Chapter 28
“Rose,” Hayden whispers.
I blink my eyes open the next morning to find Hayden gazing down at me in bed. I was too exhausted to put any clothes back on last night, and Hayden didn’t want to leave the bed to redress either, so right now, in the hazy morning light, I have a magnificent view.
God, how is this even possible? To have Hayden in my bed?
I drink in the sight of the lean sculpt of his torso, the solid muscles carved into his broad arms and shoulders.
I want to touch his messy dark hair hanging down like a rumpled curtain, realize I can, and reach up to brush back the soft, thick fringe.
But then I really take in Hayden’s gorgeous face.
In the soft gray light filtering through the balcony doors, his eyes are red rimmed and hooded, a midnight-blue remorse glistening in his gaze.
My body is still thrumming and hot from last night, achy in the best way.
I want more. I just want more and more and more, starting this very moment.
But I feel a pinch of anxiety at the anguish in his face.
“You better not…” My voice is so hoarse from the noises he pulled from me last night that I have to clear my throat twice. “You better not be apologizing for anything we did. Because if you are—”
“No.” Hayden drops a heated kiss to my mouth.
It’s so deliciously full of longing, before I know it, I’m threading my fingers through his hair and arching up to return it, no thought of how I might taste or look first thing upon waking.
Hayden pulls his lips away, presses his forehead hard against mine.
“Rose, you should know. It’s always fucking unbelievable between us.
But last night? Last night was…” I hear Hayden’s hard swallow, the unsteadiness of his exhale.
“Rose, it’s never been as good as last night.
I didn’t know perfect could get better, but somehow…
somehow you did.” When he shifts, he accidentally brushes against me, and I gasp at the aching feel of him.
“Hayden,” I whine. He breathes out harshly against my cheek when I move closer, wanting to feel more.
“Sorry. Difficult to avoid. Been thinking ’bout you,” he says in a strained voice. There’s still that edge of anguish in his words, so I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him flush.
“Which time?” I whisper against his ear, letting my tongue graze his earlobe.
“Shit.” Hayden’s face pushes against my neck as he lifts my knee, making room for his hips to settle perfectly against me.
I squirm when I feel the length of his fangs against my throat.
“All of them. Are you…How do you feel?” His breath shakes with great restraint as he rolls agonizingly slow against me. “You sore?”
“Hardly.” I’m already panting. I let my legs fall wide and slide my calves over the backs of his knees, pulling. “Please, Hayden. Please.”
Hayden looks overwhelmed, almost dazed, as his hand drops between us, urgency and restraint warring in his expression.
A low, strained sound leaves him as he joins us, moving with aching care, and the sensation steals the air from my lungs.
I’ve never felt anything like this, and the fact that it’s Hayden, that it’s us, makes my vision blur with sudden tears.
He sees and immediately stills, his dark pupils snapping to my face, panic flashing through them.
“Fuck. You okay? Did I hurt you?” Hayden’s thumbs find my tears.
“S’perfect.” I sound drunk. Feel drunk. And tortured. I jerk my hips up, and Hayden releases a punched-out exhale. “It only hurt cuz you stopped halfway.”
“But…but I don’t wanna…”
“Come on, Hayden, you’re driving me crazy.” I hook my ankles around him and pull, hoping to encourage movement. He falls against me, burying his face into the spill of my hair across the pillow.
“Rose,” he whispers as he starts to move.
“Rose, I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Hayden kisses my neck, my collarbone, my chin.
He buries both hands in my hair, pressing our foreheads together as his hips move in deep, slow strokes.
“I’m so sorry for how I’ve treated you since that night in California.
I was so cold. So awful. Shoving you away, running, lying to you.
I hate—” I gasp on a particularly delicious plunge of his hips. “I hated it. More than I can say.”
“S’okay,” I murmur, already climbing, filling with molten gold at Hayden’s impossibly liquid rhythm, the graze of his fangs, the desperation in his voice.
“No. No, it wasn’t okay,” Hayden says raggedly, his lips never leaving my skin.
“Thought it’d save you. Thought I was keeping you safe.
Was just hurting you. Saw it in your eyes.
Fuck. God, Rose, I’m so, so sorry.” Hayden’s hand grabs mine.
He threads our fingers together, squeezes. “Forgive me, Rose. Forgive me.”
Everything about Hayden right now is so needy. The angsty, sumptuous push and pull of his hips, how I can tell he wants to go faster but is holding back, drawing out all the way, then filling me completely with every slow movement.
“I forgive you,” I whimper, ratcheting tighter around him.
Hayden makes a broken sound, pace picking up, and drags his open mouth to mine.
It’s weirdly hot, how difficult it is to kiss when his fangs are fully extended.
He shivers violently and makes a soft noise when I run my tongue up and down one of his long, pointed teeth.
“I’ll never hurt you again,” Hayden grunts, his hips moving faster.
Words tumble out of him, manic, and I can feel the tightening of his muscles, hear the snap of wood when one of his hands shoots to somewhere over my head.
“Love you—want you. All the time, I want and love you. Almost ripped that truck to shreds last year. Didn’t want to let you go once I had you in my arms. Killed me walking away. Always kills me, Rose.”
“Bite me,” I beg, dangling over the precipice. “Bite me now. Drink me. Please.”
“Can’t.” Hayden lifts his head, lips curling, his hips moving harder. Faster. God, I think. God, I want those fangs in me. “Won’t.”
“Please.” I’m losing my mind, so close, so close, but trying to draw it out, make it last. I dig my nails into his back, my feet scrabbling madly against the backs of his calves.
“I’m not—” The gathering rhythm of Hayden’s hips starts to get a little erratic, his breaths gasping and wild.
“Won’t take anything more from you. Only gonna give to you, Rose.
You deserve everything. Everything.” He pushes up on his palms so he can get a good look at all of me, his indigo-black eyes burning hotter as I come undone.
When one of his thumbs goes to my center, pressing expertly at the blissful spot above where we’re joined, I volcano into the stars, sprays of sparks filling my eyes, my mouth, replacing my hot, rushing blood.
Hayden presses deep and holds there, watching me with desperate, greedy eyes, fangs silver in the snow-drenched light as I writhe and pulse around him, clawing at the ripped linens, squeezing the shards of headboard I find, snapping a few small slivers of wood myself.
“Don’t leave me again,” I say senselessly as I’m throttled with pleasure, and Hayden immediately slips down, pressing full-length against me.
“Never,” he swears against my mouth, starting to move again.
“Say you’re mine. No one else’s.”
“God.” Hayden’s rhythm is wild. Messy. It nearly throws me over the edge again. “I belong to you, Rose. Body and soul.”
“Forever,” I whine. Now I’m the needy one, the desperate one. The scared one. “For forever.”
“Not long enough,” Hayden gasps. “Forever’s not long enough with you.
” His hand slips beneath me, pulling himself impossibly closer, as he finally tumbles over the precipice with a snarl.
My eyes shoot open so I can witness the searing majesty of his pleasure, the nearly helpless wrench of his face, like he’s at the mercy of something powerful.
It’s intoxicating—what can be more powerful than him?
Eyes squeezed shut, he mouths my name, sometimes managing to gasp it, his jaw clenching so tight his fangs sink a little into his bottom lip.
I did that, I think drunkenly. My body did this to Hayden.
Hayden collapses against me, and we pant fiercely against each other.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers against my chest, his voice in tatters. “For then and for even now, when I let my fear, my self-revulsion, push you away.”
“I don’t know if I should forgive you.” I can feel Hayden’s tight swallow. I lift his chin so he can see the sparkle in my eye, the playful lift of my brow. “You might have to apologize like that several more times before I do.”
Hayden rolls us over so I’m straddling him, sits up to give me several hot, deep kisses.
“Oh, Rose,” he rumbles. “You’ve never met a more penitent vampire than me.”
—
There’s a manic frenzy to the way we make love over the next few days. I never knew pleasure like this could exist, but there’s an edge of desperation to it. A staunch avoidance of calendars and clocks, any reminder that my birthday looms like a guillotine.
“The music room has the exit nearest to our bedroom.” Hayden opens one of the glass double doors to sweep a hand across a room with a harpsichord, a bass guitar, an electric guitar, and the biggest amp I’ve ever seen.
“The harpsichord’s the latch, right?” I guess. Hayden looks mildly disappointed when he walks over and taps the lowest key three times, and a wooden panel opens in the wall.
“Guess it sticks out like a sore thumb. Anyway, the lowest key or the highest key works. Tap it three times.”
I want to linger, take in the gorgeous view of the roiling ocean out the nine-foot glazed windows. But Hayden’s already walking out the French doors, nodding toward another hall.