted was to have her wake up tomorrow ashamed that she succumbed to all of this.
I gently freed my hand from her grip. Her lips drew into a pout, but she didn’t look at me.
“Landon?” Even her voice was lower, breathier. “Landon, please.”
Bloody hell, I shouldn’t. Taking her blood was one thing.
I could explain that to her father, could make him understand the need.
He would, too. As irritated as he would inevitably be that his daughter was the host, he would understand the impossibility of waiting.
Every vampire had a story about needing to feed in the worst situation.
But this? Touching Harlowe, sating the need my drinking has stoked in her body? In no possible scenario would he forgive me this. Harlowe’s nails bit into my forearm as she tried to drag me back to her. Her eyes fluttered open. The bright, heavy look stole my breath.
There was no worry, no hesitation. There was only a woman who craved, who squirmed in her seat because she needed an orgasm, desired it with every cell in her body.
“Kiss me,” she ordered on a whisper.
“Ah Christ.”
I cradled her face in my hands, stroking my thumbs across her cheek bones, counting each freckle dotted across them. She twisted a hand under my sweater, her palm spreading across my stomach.
My words were nothing more than a growl fueled by a year’s worth of unholy craving.
“Fuck it.”
And then I slammed my lips to hers.