Chapter 21 Diantha #3
“No.” I laugh. “If you can say it to me, you can say it to Evie. Plus, you can sense there’s nothing wrong with her. I know you can, so knock it off.”
“Wrong with Evie?” Her eyebrows jump into a deep crease.
“Sense?” He curls his top lip at me. “It’s blatantly obvious she’s just a human girl.”
Evie turns her glare on Leo. “I’m a woman.”
“Listen, if Evie’s so obviously not a threat, let her come tonight. That way she can learn everything and maybe even help us.” I tighten my hold on my friend—the best friend I’ve ever had, really.
Leo drags his eyes up and down her petite frame—pausing for a moment on the iconic swell of Evie’s hips. She’s built phenomenally. There’s no way to ignore her figure. “Fine. Where do you live?”
She snorts. “Like I’d tell you. I’ll be at Pandora’s Cup on Main Street.”
“I will pick you up at seven forty-five.”
“Fine,” she bites back.
“Fine,” he echoes.
“Awesome,” I say, feeling left out. “Everyone’s being so normal.”
The sun begins to set and suddenly my stomach is stirring like there’s a colony of monarchs living inside me. Short, brutal winter days might become my favorite.
When I open the front door, the carriage house is still quiet, the shades still drawn shut. Everything seems to be exactly as I left it. I pop on my headphones and unpack Leo’s tote bag, stowing everything in an empty cabinet.
Oddly enough, Orfeo’s cabinets are pretty stocked for someone who physiologically doesn’t need food.
There are small jars of black truffle, tinctures of honey, dried bunches of herbs, and packets of mushrooms. His refrigerator has an entire shelf of slim cans covered in a bold, bright red logo that reads VITAMIN Pi.
Otherwise, it’s all chilled bottles of white wine and soft cheeses wrapped in wax paper.
I use Leo’s ingredients to make myself a peanut butter sandwich and call it a day. Though the cheese is extremely tempting.
I give in to the urge to swing my hips to my music, though I’m rhythmically challenged. I even let a few warbly vocalizations out through my clenched teeth. Until I sense something behind me. I freeze, hand on the peanut butter jar I’m slipping into the cabinet.
I swallow, letting my energetic feelers roam.
The heat of eyes tracking me. Bearing into me.
I spin around, push my headphones back, but before I can make any noise, his mouth is on mine.
His hair is still wet from the shower, combed away from his face, water droplets sliding down his neck.
Orfeo breaks our kiss, lips curling into a smirk. “You shouldn’t have your music so loud.” With one hand, he holds the towel around his waist in place. With the other, he keeps a firm hold on my ass.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people, scaring the shit out of them.”
His lips tug into a full-on, sideways smile. His gaze remains intense. “Ahhh, there is room for us both to improve.”
I thread my arms around his neck and yank him toward me, letting his hips guide me backward until I feel the countertop against my tailbone. “Did you sleep well?”
“As I always do.” He shrugs the question off. “Though it’s a pity I no longer find you in my dreams.”
“I dreamt of you too. Many times.”
“Did you?”
I nod, then bury my face in his skin, drinking down his scent and letting my lips roam over his bare chest. His skin doesn’t react to my touch the way a human’s might, but I hear his fangs extend and feel him growing hard against my inner thigh.
He lets loose a deep, ragged breath, both of his arms wrapping around me.
I find his pulse point and, though it’s weaker than mine, I press my tongue to it.
“Diantha,” he hisses, fingers tightening around the soft flesh of my upper arms.
“I missed you,” I whisper. “Did you miss me?”
“Every second that I am not in your company,” he says through gritted teeth, “is a moment of indeterminate suffering.”
I bite back a laugh. “Very dramatic. But I like it.”
He lets out a hum of appreciation, his grip slackening and his fingers roaming up to the neckline of my sweater.
He nudges the fabric aside, taking my bra strap with it, and presses his lips to my exposed skin.
He paints a warm path across my collarbone, then up my neck.
When he finds a throbbing vein, he pauses.
His breath is a hot, electric pulse against my skin.
I lean my head back, melting deeper into his arms.
“Don’t tease me,” I pant. “Not again.”
“You are very demanding,” he murmurs.
“Because you don’t give me what I want.”
“I don’t?” he asks, taking my face in his hands. He stretches my neck to the side, smoothing his hands over my flesh. “Has it not been enough—everything I’ve given? Whatever you ask for, I make yours.”
I swallow back a moan at the feeling of his palm, rough and steady, moving over the throb of my pulse. “You’re doing it again. Teasing me. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Maybe I need to hear it again,” he says gently, though I feel his hold on me tighten.
“I want this. I want to be more connected, Orfeo. I want us.”
He collapses all of the remaining space between us. And then, I feel it: the flash of his fangs, ice cold against my skin; the shock and pain of the initial puncture that makes me grab hold of his waist and stiffen, ramrod straight; the gasp that lurches from me.
And then the ecstasy.
My gasp transforms into a strangled moan, catching in my throat as my mind races to keep up with the explosion of sensations across my body.
My nipples harden; my pussy flutters; my muscles tense.
My legs tremble as I tighten them around him, desperate to find purchase as I melt into Orfeo, into his mouth.
He holds me steady, cradling me against his body as he drinks.
Hungry sounds escape him and I feel my blood dripping from his mouth, running down between my breasts.
He pushes my sweater off my other shoulder, shoving it out of the way so it hangs limp around my waist. His lips work expertly at my wounds, capturing every drop that rushes from me.
I push the towel away from his waist and take him in my hands, desperate to share this pleasure.
Almost manic, feverish in my need to touch him, feel him, taste him.
When Orfeo pulls away, I am soaking wet and breathless. In the dim kitchen light, he gazes back at me, eyelids heavy with the haze of satisfaction and lust. And his lips. His mouth. His teeth.
They glisten. Glitter, almost. I drag my thumb across his bottom lip. “My blood…”
His pupils have doubled, totally consuming the caramel of his irises. Color has rushed back into his face and chest; he looks luminous and healthy and alive. “It is fucking divine.”
“It’s gold,” I whisper. He takes hold of my wrist and brings my thumb to his lips, licking away all the remnants of iridescent blood.
“I never doubted it.” His eyes burn that bright, hot shade of yellow.
His gaze holds me, confronts me. “You are the daughter of Hecate, descendant of Asteria. A goddess before me in the flesh.” He grips my hips and pulls me to the edge of the counter, then cups my face in his hands. “And we will serve you.”
“Then serve me,” I say, shocking myself with the tenure of my command. “Serve me right now.”
His mouth curves wickedly. “As you wish.”
He lifts me easily from the counter and carries me over to the couch, depositing me into the curve of the sectional.
Orfeo’s fingers work at the button and zippers of my jeans, then he simply tears the seam of my underwear, letting the fabric fall away.
In a moment, I find my legs hooked over his shoulders, his erection slipping up and down me before dipping deep into my heat.
He slides in and out at an aching pace, filling me and bringing me so close. His abdominal muscles glisten with smears of blood, his muscles flexing with each thrust.
And just when I feel that tidal wave of pleasure threatening to knock the last bit of strength out of me, he sinks his teeth into his own wrist and holds the wound to my mouth.
I don’t think twice. I close my lips around the puncture marks and suck.
And then the world goes Technicolor.
A kaleidoscope of orgasmic pleasure. He holds his wrist to my mouth while his teeth press into the other bend of my neck.
I dig my nails into his forearm. I feel his blood, cold and tart and bright, running out of the sides of my mouth as I drink, the way tears leak out of my eyes.
His tongue catches the rogue droplets, then descends to my breasts before returning to my neck and cheeks.
I become pliable and desperate. He turns me around, keeping his wrist to my mouth as he sinks his teeth into my neck, bending me over the couch and driving into me. It’s animalistic and ugly and perfect.
I make sounds that would usually humiliate me. Sounds of hunger and greed. I call out his name until my throat aches. When every last drop of pleasure has been wrung from me, we collapse together on the couch, sticky and exhausted.
Orfeo cradles my heavy head in his hands and slides his tongue over the wounds on my neck, sealing them with a kiss.
“Leo said he’d be here at eight.”
Orfeo lowers the plate of perfectly cooked medium-rare steak down onto my chest. “Eat, amore. You need the iron.”
“Yes, chef.”
He smirks at my tone, rolls his eyes, and pads back into the kitchen. Other than the apron tied around his body, he’s still completely nude. I admire the defined, muscular curvature of his ass cheeks. I imagine sinking my teeth into them.