Chapter 21 Diantha
Diantha
He moves so swiftly, so soundlessly, that I don’t realize he’s back in the loft until I hear the rustling of the sheets beside me. Then, his heat envelops me. It’s like sinking into a bath up to my chin.
I reach through the darkness until I feel his flesh under my fingers. The hard, sculpted muscles of his shoulder. “Can I touch you?”
He chuckles—that low, dry laugh. “Can you touch me?” He turns toward me and I feel his hand rest over mine, flat against his chest. “You can do whatever you wish.”
I drift across the sheets until my leg slots between his, tangling us together. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Why not?” His voice is a gentle rumble vibrating under my hand. I follow the hard angles of his chest, the contour of his pectoral muscles. “Is it not true? Have I not always made this known?”
“I…I don’t want to think about power. Mine or anyone else’s.”
I find the steady thump of his heart growing harder and stronger. I remember what he said: you do this to me. Desire swells deep in my belly and I feel myself growing damp between my thighs.
“You want to be soft with me.” His hands find the deep indent of my waist, then the hem of the pajama top, skimming beneath until he finds the tender skin underneath my breast.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
We stay like this for a moment. I slide my hands up and down his chest, boldly, while he cups my breasts. The callouses of his hands send shivers through me as they chafe against my nipples.
“And this?” His lips are almost flush against the shell of my ear.
I cup the back of his head and bury my fingers in his hair, bringing my nose to the crook of his neck, to the skin under his ear. I feel him growing hard against me.
“More.”
He shifts the fabric and suddenly I feel the heat of his tongue on me.
Tracing the swell of my breast, then circling my nipple.
A gasp lodges itself in my throat. I tighten my hold on Orfeo.
We move together and there he is, between my thighs.
He sucks and nibbles and pulls, patient hands holding me still beneath him as I tremble.
He flicks open the buttons of my shirt and we push the fabric away.
“May I?” he rasps, hands roaming lower until his fingertips graze my belly button.
“May you what?” My voice is a breathy whisper.
He must be searching for the hem of my underwear. Instead, he finds nothing but my damp pubic hair. Orfeo’s touch stalls.
“Fuck,” he whispers. And then, almost reverently, he slides his hand down to part my thighs.
Every inch of my skin thrums, taut with desire, and when his thumb finds my pulse, I nearly snap from the jolt of blinding pleasure.
My back arches, my toes curl. My head falls back as a moan pulls from me, and I reach for his other hand, the one still gently massaging my breast.
“Don’t stop,” I pant. “Please don’t stop.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I hear the smirk in his voice, and I don’t care.
His touch is confident, deliberate. It doesn’t matter how breathless I become, how much I squirm.
He moves the pads of his fingers up from my pulse point to tease my heat, dipping inside me before disappearing again.
His mouth flows over me like water, lips in my hairline then on my neck.
Tracing the tight peak of my nipples. I chase every sensation, try to commit it to memory.
“Bite me,” I whisper, desperate and whiny, nipping at his shoulders. “Please just bite me.”
I swear I hear him swallow. “Not yet, amore.”
“Please,” I beg, lifting my hips to meet his touch. “Please.”
“You must be patient.” He keeps his thumb pressed to the throb of my pulse in my thigh as his lips find mine.
It’s a gentle kiss that turns ravenous, until his fingers are buried inside of me, rough and confident and persistent.
That shooting star of bliss is back, and all I want is to feel his teeth breaking into my flesh.
I want to feel his lips close around the wound.
And I want to feel him drinking from me as I come.
I cry out as an orgasm tears through me, breaks me open, fractures me into a thousand pieces of starlight. My entire body tenses and lifts off the bed.
I don’t let him move from between my thighs.
I push aside the elastic of his pants. We’re a tumbling mess of limbs and open-mouth kisses, his tongue dragging up and down the column of my throat.
He switches on a light and I revel in the sight of his body.
The gentle definition of his chest; the way his tattoos fade into his tanned forearms.
“Do vampires need to use condoms?”
Orfeo snorts. “Silly question. I’m a dead man.” He threads his fingers in my hair and pulls my mouth back to his. I drag my nails down his chest, and when I find his erection, the memory of my sex dream flashes back into my mind. He had felt the same then, between my hands.
Orfeo tenses at my touch and then melts into the rhythm of my hands, a groan snagging in his throat.
“Brava,” he whispers through clenched teeth. “Come sei brava.” He covers my hands in his and encourages a harder, faster pace. When I can’t resist anymore, I push him over onto his back and take him in my mouth.
Is it possible that it wasn’t a dream?
Orfeo bites back a moan, cupping my head in his hands, gathering my hair roughly. “This,” he growls. “This is what I dreamed of.”
Just a sweet nothing, probably. I push the possibility that Orfeo and I had been fucking each other in the Dream Place out of my mind and focus on tasting him. I turn greedy for him, undone by the fierce glow of his eyes.
Eventually, he eases out of my mouth and kisses me sweetly, pressing me backward onto the bed as he positions himself between my thighs.
His hands sweep a path over my breasts, my stomach, and my thighs.
He hooks his hands behind my knees and opens me to him.
A delicious noise works its way from him—half growl, half moan.
“You are so wet,” he whispers, fangs flashing, “just at the idea of my bite.”
I nod, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip.
“But if I do—”
“I already know, Orfeo.” I push myself up onto my elbows. “And I don’t care, I want it—”
“Let me finish.” He cups my cheek. “If I bite you, everything will change. More than you can ever imagine. What I feel for you now, it will quadruple. And when I pledge myself to you, I cannot promise I will not become possessive. I am not a human man. This love between us will never be human.”
Love. The word burns through me. “Good. Fuck that. I don’t want that.”
He edges closer, releasing one of my legs as he pushes into me.
Gently at first, as if he can tell I’m adjusting to him, to the unending sparks of new sensations.
His fingers gliding over my pulse point; his mouth settling on the tender spot in my neck; the expert way he captures my nipples between his teeth.
I ask him if we can stop, and he does. He strokes and gathers my heavy hair, twisting it up into a ponytail. It’s so sweet—so human—that I laugh. Orfeo smiles at me in a shy way I’ve never seen before. All the vampiric pretense gone. I roll my hips against his and we find our way back together.
He’s patient with me, encouraging, and when we finally find our rhythm, he presses his lips to my ear and tells me how good I’m doing. His fangs drag back and forth over my neck as he sucks at the tender crook in my neck, pressing deeper and deeper as pleasure consumes me, possesses me.
We gather momentum as I become unfathomably turned on—more than I ever knew was fucking possible. Our bodies crash together in a hot, tangled mess. I can’t get enough now; I’m desperate for him, for every bit of him. I want to braid this pleasure into my life for eternity.
He tilts my head back and presses his tongue to the base of my throat, humming against my skin as he fucks me. I beg as sensation crests higher and higher inside me—a hot, tight coil connected to every blood vessel in my body.
I call out his name, dig my nails into his flesh, press my own teeth into his neck. But he soothes me with his lips, never once breaking my skin.
In the afterglow, wrapped in his Egyptian cotton bedsheets and soft, warm light, Orfeo smokes a cigarette while tracing shapes across my soft belly.
Part of me is dazed and blissed out, while another part of me yearns, bone-deep, for more.
As if he can read my mind, he says, “I’m afraid you’ll lose respect for me.”
“You are…” I shake my head. “Insane is the only word I can think of.”
He takes a deep drag of his cigarette, letting the smoke jet out from his nostrils slowly. “I’m not sure how my bite will affect you, Diantha. What if you remain unfazed? Unconnected? And then, what if my submission to you becomes a nuisance?”
I examine his profile, reaching out to drag the tip of my finger down over the slope of his nose. “You don’t want to lose the humanity of our connection.”
“Yes, that’s it. I like the way we are able to…flirt. To move at a more human pace. I like that I am not so obsessed and tormented.” He lets out a soft laugh. “Though, I would be lying if I said I did not want you in that way, Diantha. Of course I want you. To taste you would be an honor.”
His eyes glisten with a far-off, dreamy look. “This is the sweet in-between,” I say.
His mouth curves into a devious smile. “Yes. Tortuously sweet.”
“But.” I swallow roughly, almost embarrassed by what I’m about to say. “It’s the only way for us to know if I’m really a goddess. We can swap blood, if that makes things maybe more…even.”
“Aren’t you afraid,” he whispers, turning toward me, pressing his mouth to the skin just below my belly button. “To be shackled to me?”
“Orfeo, my whole life has been one frightening, traumatic event after another. At least here, with you, I feel safe. I feel warm. I’m not hell-bent on this…” I shake my head. “It’s just, when we’re intimate—I want it so badly.”