Chapter 27 #2
I whirl around, hand on my chest, to find Hayden frozen at the door, two glasses of water spilled across the carpet, a pile of papers strewn at his feet. His eyes are huge and unblinking as they take me in, his face and lips white.
He looks shattered.
I wait for him to say something. Anything. But he’s not even breathing. The only part of him moving is his eyes, running up and down my body, desperate and disbelieving.
My heart starts a low, anxious thrum of anticipation. I take one slow step toward him. Then another, reaching out.
“Hayden,” I whisper, standing before him, wanting desperately to touch him but too scared he’ll turn me away if I try.
“You look just like you did that day,” he croaks.
“Our wedding day. You married me in that dress.” His voice fractures, and he gasps like a wounded animal, burying his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says harshly. “I used to dream of this. When I lay on your grave, I imagined this exact thing. Walking into our bedroom and finding you here, like nothing had ever happened.”
“You can pretend,” I whisper, aching to reach out, put my lips anywhere on him. “You can pretend I’m her.”
Hayden’s head snaps up. His eyes are brilliant with tears, red rimmed, expression devastated. Slowly, he sinks to his knees in front of me.
“Jesus, Rose, how many times do I have to say it?” Hayden looks up at me, pleading.
“You. Are. Her.” He clasps my face in both his hands, pulls me down so our mouths are grazing each other.
“I have never loved you more in my entire existence than I do at this exact moment.” He takes a breath.
“And now this second.” He pauses again. “And this one. And this one, and—”
I close the distance, pressing my lips to his, and he makes a needy, broken sound, and I swallow it, wanting more.
“So beautiful,” he moans, licking my bottom lip. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Rose.” The tips of his fangs graze my tongue, and, in a surge of arousal, I grab his hands and put them on my breasts.
I suddenly find myself sprawled on my back on his bed, panting up at Hayden.
“Sorry,” he says gruffly, his fangs gleaming in the firelight.
He’s panting too, and his eyes are absolutely all pupil.
“I’m…I’m sort of losing it here.” He squeezes his eyes shut.
“It’s almost always impossible to control myself with you, but seeing you in the dress just reminds me of all the stuff I wanted to do to you back then but couldn’t. ”
It rises in me, that raw, reptilian instinct of desire that makes me say and do things I never knew I wanted.
“Do it,” I say, hardly knowing what I’m asking for. “Do the things you couldn’t.”
Hayden’s eyes shoot open, and he bares his fangs. He looks feral. Terrifying. My pulse skyrockets, and his nostrils flare, and I swear to god his fangs get sharper.
In a wild, invisible move, Hayden rips my dress open.
My sleeves are still on, draping off my shoulders, the lily-white fabric spread across the bed beneath me.
He drags his nose up the length of my neck, from my collarbone to my ears, and hums in satisfaction.
I shiver and he pulls back to study me. His gaze is piercing, and all I can do is nod eagerly, arching up into him and urging him to continue.
With one flick of his finger, he rips my corset down the middle, splitting the laced ribbon in half, baring my breasts.
I gasp, everything tightening and blossoming under his starving gaze.
He drops his head to my chest, covering my right breast with his mouth.
“Oh god.” My back bends, a perfect, violent arch against his tongue. I lick my lips, my mouth running wild. “Hayden. Have you ever bitten me there? Drunk from me there?”
Hayden groans, his eyes snapping up to mine as his tongue continues to swirl deliciously around my nipple. With his next lick, I feel his fangs dig against my skin, dragging up my breast.
I’m afraid to breathe. Afraid his teeth are so sharp, one heartbeat too strong will press me that much closer to him, and that’ll be enough for his fangs to pierce me.
I want it to happen.
“Bite me there, Hayden,” I whisper. “Please?”
Hayden snarls viciously, low and anguished. His hips jerk, an involuntary twitch, and like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, he presses his face half an inch closer to my chest.
The tips of his fangs break my skin.
“Hayden.”
Hayden rips his head back, pushing up onto his elbows, eyes huge.
“Fuck. You okay? I didn’t even know—”
“That’s it? Can’t you do more?” I whine, writhing.
“No,” he snarls. “That was too much. Too close.”
But I’ve stopped listening. Because a hot, deep pleasure is beginning to radiate, rippling throughout my body from the point of Hayden’s fang marks.
“Oh my god,” I breathe, grasping for Hayden to get closer, wriggling my hips desperately. “What is that?”
Hayden’s eyes fall heavy. His fingers dig into the bedspread, and I think I hear a ripping sound.
“Our saliva has some kind of…chemical.” Hayden licks his fangs, staring at my body, my bleeding breast. “Floods your brain and blood with endorphins. Dopamine.” He lowers himself so his face hovers over my heaving chest, looking drugged. “In short? Floods you with pleasure. Lots of it.”
“Yeah, I…” I pant, shaking with unbearable need. “I can confirm.” Hayden’s tongue hovers agonizingly over the drops of blood on my breast. I grit my teeth. “C’mon. Don’t you want to taste me?”
With a hoarse moan, Hayden breaks. He drops his mouth to me, lapping hungrily at the tiny offering of my blood. At the first drag of his tongue, that sweet, tight wire inside of me spins violently tighter. It happens so quick and sudden, I nearly snap on the spot.
“Hayden,” I say, sounding desperate, breathy. “Hayden, what do I taste like?”
“My favorite things.” His voice is in tatters. He sounds mindless, like he doesn’t really know what he’s saying. “You taste like Vanilla Coke. You taste like the first time I saw the stars. You taste like the feeling of you…squeezing me.”
Immediately, I grab his firm, polished-stone biceps, and I squeeze with all my might. Hayden pulls back, letting out a dark chuckle. One of his hands grabs my hip.
“No,” he grates out. “Not there.” And then Hayden pulls me against him, rolling his hips firmly into me. My mouth drops open when I feel him press against the apex of my thighs. “There.”
Oh. Oh my god.
“I want to do that,” I rush out, frantically squirming against him. I’m actually panicking at how much I want it—the corners of my eyes are pricking with tears. “Show me how? Teach me how to…” I squeeze my eyes shut, my sweat-damp cheeks flaming.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Hayden’s eyes are black in a way I’ve never seen, roving every inch of my body.
I have never felt so vulnerable, spread out beneath him, completely bare.
I have never felt so okay being vulnerable, so safe.
I lie there on the ripped corset and mangled dress, chest heaving, gazing up at him in wonder, letting him take me in.
The look Hayden is giving me, full of a reverent awe, a terrifying, barely tethered hunger, makes me want to rub my thighs together.
So I do.
Hayden’s hands land high on my bare thighs. His thumbs tuck into the crease of my leg.
“I always want to do this. For two centuries that hasn’t changed.
” He drops his mouth beside his thumb, kissing me.
I clap a hand over my eyes, my face on fire.
I’ve never had someone so…close to down there.
“Used to stare at you in public,” Hayden continues, the tips of his fangs grazing my inner thigh.
“I’d imagine pulling you into every place I went.
In closets, the rectory. In the pantry of the tavern, the townsfolk on the other side of the closed door.
“I imagined tugging you in there, ripping your dress in half, sinking to my knees and…” Hayden presses his mouth right at the center of me.
And then he gives me four kisses in a row. Four slow, deep, hot kisses with tongue, down there.
Every muscle in my body is hit with lightning and goes rigid.
A deep, ungodly noise rips out of me as I bury my hands in Hayden’s hair and twist hard.
A million steel cables snap inside me like dominoes, one right after the other, each one a miniature firework, one explosion after another, over and over.
The euphoria is so overwhelming, I collapse against the bed and white out.
When I come to, I open my eyes to find Hayden watching me from between my legs, panting, grinning hard, his expression a mix between deep reverence, self-satisfaction, and the most overwhelming desire I have ever seen.
My hands are still in his enormously messy hair. I have the odd thought that it’s strange to see him panting so hard when there’s not one drop of perspiration on his forehead. He’s perfectly dry.
Wait. Except for— I get a second look at his face.
I immediately blush so hard, I swear to god my cheeks steam. Hayden’s eyes glitter like he can read my mind, and he gives me the hottest smirk. The smugness radiates from him in waves as he slowly wipes his chin and mouth, licking his lips.
“That,” he says in a ruined voice, “that is exactly what I have wanted to do with you in every room I have ever been in.”