His lips pressed to her temple, her fingers lowering an inch.
“Do not see us as a parasite. There’s nothing demonic about our kind. Think of Gracie, her innocent eyes and gentle laugh. She’s an immortal infant. And while she might tease and speak with unguarded honesty, she’s not a danger to anyone. Only a young hellion, just like the young females of your kind.”
The more he reminded her of their similarities and goodness, the more she seemed to relax.
“We have families and weddings. We enjoy leisure and appreciate a hard day’s work. We know love and loss. We feel, ainsicht. We feel as much as you.”
Slow tears trickled down her cheek, but she was not the bundle of tension she’d been minutes ago.
“And this morning, when I made love to you, and looking into your eyes, I felt your soul stroking mine. It was like touching heaven.”
He nuzzled his nose against her fingertips, pressing a kiss to both her eyes.
“We’re different, Annalise, but we’re also the same. You and I are the same. God saw to it when he created us. We were once one, incomplete for all these years, but together we can become whole again.”
Her brow wrinkled as she blinked up at him with uncertainty. Her lashes spiked with tears and her skin wore tracks of salt.
“There you are,” he whispered. “I knew you’d come back to me.”
He gently pulled her hands away from her face, pressing them softly against her chest. He kissed away her fallen tears, following each track until his lips met the corner of her mouth.
“Tell me you believe I won’t hurt you, Anna,” he whispered. “Tell me you trust me.” He needed to know she still believed there was good in him, despite their differences and what he’d done.
She drew in a stuttering breath and rasped, “I believe you won’t hurt me.”
He waited for her to admit she trusted him, but nothing else came. His gaze fell to a point just over her head and he swallowed down his regret. He’d broken her trust and he had no one to blame for the loss but himself.
“I’ll earn your trust again. I swear it.”
Her eyes searched his face, her frown deepening. “Are you going to bite me?”
He drew back. “Why would you…”
Her shoulder lifted with a slight shrug. “That’s why you’re weak, isn’t it? That’s why you have such gnawing hunger, and you can hardly stand up without losing your balance.”
Her precise observations surprised him, but they shouldn’t have. She always paid close attention whenever he explained his condition to her. “The next time I take your blood, it will be with your permission.”
“What will happen if you don’t have it?”
He swallowed. “I’ll get weaker. The animals help us withstand the rays of sun, but my appetite’s withered. My nocturnal nature will take over and feeding will become … difficult.”
By that point he would send her away. His father would see she was hidden where even Adam couldn’t track her and then his grandfather would do as instructed and take him before the Council. His logical mind would wither and the council would do everything to protect her, as would be his final wish.
“And if I give you my blood?”
His gums tingled and his body thrilled with reflexive anticipation. “The symptoms would go away for now. My strength would return, and the pain would subside.” He couldn’t keep any more secrets from her. “Our connection would strengthen. You’d feel my emotions with less effort. And … I’d be able to track you from miles away.”
“Is that why you did it? To track me?”
“I did it because my natural instincts demanded it of me, but yes, I feared losing you. Your blood ensured that I would be able to find you again with little effort.”
“How long does that last?”
His lips pressed into a firm line. “I’m afraid, in my current condition, I could lose you. Your blood’s no longer in my system. If you were to find a car or … an airplane…” A knot formed in his chest. He swallowed against the hard lump in his throat. “Now is the time to tell me if you want to go. I can make arrangements so I … wouldn’t be able to follow.”
Her frown deepened. “And what would happen if I chose to leave and you couldn’t find me.”
His jaw tightened and his gaze skated away from hers. “My humanity would deteriorate. It wouldn’t take long. The need to find you would consume me. I’d become incensed by my instinct to survive, but I’d make sure you were safe from me. Then the Council would put me down and you’d be free. It would all be over. No more pain. No more us.”
Her breathing quickened. “There has to be some other way to help you.”
“There isn’t.”
“But they’ll kill you.”
He shook his head. “It’s not murder. It’s duty. And, if I surrender, it will be merciful. It’s mercy. I’m past the point of choosing my own destiny. It’s been decided, all except for this last part. I’m reliant on others, forced to beg this of you—or them. But I can’t save myself.”
“How do you know? Has anyone ever tried?”
“Anna, if I were free, I’d hunt you. With or without your blood, I’d find you again and again. Only, my appetite would be insatiable, my eyes blind, and my heart consumed by bloodlust. The man I am would die regardless and what remained would be more beast than man.”
Her chin trembled as her eyes shimmered behind a fresh wall of tears, her voice small and weak with fear. “You swore you’d never hurt me.”
“I would never let it come to that. I intend to keep my promise, which is why I plan to let you go and surrender my life to the Council, if that’s what you choose.”
“But if I give you my blood that won’t happen?”
“The calling… It starts an internal clock that can only be stopped by bonding. Your blood adds time, but the longer we wait, the less and less time it buys us.”
Twin tears tumbled past her lashes. “This is too big of a decision for me to make. You’re asking me to give up my life for yours.”
“Your human life. I would give you immortality. No matter what, Anna, our souls are eternally locked as one. If I die, your mortality will eventually run out and we’ll find each other again.”
“How?”
“Do you not believe in an afterlife?”
“No. I believe in science.”
He frowned and pressed his lips tight. “I see.” He couldn’t force his beliefs on her, so he let that argument go. “You don’t need to make a decision now.”
Her gaze cut to him. “You’re suffering.”
“We’re all suffering. The heart is an incredibly human organ, delicate and systemically dramatic. But I can abide the pain.” He could bear almost anything for her.
“You forget that I can sense it. It’s radiating from you, Adam. And when we touch it’s stronger. More of an actual feeling than an instinct. I don’t know how that’s happening.”
“It’s because we’ve emotionally bonded. My empathy is one of my strongest gifts. It makes sense that it would be the first one my soul shared. Not all mates communicate emotions as easily as we seem to.”
His brow tightened, wondering how much she actually felt. They seemed to share a ricocheting vibration, but not an actual translation of units of pain.
“Can I try an experiment?” he asked, shifting her to sit up on his lap.
“What do you want to do?”
He slid a straight pin from the band of her apron. “I’m going to prick my finger. I want you to tell me what you feel?”
Her eyes focused on his finger and she nodded. He slid the point of the pin into his fingertip, past the callous of his fingerprint until it struck a nerve.
“I feel a tingling at the base of my neck.”
“Not your finger?”
“No. It’s more of a…” She frowned. “Sort of like when your stomach tells your brain it’s hungry. You know the signals more than the actual feeling of an empty belly—tiredness, irritabilit
y, lethargy—”
“Lust.”
“What?”
He removed the straight pin and placed it aside. “Take all of those symptoms and combine them with lust. When I hunger for your blood, it’s a physical need. My body wants more than sustenance from you, Annalise. It wants everything.”
Her eyes widened. “And now I feel that.” She pressed a hand to her front, just above her uterus. “Here.”
He pulled her other hand to his lap, showing her what she did to him. “And I feel it here.”
Her lips parted. “Adam…”
“It’s not anything you need to fear, Anna. I should have shown you, but you still had so much to learn about what I was. My bite would bring the opposite of pain.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t know if I could handle you biting me.” She gasped. “Oh, my God. It was you! I thought a spider bit me, but it was you!” Her flush darkened and she shoved off him, her face hardening. “Here,” she growled, pointing to her inner thigh.
His neck heated. “There’s an artery—”
“Oh, shut up! You could have bit my wrist just as easily.”
“True.” He wouldn’t apologize for choosing the location he had. “I wanted to taste you where your scent was strongest.”
She sucked in a breath. “You dirty, Amish pervert.”
“I’d do it again if you let me.”
She gaped at him. “I don’t even know what to say to that!”
When he’d last had his mouth between her legs it took all his strength not to bite her again. Even as the blood pumped to her swollen labia and her heartbeat pulsed through her sensitive clitoris under his tongue, he considered taking a small nip.
“Stop it!”
“Stop what?”
“I can feel your filthy thoughts.”
He tried to look remorseful, but he could also feel hers. She was curious and her scent had intensified. Her skin wore a soft blush, and there was a reason she was keeping her distance.
“You want me to show you what it feels like.”
“No,” she denied—unconvincingly.
He smiled. “You’re curious.” And other things. “I could show you.”
“No. I don’t want to know. I don’t want any of this.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is not what anyone wants, Adam.”
The truth of her words doused their fragile reprieve. “All I am, Annalise, all I desire, is your happiness. I know I’ve broken your trust, but if you believe anything, believe me when I say I will accept your decision and hold nothing against you no matter what you choose.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t call it my decision. I didn’t choose any of this.”
“I’m giving you the choice. That’s why we’re here having this conversation.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Would you have me decide for you?” He’d done everything in his power not to decide her fate. He’d thought he’d done the honorable thing by allowing her to have options.
“I don’t want that either. I want … normal.”
He smirked and let out a humorless laugh. “I’m afraid that’s the one thing I can’t offer.”
He wanted to hold her and soothe her, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch her now that she’d put her wishes so clearly between them. “Perhaps you’d prefer your male friend from the bar. He seemed less complicated and after only one thing.”
Her head jerked up and she scowled at him. “Are you talking about Kyle?”
His personal anger and envy nipped, clouding his judgment. “Yes.” He ground his clenched teeth.
Her mouth pursed in an angry little bow. “So, you want me to apologize for the way some guy felt about me? I have no control over other people’s—”
“How about what you felt for him? Did he fit your definition of normal?”
Her chest lifted as her breathing turned agitated. “It’s none of your business how I felt about him.”
“It became my business the moment I smelled him on your skin. The first time I saw you, your clothing reeked of him. Why were you with him outside of work?”
“He’s my friend!”
“A friend would say goodnight at a reasonable hour.”
“Screw you, Adam! Before you blew into my life and turned it upside down, I was single. I could have as many friends as I wanted!”
He growled, on his feet and crowding her before realizing he’d moved. “Careful, ainsicht.”
“Oh, go growl at someone else.” She shoved him back and he caught her wrists. “You’re not going to make me feel like a whore for dating.”
He yanked her forward, twisting and toppling her to the bed. He pinned her arms above her head and dragged his nose up the side of her throat, his body grinding into hers. “I don’t want you to have other friends. Only me, Anna.”
She pulled her arms, but his hold remained. “Get off of me.”
“Did he smell my claim on you? Did it repel him?” He gathered her wrists into one hand, lifting her skirts and sliding his fingers along her skirt. “He could sense a stronger male.”
She stopped squirming as his finger teased over her knee. Her arousal mixed with his, sweetening the air.
“I’m not ashamed. The moment I found you, I marked you. My territory.”
Her breasts pressed against her dress and her thighs opened. He teased the soft skin just above her femoral artery.
“And when I fed from you, sinking my teeth into this lush skin, your sex wept for me. You moaned and arched into me, your body begging for more. Nothing had ever tasted so sweet. Until the next time I fed from you.”
“I hate you.”
“Yet you aren’t fighting me off.” He loosened his hand, no longer holding her arms, but they remained above her head. He pulled the pins free from her apron and blouse, placing them on the bedside table.
Fingers slipping under the fabric, he tugged, and her hips lifted, allowing him to pull the apron off. She was under no compulsion.
He pushed the skirt of her dress above her hips, exposing her lower half. Her legs draped over the side of the bed, toes dangling inches from the floor.
“Part your knees.”
Her eyes closed and her thighs spread. He breathed in the sweet musk of her arousal. “Could he do this to you, ainsicht? Could he make you wet with barely a touch? Your idea of normal might be nothing more than a frail cage, holding you back from a freedom even you struggle to comprehend. I could set you free.”
“I hate you.” Her eyes remained pinched shut, her face turned into her raised arms as she lay exposed before him.
“You hate the unknown. Because by the look—and scent—of you, you very much like me.”
She tried to hide her body’s response, but her heavy breathing and rapid heart rate told the truth.
“No pain, Annalise. Only pleasure. I could show you, if you’d only grant your permission.” His finger swirled over her knee, trailing softly to dance above the pulse throbbing at her thigh. He dragged the digit higher and her hips lifted.
“Is there something you want from me?” He teased his finger over the soft path of hair and her breath caught.
“Adam…”
“I’d give you anything, Anna.” His touch skated to her other hip, gliding down her thigh, up the inner curve of her leg, and tripping over the sticky trickle of her desire. “There’s no shame between us. Anything you want from me, you need only ask.”
Her body opened, her sex angling closer to his touch. “Put your hands on me.”
“Here?” He slid through her hot folds to the tucked away bud, rubbing softly.
A sharp gasp pierced the quiet and she arched into his touch. “Yes.”
Rubbing his palm over her clitoris, he slid two fingers into her channel. “And here? Do you want me here?”
The tempo of her breathing increased, as did her keening moans. He fed his fingers into her, rubbing and teasing. Hot nectar coated his knuckles, bathing each digit
in her pearly arousal and perfuming the air with her unmistakable lust.
“I feel your hunger like you feel mine, Annalise. It’s inside, at the base of my spine, on the tip of my tongue, and wrapped tight around my cock. It’s all-encompassing. It feeds my desire until it engulfs us both and we can’t tell where your lust begins and mine ends.” He thrust his fingers faster. “This is only the beginning. The closer we become, the more intense these emotions will be. It will take centuries for us to burn the edge off, and even then, our attraction will make the sharpest side of your old normal feel like nothing more than a dull blade.”
Her hands pulled at her clothing. Her shoulders pressed into the bed. She arched and writhed against his touch, panting and begging.
“You’re there. I can feel it. You only have to say it. Tell me what you want, Anna. Tell me and it’s yours…”
“I want…” Her fingers trailed down her inner thighs, her knees falling open. “I want…”
“Say it.”
She moaned, her spine bowing off the bed. “Do it! Do it now, Adam!”
“You have to say it.” His free hand tore the buttons from his pants, his fingers coiling around his throbbing cock. “Tell me what you want!” He stroked hard, his fingers feeding in and out of her sex as her body thrummed for more.
“All of it! I want all of it!”
He yanked her forward, lifting her off the bed and pulling her into his arms. She gasped as he turned her back against the cool wall and worked his cock between her legs. “Look at me.”
Her eyes found his as the broad head of his cock rested against the mouth of her sex. He panted, letting her see all of him.
“Look at what I am, Anna. See all of me and tell me if you still want … normal.”
“I want you.”
“Then you have me.” His hips cocked forward and he filled her to the hilt. “All of me.” He thrust hard, pinning her against the wall with his possession, marking her with his scent. “And I will never apologize for wanting all of you.”
Sliding a hand up the back of her neck, under the soft curtain of her hair, he pulled her head back, exposing her throat. His jaw opened, fangs fully elongated, and as his cock stabbed into her, his head dropped, puncturing her soft skin and latching on to his mate.
Original Sin (The Order of Vampires Book 1) Page 27
