Chapter 11 The Mother’s Book #3
I was in bed, reading the Mother's Book, when I heard Baird and Bunny return.
He'd been gone a long while—and I doubted it was for lack of prey.
He paused in the doorway and tugged his sweatshirt up and over his head with one hand.
Then he just stood there—shirtless, hair mussed, one hand braced against the frame—and stared at me.
Really stared.
All six foot five of vampire: broad chest dusted with dark hair, my gaze drawn helplessly down over the hard lines of his stomach.
But the real masterpiece was the way his hips narrowed, muscle carving that stark, erotic V that plunged south—an unmistakable invitation for my eyes to follow it straight into his low-slung jeans.
I set the book aside and crossed the room, placing my hand on his chest—solid and cool beneath my palm. I reached up and pulled him down to me, pressing my mouth to his. He hesitated. I didn't. My insistence won.
The kiss deepened, and I tasted it—that lingering trace of blood, gamey, warm and coppery on his tongue.
I loved it when he came back from hunting.
He was always more alive, charged with a kind of intensity that thrilled me, similar to the strange charge I'd felt for the last twenty-four hours.
Tonight was no different. I could feel the electricity crackling between us. And he was already ready.
But there was something else—beneath my hunger, a hesitation. A prickle of guilt. For talking to Sorcha before I talked to him.
Still, he could have told me what he was feeling too—after Granny's comment, when we left. Maybe we still hadn't figured out how to navigate the minefield of hard conversations.
I broke the kiss, the words spilling out like a confession. “I should've talked to you first. I was just afraid to bring it up,” I admitted softly. “I thought maybe I was reading too much into what Granny Margaret said—because I wanted to. I wanted there to be a possibility.”
The truth of it hung there between us, bare and undeniable.
“And I was scared you'd tell me I was wrong,” I went on. “That you didn't see what I did. But I should've asked you…because you did see it.”
He leaned in, pressing his mouth to mine—a soft, lingering kiss that felt like forgiveness.
“Aye,” he whispered, his lips brushing mine with every word. “I am too—“
The slide of his skin against mine made it hard to hold on to anything else.
“I’m guilty of trying to sidestep the hard part,” he murmured. “Of not wanting to name the thing I cannae give ye…especially once I knew ye were thinking of it too.”
His hands were already moving—unzipping his jeans, tugging down the leggings I'd worn to bed, pulling my T-shirt up and over my head, slipping the clip from my hair so it tumbled free.
Every movement was full of urgency and tenderness, like he was trying to lose himself in my body to quiet the ache in his chest. He sat down on the bed, pulling me down to straddle him, my arms wrapped around his neck, losing myself in his embrace.
“Would you—I mean—if we could?” I hesitated, the question snagging in my throat. “Would you even want that?”
Frustration flared, inconvenient and unwelcome.
I needed to ask this—now—but my body was betraying me, steamrolling straight over my better intentions.
His lips were pressed to my neck, to that spot, the torturous sizzle of pain and pleasure short-circuiting thought, stealing breath, making focus impossible.
The blood of lovers—a living connection binding us together, even as I fought my own response, angry at how easily sensation drowned the words I still hadn't finished saying.
His hands were cupping my ass when he pulled back to look in my eyes. “Would I want a bairn with ye? Is that what ye want to ken?” he asked, surprise in his eyes.
I stopped, the realization settling heavy in my chest. This was what I'd been circling all along—the real fear gnawing at me. I nodded, bracing myself for what I might not want to hear.
“I dream of it, Mira,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Of a babe with yer stubbornness and that dimpled chin—God help us both.” His eyes gave him away; this wasn't a passing thought, but something that haunted him. “I ache for it. And no bein’ able to give ye that tears me in two.”
“But it might be possible,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“Aye.” His mouth curved without humor. “And I think that makes it harder— to ken there's even the smallest sliver of a chance—than it ever was, this past year, living with the belief it was impossible.”
I understood what he meant, but I needed him to hear me. “If there was a way, I'd want to try,” I said gently. “Even if it never came to anything. I think I'd need to know we didn't turn away from it—that we held it for a while, together, and let ourselves hope.”
“Hope.” He echoed and kissed me again—soft at first, then with more urgency. His hands slid down to cup my ass as he lifted me, notching the head of his hard cock against my slick entrance.
When I whimpered, soft and desperate, he smirked. He knew exactly what that sound meant. He thrust his hips upward just as he pulled me down, sheathing himself inside me in one fluid motion. We gasped together at the overwhelming sensation.
I moved on him, rolling my hips, pleasure rising sharp and fast. The buzz beneath my skin amplified everything—each nerve ending sparking with electric intensity. I realized I'd been daydreaming about this all day, flashes of want bleeding into my thoughts when I wasn't paying attention.
His mouth found that spot on my neck—where my pulse beat strongest, just beneath the surface.
His favorite. It had become a kind of ritual, this—him feeding from me after a hunt, when the thing he once called a beast still simmered beneath his skin.
Not that he needed more blood. It was something else. A hunger of a different kind.
He was demanding when he was like this. Possessive. Consuming. And it made me feel wanton. I didn't want to pretend otherwise. I loved it.
I felt the pinch of his fang at my neck—like the quick sting of a needle when giving blood—followed by the familiar rush, a molten warmth flooding through me.
It pulsed with every thrust of his cock, every pull of his mouth as he drank.
My orgasm was building already, my body drawn tight, every nerve-ending alive.
And then—something new. A sensation I'd never felt before.
Thirst.
Not his. Mine. Not for water—but for blood.
When he fed from me, I'd always felt the transference—his hunger, his need, even the jagged shimmer of his climax—but this time, something shifted. This thirst bloomed inside me. Sudden, insistent, and terrifying in its clarity.
And I wanted it.
I screamed—the sound tearing through the quiet night—not in fear, not even in pleasure, but from a place of raw, unrelenting need.
He pulled back from my neck, startled. His fangs—rarely glimpsed for more than a flicker—gleamed bright white, tipped with crimson. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath, both of us trembling on the cusp of release. His pupils were black, blown by his own hunger.
“Blood,” I panted. “Give me your blood.” My head lolled back, my body pliant, undone. I didn't know where the thirst came from—only that it consumed me completely. His eyes widened at my demand, but I would accept no refusal. Whatever spell I was under, it had taken hold.
Without breaking eye contact, he slowly brought his wrist to his mouth, pressing a single fang into his skin.
When he pulled back, blood welled to the surface—dark, rich, glinting in the low light.
Salty tears slid down my cheeks, my entire body suddenly trembling with anticipation as he lifted his arm to my lips.
I'd never wanted anything, never craved anything, the way I craved this.
I sealed my mouth over the wound, pressing my lips tight, and drew him into me.
The instant his blood hit my tongue—sweet and honeyed, metallic—my orgasm detonated.
Shattering. Consuming. The blood ignited something in me, and it reverberated through every nerve, every inch of me, pole to pole.
He held me through it, crushing me to him, his mouth at my ear, a hiss escaping his lips as I drank.
My thirst quickly eased once I'd taken no more than a mouthful, but the new fire inside me grew, as if the blood had caused a chemical reaction with the buzzing energy just under my skin.
I clenched my pelvic floor, my pussy gripping his cock like a fist as I moved up and down.
His climax followed, hard and violent, until I pulled my mouth free.
And when we stilled, I stayed there—my head on his shoulder, eyes closed tightly, heart pounding with something far more than just release. “I'm not a vampire, am I?” I whispered—a small, anxious joke as I tried to make sense of what had just happened.
“Shh, love. That's nohow it's done,” he murmured, his lips brushing my forehead in reassurance. “But ye need to open your eyes, Mira.”
I did, and I winced. It felt like someone had turned on a spotlight in the room—so bright it burned as my eyes adjusted. And then I understood. Why he'd urged me to open my eyes. The light wasn't coming from above, or any other part of the room. It was coming from me.
Radiant flares burst outward from my skin, like solar fire dancing just above the surface—arching, flickering, reaching in every direction.
I was blazing from the inside out.
My skin was warm and tingling—but not painful.
Like the frenetic energy I'd felt since I'd asked Brigid to send a message to Sorcha, electricity arcing just beneath my skin, had expanded until the confines of my skin could no longer hold it back.
Baird still held me close, which meant I wasn't burning him.
“It's not always like this…is it?” I asked, astonished—referring to what he'd once told me, how I sometimes glowed when we made love. I raised an arm, rotating it slowly, mesmerized as the flares started to soften—dimming in sync with the slowing rhythm of my heartbeat.
“No, lass,” he said slowly, warily, eyes narrowed and fixed on me. “This is new…”