25. Winnie
WINNIE
I had fed from humans before. Hundreds of times, if I was being honest. Two centuries was a long time. Long enough to accumulate more memories than any one person should reasonably possess. Yet none of those memories felt remotely similar to this.
It wasn’t the blood itself. It was Conrad. His trust in me. The way he’d offered himself to me without hesitation. There was no fear or revulsion.
Just trust.
For most of my existence, feeding had been something I needed to hide, a necessity I managed in secret and rarely discussed. People sometimes tolerated monsters, but they never invited them closer.
Conrad did.
The heady taste of his blood flooded my mouth as I drank from him, and an electric pulse shot through me—my nipples pressing taut against his touch, hard as river pebbles.
He leaned into the wall behind me, one hand braced against it, his body a pillar of strength.
His low moans vibrated against my lips, and I could feel the rigid length of his cock pressing into my stomach with every deep exhale.
The dim light caught the sheen of sweat on his neck.
He was fully dressed, but that didn’t stop me from feeling every inch of him.
I slid my hand over the hard planes of his abdomen, marveling at the warmth and the subtle rise and fall of his muscles under my palm.
When I cupped his shaft through his pants, I was struck by its girth, the radiating heat of it—every inch awakening a richer flavor on my tongue and sending a delicious shiver straight to my pussy.
Conrad’s breath hitched, and I knew I had to ease up before I lost myself entirely in his essence. I pulled back, my tongue ghosting over the tender flesh, healing the wound I’d made in his neck.
He straightened, his head tilting back as he looked at me, eyes alight with a feral hunger I’d never seen before.
Without a word, he scooped me into his arms and carried me up the stairs to his bedroom.
He kicked the door closed behind us and gently laid me on crisp white sheets, his gaze traveling over my body as he began to unbutton his shirt.
I responded in kind, peeling off my clothes with equal urgency.
“Fuck, Winnie,” he breathed, voice thick with desire. “My God, you’re so perfect.”
I stood without a word and traced the lines of his surprisingly sculpted torso—each plane of muscle, the ridges of his hips—before my eyes dropped to the proud length between his legs. My mouth watered.
Conrad stepped forward and gently nudged me back onto the bed, parting my thighs with his knee.
He knelt between my legs, his tongue tracing a path down my stomach that inflamed every nerve ending.
His mouth was quickly on me, his tongue moving in lazy circles around my clit.
I arched off the bed, moaning as his skilled movements coaxed deeper heat from me.
When he looked up, his eyes were full of unspoken promises, and he smiled against me as he flicked his tongue over my clit, then sucked hard on it. He moaned, the sound vibrating through my core.
My hands found the back of his head, instinctively pulling his mouth closer to me. His tongue slid downward until he found my opening, pushing inside.
“Conrad.” I needed him closer… needed to taste him again.
I tugged on his shoulders, and he rose to his feet and climbed onto the bed.
I kept pulling him higher until his solid length hovered above my face.
I wrapped my fingers around his firm ass and guided him down my throat, relaxing my jaw to accept his full, hot thrust.
Tears stung my eyes at the sheer size and sensation—magnificent and so fucking overwhelming. It was a miracle I didn’t choke. Instead, I drank him in mindlessly, all sense of control lost to the sheer ecstasy of it. His hips started to pump, and I cupped his balls, making him groan.
“I can’t…” he panted, sweat gleaming on his brow. “God, Winnie. I want to fill you, but not yet.” His voice was ragged with longing.
“I want you inside me,” I whispered, fingers digging into his hips as my other hand circled my own swollen flesh.
“I want to drive you crazy.” He mirrored my motion, his fingertip dancing over my slick clit before slipping inside me, spreading my slickness with featherlight strokes.
I couldn’t form words—only shuddering sounds of approval.
“I love hearing you moan, Winnie.” He slipped two, maybe three fingers inside me.
I arched into him, wanting him deeper. He curled his fingers upward while pressing his thumb against my clit. I almost levitated off the bed.
His mouth was on my right breast, and he nibbled gently on my nipple. I felt my fangs descend again and had to fight the urge to bite him a second time, not wanting to take too much from him. He needed his energy to fuck me into oblivion, and I wasn’t going to stand in his way.
Conrad must’ve seen the look in my eyes, because he pulled his hand away and pushed my thighs wider. “Are you sure?”
I cleared my throat. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my two hundred years. Please, Conrad. Fuck me.”
He slid between my folds, parting me, filling me with a slow, deliberate thrust that had me crying out until my voice broke.
He stayed still, giving me a second to stretch and calibrate his massive cock.
Then, he began to move in and out, each long stroke slowly increasing in tempo until his hips were slapping against my thighs.
I could feel every ridge of him as he touched places that hadn’t been touched in many, many years.
He placed soft kisses along my collarbone as I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him deeper into my core, my nails digging into his back.
Suddenly, Conrad flipped me onto all fours, grabbing my hips and pulling me back against him.
The tip of his cock pressed at my entrance, teasing me, tormenting me.
In the mirror above his dresser, I caught his reflection. I was invisible, of course, but I could clearly see Conrad’s naked and gorgeous body, every curve highlighted by the soft moonlight.
He entered me with one deep thrust, and my eyes rolled back into my head. He was even deeper now, if that was even possible. “Fuck,” I moaned, my voice raw.
He leaned forward, one hand sliding back to gently massage my clit.
He began to thrust into me with a steady rhythm that shook the bed and had the headboard slamming against the wall.
I felt him gathering speed, urgency lacing his movements as he drove himself deeper and harder into me.
The friction sent me spiraling over the edge in a seismic climax.
My body clenched around him as I cried out.
“Conrad, God!” I threw my head back as waves of pleasure coursed through me.
He growled his approval, slamming into me one last time before collapsing onto me, spilling himself inside me in a rush of heat and release. We stayed like that, his hot breath fanning over my neck, his heart thudding against my back.
I had forgotten what quiet felt like. Not the absence of sound. I knew plenty about that. I lived alone in a cottage in the woods and spent my days sleeping in a casket. Silence and I were well acquainted. This was different.
This was the kind of quiet that happened when your mind finally stopped preparing for disaster.
Bogdan was no longer lurking on the perimeter of my mind.
There was no compulsion sitting inside my skull, waiting to tighten around my ribs.
For the first time since I was a girl, I belonged entirely to myself.
I lay curled against Conrad beneath the blankets, listening to the slow rhythm of his breathing.
The bedroom was dark except for a sliver of moonlight sneaking through the curtains.
One of his arms rested around my waist, the other was tucked beneath his head.
Every now and then, his thumb brushed absentmindedly against my side. His touch told me he was simply there.
Physical intimacy itself wasn’t new to me. Two hundred years was a long enough time to collect memories, relationships, mistakes, and regrets. Long enough that very little should have felt surprising anymore. Yet somehow, this did.
Conrad knew exactly what I was. He knew about the blood. He knew about the fangs.
He knew about the centuries I’d spent running from one life to the next, leaving before anyone could ask too many questions. He knew the ugliest parts of my history. And yet, he hadn’t stepped away.
If anything, it had only brought him closer.
For so long, I’d convinced myself that love required distance. That the people I cared about would always be safer if I kept part of myself hidden. It had become second nature. A habit so old I rarely noticed I was doing it.
With Conrad, there was nowhere left to hide.
Oddly, I didn’t want to hide anymore.
Curled against him, wrapped in his warmth, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Safe.
I’d always lived with one foot pointed at the door. Every friendship, every relationship, had come with an expiration date attached. This didn’t.
I could imagine a future without immediately searching for the exit. A future that included Conrad and the children. Family dinners. Arguments over homework. All the ordinary little pieces of life I’d spent so long pretending I didn’t want.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it was a relief. Like setting down a burden I’d carried for so long that I’d forgotten it was there. I wasn’t thinking about what I might lose and, instead, was thinking about what I finally had.
It was scary to realize how much I was already becoming accustomed to it.
“You thinking?” His question drifted through the darkness.
I smiled against his shoulder. “Always.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It can be.”
His chest rumbled with a laugh. The sound made something warm unfurl inside me. It still surprised me how quickly he’d become important. This man and his three chaotic children had accomplished something no one had before I was turned. They’d become home.
Conrad shifted slightly. I felt his lips brush the top of my head. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
There was a brief pause. “Winnie.”
The way he said my name made me look up. The guard dropped from his eyes.
“What is it?” I asked.
He hesitated. Then exhaled. “I know this is fast.”
I immediately knew where this was going. My undead heart performed a thoroughly unnecessary little flutter.
“I know that compared to you I’ve basically existed for fifteen minutes.”
I laughed. “You have not.”
“I have.”
“You’ve existed for forty years.”
He nodded. “Yes, which is approximately fifteen minutes in vampire years.”
“Fair.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. His hand found mine beneath the blankets. Threading our fingers together. “I know there are things we’ll need to talk about.”
I nodded. There absolutely were a great many things, some of them more complicated than others. One of those things involved the fact that eventually he would grow old and I would not.
“We’ll get there,” he said quietly. His thumb brushed across my knuckles. “We don’t have to solve everything tonight.”
Relief coursed through me.
“I just know that...” He stopped and brought my hand to his mouth, brushing his lips over my knuckles. “I feel alive again.” Conrad swallowed. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
I knew exactly what he meant. After loss, people talked about moving on.
Moving forward. Healing. They made it sound orderly, as though grief followed instructions.
As though love politely stepped aside when it was finished.
Real life wasn’t like that. It was messy and complicated.
People carried old love with them while finding new love.
The two things existed together. I had seen it happen countless times.
Yet somehow Conrad still seemed surprised by it.
“I love Jade,” he said.
The honesty of it made me love him even more. “Of course you do.”
“I always will.”
“I know.”
His shoulders loosened slightly, as though he had needed permission to say it. As though he had worried I wouldn’t understand. If there was one thing two hundred years taught a woman, it was that love wasn’t finite. It didn’t run out. It simply changed shape.
“I don’t want to replace anyone,” I said.
“You aren’t.” His eyes met mine, and the vulnerability I saw there nearly undid me. “I just want to keep moving forward.”
I smiled. Then reached up and touched his cheek. “Then we shall.”
The tension left him in a visible wave. “I’d really like you to be my girlfriend.”
Laughter bubbled out of me. The words were so unexpectedly normal. So wonderfully ordinary. After everything we’d survived, his solution was boyfriend and girlfriend.
I adored him.
“I should warn you,” I said.
“Oh?”
“I have absolutely no idea how to date a human.”
He grinned. “Well, that’s good to hear because I’ve never dated a vampire.”
“Then we’re equally unqualified.”
“Perfect.”
I traced lazy circles on his bare chest. The steady beat of his heart thumped beneath my fingertips. “I’d like to try, though,” I admitted.
“Try what? The terrifying commitment of being my girlfriend?”
“Exactly.”
I nuzzled into him, inhaling his scent. Eventually my eyes grew heavy. Normally I was wide awake at night, restless and alert. I rarely found sleep outside of my casket. Yet tucked against Conrad’s side, I felt something I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Peace.
Within seconds, I fell asleep in Conrad’s arms.