Alice
His fangs burned in the most delicious way.
I felt the puncture first—sharp and clean and nearly painless—then his mouth sealing over the wounds he'd made in my throat.
Heat followed as he took his first pull, flooding down through my chest and ending with a sharp tug of desire low in my belly.
My back hit the wall hard enough that the picture frame beside my shoulder rattled against the plaster, his big body wrapping around me.
The scent of cedar and ginseng filled my lungs as my pulse hammered against his lips.
My hands were in his hair. I didn't remember putting them there.
Yet shame and disgust still filled me. This sick, oily feeling that filled every cell in my body.
Marcus had witnessed every intimate moment we'd had.
He'd felt my pleasure with Dae in the cemetery, heard every sound we made, experienced everything I did.
He was here now, feeling what Dae was doing to me.
The thought tried to make me smaller, tried to curl me inward the way I always did when I was afraid.
But Dae didn't let me.
His grip tightened on my hips to the point that I knew I'd have bruises there the next day, pinning me in place as he drank. My blood rushed through me, burning hotter and hotter until I couldn't think past the burn in my throat and the weight of him against me.
"Feel that?" I whispered against his hair, my voice coming out low and strange. "You feel what he's doing to me?"
Dae made a sound that was half growl and half groan against my skin.
I closed my eyes and spoke directly to the thing inside of me. "This is what you'll never have. You can crawl into every corner of me, but you'll never have this."
Something inside me flinched, pulling back like a hand jerking away from an open flame.
I went still and quiet, my breath catching when I felt it.
But Dae's mouth was on mine before I could process what had just happened, his kiss tasting like copper and salt and desperate need.
I kissed him back just as hard, my nails digging into his shoulders.
The defiance that carried me through the last five minutes began to crack, and underneath it was just—
Us.
His hands slid up my sides, warm through the thin cotton of my dress. I arched into the touch, and somewhere between one breath and the next I stopped thinking about Marcus at all. Stopped performing. Stopped aiming my anger at him.
There was just Dae now. His mouth, his hands, the way he said my name, the way he shook with the effort to hold himself in check.
"My room," I gasped against his lips, the words a surrender. "Down the hall."
Dae didn't answer, just broke the kiss long enough to slide his hands down the backs of my thighs and lift me so I could wrap my legs around his waist.
A second later, he pushed the door to my room open and walked inside, kicking it shut behind us with a solid, definitive click I barely heard over our heavy breaths.
He pinned me against the door, his mouth claiming mine again, and this time there was no desperation, only complete and utter possession.
His tongue swept my mouth, tasting, owning, as his hands slid from my waist up my sides, his thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts.
I gasped into his mouth, arching into his touch.
One of his thighs pushed between mine, and the thin cotton of my dress was no barrier at all.
I could feel the hard muscle, the coiled strength, the sheer, possessive wanting that rolled off him in waves.
His hips ground against my stomach in a slow, deliberate circle that made me whimper with need.
"So beautiful," he whispered, his lips tracing a path down my jaw to the frantic pulse in my throat. "You hide all this beauty under those ridiculous rainbow dresses. But I see it. I've always seen it."
His hands found the hem of my dress, and my own shook as I tried to help him. He stilled my fingers with his. "Ah-ah," he chided softly, a wicked grin flashing in the dim street lights filtering through the window. "Let me do it."
He peeled the fabric up and over my head with agonizing slowness, his gaze a physical touch that trailed fire over my skin as inch by agonizing inch was bared before him.
The dress fell to the floor in a heap of forgotten colors, and I was left wearing only the soft cotton bra and underwear I’d put on that morning.
He stepped back, his eyes drinking me in, lingering on the freckles scattered across my collarbone, the pale, trembling skin of my stomach, the way my chest rose and fell in shuddering breaths.
They traveled over my hips, down my legs, all the way to my toes before moving slowly back up my body to my face.
A dangerously sexy smile lifted one corner of his mouth.
Then, ever so slowly, he knelt before me, his warm breath ghosting across my navel and making me shiver.
Hooking his fingers into the sides of my underwear, he slid them over my hips and down my legs, tapping one ankle and then the other so I'd lift my feet.
He threw them to the side and his hands were back, sliding up the outside of my legs and wrapping around my bare hips.
His lips kissed my stomach softly, right below my navel, then I felt his tongue, tracing a wet, hot line down, down, down…
"Dae—" I choked out, my hands flying to his hair.
He just hummed, a low, pleased sound, and then his thumbs parted me and his mouth was so hot and wet.
The world dissolved into pure, shocking sensation.
Lifting one of my legs over his shoulder, he burrowed his face in deeper.
He knew exactly where to touch, how to press, the precise rhythm to drive me out of my mind.
The thing inside me—the cold, flinching shadow of Marcus—was incinerated in the heat spreading through my body.
It couldn't exist here. There was no room.
There was only Dae's mouth and hands and the expert, relentless pleasure he was lavishing on me, pushing me higher and higher until a helpless cry was torn from my throat and my entire body clenched tight before shattering into a thousand pieces of light.
I was still trembling, my knees about to give out, when he rose gracefully to his feet.
His eyes were blazing, molten and triumphant.
I reached for him desperately, pulling his shirt up and over his head with his help.
The rest of our clothes became a tangled afterthought on the floor.
His skin was scorching hot against mine as he guided me back to the bed, laying me down on the cool sheets before following me down, his body covering mine like a warm, living blanket.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice a low growl. "?? ??. My love. Look at me."
I did, and the world dissolved around us. "I love you," I whispered, staring up into his endless dark eyes, completely sure that every emotion rolling inside of me was written plainly across my face.
He exhaled sharply, like my words had struck him somewhere no one else had touched until now. "Say it again," he whispered, pressing a kiss to my pulse point. The scratch of his stubble made me shiver.
"I love you, Dae-Jung."
His answering growl vibrated against my skin as his weight settled more firmly over me, our bodies slotting together like they'd been made for each other. My fingers found his hair again, tugging just enough to earn another growl—low, possessive, unbearably perfect.
The world could go ahead and burn. We'd be safe here.
Together.
He leaned down, his lips brushing my neck, and I felt the sharp prick of his fangs again.
A gasp escaped me, half pain, half pure, unadulterated pleasure.
I felt the gentle pull as he drank, a dizzying, intimate exchange that sent a new wave of heat straight to my core as he positioned himself between my legs, the blunt tip of him pressing against my entrance, hot and heavy and demanding.
"Mine," he growled against my throat, the word a brand on my very soul.
Then he thrust forward, filling me in one slow, impossibly deep stroke.
I cried out, my back arching off the bed as he licked the wound closed on my neck to watch me.
I'd never felt so complete as when he was inside of me.
He filled every empty space, chasing out every shadow, every fear.
There was no room for anything but him. He stayed buried deep inside me for a long moment, letting me feel the reality of it, of him.
Then, he began to move.
It wasn't a rush. It was a slow, deliberate claiming with each thrust, each retreat a promise to return.
His mouth found the sensitive spot between my neck and my shoulder, and he bit down again, harder this time, drinking deep as he moved inside me.
The pleasure was blinding, a spiral of sensation pulling me under until I could do nothing but feel.
His mouth. His hands. His cock inside me.
Mine.
"You feel this, yeobo?" he murmured against my skin, his hips rocking against mine. "That's me. No one else. Only me."
He struck again as he picked up the pace, moaning at the taste of my blood as his thrusts became faster, deeper, driving me higher and higher.
My body tightened around him, and he groaned, a raw, guttural sound torn from deep in his chest. I shattered again, wave after wave of pure ecstasy flowing over me, his name on my lips.
But he didn't stop. Didn't let me come down.
Instead, he held me on that exquisite edge, his body moving relentlessly against mine.
"Stay with me," he rasped, his control snapping. Sliding one hand under my ass, he lifted my hips, changing the angle as he drove into me again and again.